Kris Kristofferson, Influential Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 88

US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
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Kris Kristofferson, Influential Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 88

US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)

Kris Kristofferson, who became one of the most influential American singer-songwriters of his time with works such as "Me and Bobby McGee," as well as becoming a successful actor, died Saturday at the age of 88, according to a family statement.

Kristofferson had been suffering from memory loss since he was in his 70s. A family spokesperson said in a statement that Kristofferson died peacefully at his home in Maui, Hawaii, surrounded by family, but a cause of death was not listed.

Kristofferson was a Renaissance man - an athlete with a poet's sensibilities, a former Army officer and helicopter pilot, a Rhodes scholar who took a job as a janitor in what turned out to be a brilliant career move.

Kristofferson first established himself in the music world as a songwriter in the country music capital of Nashville - writing hits such as the Grammy-winning "Help Me Make It Through the Night,For the Good Times," and one-time girlfriend Janis Joplin's plaintive No. 1 hit, "Me and Bobby McGee."

In the early 1970s he became well-known as a performer with a rumbling, unpolished baritone, as well as an in-demand actor, notably opposite Barbra Streisand in "A Star Is Born," one of the most popular films of 1976.

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, and moved frequently because his father was a general in the Air Force. After graduating from Pomona College in California, where he played football and rugby, Kristofferson attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and then fulfilled the family tradition by joining the Army.

He went through the Army's elite Ranger School, learned to pilot helicopters and reached the rank of captain. In 1965 Kristofferson was offered a position teaching English - he was enthralled by the works of poet William Blake - at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, but he turned it down in order to head to Nashville.

Kristofferson became a janitor at the Columbia Records studio because it would give him a chance to offer his songs to the big-name stars recording there. He also worked as a helicopter pilot ferrying workers between Louisiana oilfields and offshore drilling rigs.

During that time Kristofferson wrote some of his most memorable songs, including "Help Me Make It Through the Night," which he said he penned atop an oil platform.

"NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE"

Kristofferson's best songs were filled with seekers, wastrels and broken souls trying to find love, redemption or relief from the hangover that life had given them. The broken-hearted narrator of "Bobby McGee," a song Kristofferson said was inspired by the Federico Fellini film "La Strada," summed it up with the line, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

"Kris brought (country music) kind of from the dark ages up to the present-day time, made it acceptable and brought great lyrics - I mean, the best possible lyrics," Willie Nelson, an early role model for Kristofferson, told CBS's "60 Minutes" in a 1999 interview. "Simple but profound."

Kristofferson recorded four albums with Rita Coolidge, the second of his three wives, in the 1970s and joined Nelson, Cash and Waylon Jennings in the country music super group the Highwaymen in the 1980s and '90s.

Kristofferson's rugged good looks led to roles in movies such as "Cisco Pike,Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid,The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea,Convoy,Heaven's Gate,Lone Star" and "Blade."

After his initial stardom, Kristofferson took on causes such as the United Farm Workers and spoke out against US government involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s.

Kristofferson began experiencing debilitating memory loss in his mid-70s and his performances suffered for it. Doctors told him it appeared to be the onset of Alzheimer's disease or dementia, possibly brought on by blows to the head while boxing and playing football and rugby in his younger days.

But in 2016, his wife, Lisa, told Rolling Stone magazine that Kristofferson had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which can cause memory problems, and that after treatment and stopping Alzheimer's medication, his memory began to return partially.

Kristofferson kept active with a 2016 tour that included performances with Nelson and stops in Europe. That year he also marked his 80th birthday by releasing "The Cedar Creek Sessions," an album featuring live versions of his best-known songs.

Kristofferson and his third wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, lived on the Hawaiian island of Maui for more than 30 years. He had eight children.



‘Joker 2’ Stumbles at Box Office amid Poor Reviews from Audiences, Critics

Todd Phillips, from left, Lady Gaga, and Joaquin Phoenix arrive at the premiere of "Joker: Folie a Deux" on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Todd Phillips, from left, Lady Gaga, and Joaquin Phoenix arrive at the premiere of "Joker: Folie a Deux" on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
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‘Joker 2’ Stumbles at Box Office amid Poor Reviews from Audiences, Critics

Todd Phillips, from left, Lady Gaga, and Joaquin Phoenix arrive at the premiere of "Joker: Folie a Deux" on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Todd Phillips, from left, Lady Gaga, and Joaquin Phoenix arrive at the premiere of "Joker: Folie a Deux" on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

“Joker: Folie à Deux” is the No. 1 movie at the box office, but it might not be destined for a happy ending.
In a turn of events that only Arthur Fleck would find funny, the follow-up to Todd Phillips’ 2019 origin story about the Batman villain opened in theaters nationwide this weekend to a muted $40 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, less than half that of its predecessor. The collapse was swift and has many in the industry wondering: How did the highly anticipated sequel to an Oscar-winning, billion-dollar film with the same creative team go wrong?
Just three weeks ago, tracking services pegged the movie for a $70 million debut, which would still have been down a fair amount from “Joker’s” record-breaking $96.2 million launch in Oct. 2019. Reviews were mixed out of the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered in competition like the first movie and even got a 12-minute standing ovation, The Associated Press reported.
But the homecoming glow was short-lived, and the fragile foundation would crumble in the coming weeks with its Rotten Tomatoes score dropping from 63% at Venice to 33% by its first weekend in theaters. Perhaps even more surprising were the audience reviews: Ticket buyers polled on opening night gave the film a deadly D CinemaScore. Exit polls from PostTrak weren’t any better. It got a meager half star out of five possible.
"That’s a double whammy that’s very difficult to recover from," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “The biggest issue of all is the reported budget. A $40 or $50 million opening for a less expensive movie would be a solid debut."
“Joker: Folie à Deux” cost at least twice as much as the first film to produce, though reported figures vary at exactly how pricey it was to make. Phillips told Variety that it was less than the reported $200 million; Others have it pegged at $190 million. Warner Bros. released the film in 4,102 locations in North America. About 12.5% of its domestic total came from 415 IMAX screens.
Internationally, it's earned $81.1 million from 25,788 screens, bringing its total global earnings estimate to $121.1 million. In the next two weeks, “Joker 2” will also open in Japan and China.
Second place went to Universal and DreamWorks Animation's “The Wild Robot,” which added $18.7 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to nearly $64 million. Globally, it's made over $100 million. Warner Bros.' “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" took third place in weekend five, Paramount's “Transformers One” landed in fourth and Universal and Blumhouse's “Speak No Evil” rounded out the top five.
The other big new release of the weekend, Lionsgate's “White Bird,” flopped with just $1.5 million from just over 1,000 locations, despite an A+ CinemaScore.
Overall, the weekend is up from the same frame last year, but “Joker's” start is an unwelcome twist for theater owners hoping to narrow the box office deficit.
Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix have said they aspired to make something as “audacious” as the first film. The sequel added Lady Gaga into the fold, as a Joker superfan, and delved further into the mind of Arthur Fleck, imprisoned at Arkham and awaiting trial for the murders he committed in the first. It’s also a musical, with elaborately imagined song and dance numbers to old standards. Gaga even released a companion album called “'Harlequin,” alongside the film.
In his review for The Associated Press, Jake Coyle wrote that “Phillips has followed his very antihero take on the Joker with a very anti-sequel. It combines prison drama, courthouse thriller and musical, and yet turns out remarkably inert given how combustible the original was.”
The sequel has already been the subject of many think pieces, some who posit that the sequel was deliberately alienating fans of the first movie. In cruder terms, it’s been called a “middle finger.” But fans often ignore the advice of critics, especially when it comes to opening their wallets to see revered comic book characters on the big screen.
“They took a swing for the fences,” Dergarabedian said. “But except for a couple of outliers, audiences in 2024 seem to want to know what they’re getting when they’re going to the theater. They want the tried and true, the familiar.”
It has some high-profile defenders too: Francis Ford Coppola, who last week got his own D+ CinemaScore for his pricey, ambitious and divisive film “Megalopolis,” entered the Joker chat with an Instagram post.
“@ToddPhillips films always amaze me and I enjoy them thoroughly,” Coppola wrote. “Ever since the wonderful ‘The Hangover’ he’s always one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect.”
“Megalopolis,” meanwhile, dropped a terminal 74% in its second weekend with just over $1 million, bringing its total just shy of $6.5 million against a $120 million budget.
Deadline editor Anthony D’Alessandro thinks the problem started with the idea to make the Joker sequel a musical. “No fan of the original movie wanted to see a musical sequel,” he wrote on Saturday.
The first film was also divisive and the subject of much discourse, then about whether it might send the wrong message to the wrong type of person. And yet people still flocked to see what the fuss was about. “Joker” went on to pick up 11 Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director, and three wins. It also made over $1 billion and was the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, until this summer when Marvel's “Deadpool & Wolverine" took the crown.