My colleagues, the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press, had interviewed Kris Kristofferson twice before, in 1976 for A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand (awarding him a Golden Globe as Best Actor among the five Globes earned by the film), in 1979 for the miniseries Freedom Road with Muhammad Ali, but the first time I met him in person was in 1981, with Jane Fonda, for Rollover directed by Alan Pakula.
Kris Kristofferson, Jane Fonda, Elisa Leonelli 1981
My fondest memory of spending time with this fascinating actor, singer-songwriter, was in 1987 when I flew from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, on assignment from CIAK magazine, rented a car to photograph Kristofferson in Santa Fe New Mexico on the set of a TV western titled Dead Or Alive or The Tracker directed by John Gullermin.
Kris Kristofferson © Elisa Leonelli 1987
When I asked him about the western movie genre during my interview, Kristofferson said: “It is a ritualistic morality play, you always have the good guys and the bad guys. It is our job as actors to bring these symbolic figures to life. I play Noble Adams, a man like characters played by Ronald Reagan or John Wayne, who represent the values of the 19th century Old West. His philosophy of America maybe felt good in World War II, and a lot of us are still carrying it around in our head, but the world is more complex today, and those ideals don’t work anymore.”
Kris Kristofferson © Elisa Leonelli 1987
About his own sense of morality: “I come from that school too, I grew up back when God was on our side. The America that I was brought up to believe in stood for liberty and justice for everyone, the country was supposed to be founded on freedom and self-determination.”
As to why he traveled to Nicaragua to support the Sandinista government: “I feel that our policy in regard to Latin America has been terrible in general, but in particular with Nicaragua, we have not dealt with them justly. That’s a shame, because Nicaragua is an example of how Central American countries could have self-determination, be independent of the influence of the United States or Russia.”
Kris Kristofferson © Elisa Leonelli 1987
Then I asked the songwriter to quote some of the lyrics of his song “Third World War,” he said: “And the rich keep getting richer. And the poor become the victims. Of the armies of the night.” You may read them all at this link.
I would interview Kristofferson again in 1998 for A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries directed by James Ivory. He talked about being in the Army for five years, three years stationed in Germany, flying a helicopter. He volunteered for Vietnam, but was turned down, because the Pentagon wanted him to teach English at West Point. So he went to Nashville instead and fell in love with song-writing. His family and his peers thought he had gone insane.
Elisa Leonelli, Kris Kristofferson 1998
When wrote “Me and Bobby McGee,” that would be recorded by Janis Joplin in 1970, he was trying to convey the feeling he got from seeing La Strada by Federico Fellini when Anthony Quinn left Giulietta Masina and later regretted it. “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose.”
As the father of eight children, he revealed that his role model was Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockinbird, in fact his eldest daughter Casey used to call him Atticus because he tried so hard to be like him.
Kris Kristofferson (c) Elisa Leonelli 1981
In 1990 Kristofferson moved to Hana in Maui, because he did not want to bring up his children in a big city, he called it “a wonderful lifestyle in an island paradise.” That’s where he peacefully passed away at age 88 surrounded by his family.