Get the latest gossip
Kris Kristofferson Became What Elvis Wanted to Be
A music star, a movie star, and a man whose roles and songs were knitted together.
Kristofferson was such a hot commodity by then that he started working with major directors, including Lewis John Carlino ( The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea), Martin Scorsese ( Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), Paul Mazursky ( Blume in Love), and Sam Peckinpah ( Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Convoy). As an actor, he moved through the ’70s and ’80s as an offbeat leading man with a wood-carved face — somebody whose name (like Adam Driver’s today) didn’t mean much in terms of box office but signified both art and populism in a way that mysteriously helped get movies funded. Even in Kristofferson movies that ended up bombing with audiences and reviewers — like Heaven’s Gate, which public opinion belatedly turned around on, and the financial thriller Rollover, which remains justifiably forgotten — you could at least detect a few of the qualities that might’ve piqued his interest, back when it was just words on paper.
Or read this on VULTURE
