LOS ANGELES -- If Kris Kristofferson's life were fiction, it would feel a little implausible. He was a Texas-born Golden Gloves boxer and star football player, a Rhodes Scholar and a helicopter-flying U.S.
Army captain who walked away from a West Point faculty gig to briefly become a janitor on his way to becoming one of the greatest American singer-songwriters of the 20th century. And, as if just for kicks along the way, he became a devilishly handsome major movie star who could play either a rugged outlaw or a romantic leading man. Kristofferson, a father of eight children who was married to third wife Lisa Meyers for the last four decades of his life, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday at age 88, surrounded by family.
He had a master's degree in English from Oxford and could quote the poetry of William Blake from memory. One of his best songs, “The Pilgrim,” probably played on “The Pilgrim's Progress” from a even older English writer, John Bunyan. Kristofferson's title character could be a description of himself: “He’s a walking contradiction partly truth and partly fiction, Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
” Though the “lonely” part certainly didn't apply. Kristofferson never lacked for friends, including heroes who became mentors and close companions, like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. While walking away from the Army, he swept floors and emptied ashtrays at Columbia Records in Nashville to get access to stars, includ.
