A star is reborn
Ahead of his upcoming New Zealand tour, Kris Kristofferson reveals to Jenny Brown why entering his 80s has seen some of his finest moments.
Back in the bad old days, Kris Kristofferson used to raise hell. Nowadays, at 83, he prefers to tend the lush grounds of his secluded Hawaiian home, or nurture the “bunch of grandkids” that bring him so much joy.
“To me, the best part of my life, at this end of it, is my family,” he growls in the rugged baritone that’s thrilled music and movie fans for more than half a century. “My wife, Lisa, and I pinch each other every now and then and say, ‘Can you believe we’ve got this beautiful family that’s so much fun together?’ I wish I could convey how really deeply I feel that.”
Kris, who burned up the screen with
Barbra Streisand in the 1976 version of A Star is Born, usually prefers to let his heartfelt ballads – Help Me Make it Through the Night, Me and Bobby McGee, For the Good Times – do the talking for him. Today, however, he is speaking exclusively to The Australian Women’s Weekly before an upcoming Australasian tour that could be one of his last, it seems.
“We’ve got eight kids and a whole bunch of grandkids and they’re so much fun to be around that I’ll probably spend less time on the road and more time with them in the future.” He smiles, confiding that he loved the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga remake of his best-known film. “Because, you know, there’s not that much time.”
It’s hardly surprising if the legendary – and multi-award-winning – singer, songwriter and actor is feeling his own mortality. Kris has already outlived close friends
Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, two of his cohorts in country supergroup The Highwaymen. Only Willie Nelson remains.
And an ageing Kris continues to endure his own health struggles. For several years, as his memory slipped away, he was convinced he had Alzheimer’s. With the former sportsman already suffering decades-old concussion injuries from boxing,
“I’ll probably spend less time on the road.”
football and rugby, doctors agreed that dementia was probably setting in.
Sometimes Kris could not remember the lyrics to his own songs or even what he was doing, or why.
It was only in 2016 that his problem was definitively diagnosed as Lyme disease, a severe tick-borne infection he probably picked up shooting a film in the forests of Vermont. Given the correct treatment at last, the improvement in his condition verged on miraculous.
“The more we can get Kris to laugh, the healthier he is,” says his third wife, Lisa, with whom he found lasting happiness following his tumultuous divorce from singer Rita Coolidge. “Being on the road, the laughter, the music, it’s great medicine.”
For Kris, music has always come first, last and everywhere in between. Giving up military service for a stab at fame in Nashville, the academicallygifted son – he was a Rhodes Scholar – of a US Air Force General was disowned by his family for many years.
Willing to do whatever it took, he even landed a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn in a bid to hand the country superstar some of his songs. “It’s true, I thought I might impress him,” he ruefully confirms, endearingly astonished that he got to share the stage with so many musical heroes.
Asked the secret of his long-running success – from singing with Miss Piggy to a Golden Globe Award, induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, winning the Johnny Cash Visionary Award, to playing Wesley Snipes’ sidekick in the Blade movies – he credits “being as honest as you can, being convincing that you’re telling the truth”.
According to close pal Willie Nelson, as a singer Kristofferson makes a great songwriter. “Let’s put it this way,” he once said, “it was a damn good thing he could write.” Kris laughingly agrees, yet his raw, expressive voice continues to charm audiences worldwide.
Thankfully, he abides by the advice of a long-ago professor who said, “Listen, if you try and fail, that won’t be too bad. But if you don’t even try, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.” AWW
Kris Kristofferson and The Strangers are performing in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Palmerston North and Auckland from October 8-13.