This Rhodes Scholar and Army captain gave up a teaching career at West Point to move to Nashville to write songs. He worked sweeping floors while trying to sell songs, including landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash's lawn in an attempt to get the singer to hear some of his tapes (Cash of course eventually recorded many of Kristofferson's songs, and with him as one of the Highwaymen).
Kris signed with Monument Records, and while his own recording career did only marginally well, he did hit a string of major successes with his songs, including Roger Miller's recording of "Me and Bobby McGee," Waylon Jennings' "The Taker," and Ray Price's phenomenal recording of "For The Good Times."
In 1970, he became the only songwriter to ever win both ACM and CMA "Song of the Year" for two different songs, Ray Price's recording of "For the Good Times" and Johnny Cash's recording of "Sunday Morning Coming Down."
In 1971, Janis Joplin's posthumous release of "Me and Bobby McGee" sealed Kris's place in musical history, and the hits kept coming.
His second album, "The Silver-Tongued Devil and I," released in 1971, gave Kris his own recording success, and he carried that into a strong acting career, as well, appearing in such films as A Star Is Born (with Barbra Streisand) and the Blade movies. His career has been long and varied, and shows no sign of slowing down.
In 2006 he released This Old Road, and starred in the movie Disappearances.
