Kris Kristofferson (born June 22, 1936) is an influential country music songwriter, singer and actor. He is best known for hits like " Me and Bobby McGee" and " Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", many of which were co-written with Shel Silverstein or Fred Foster.
Although born in Brownsville, Texas, he moved around much as a youth, finally settling down in San Mateo, California, where he graduated high school. An aspiring writer, Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University ( Merton College, Oxford) after previously attending Pomona College. While in England, Kristofferson began writing songs and working with his manager Larry Parnes; he recorded for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson, but was unsuccessful.
In 1960, Kristofferson graduated with a master's degree in English literature and married an old girlfriend, Fran Beir. He joined the United States Army and became a helicopter pilot. During the early 1960s, he was stationed in West Germany and returned to music and forming a band. Kristofferson sent some of his compositions to a friend's relative, Marijohn Wilkin, a successful Nashville, Tennessee songwriter.
Kristofferson moved to Nashville after resigning his commission in 1965, intent on becoming a professional songwriter. He worked a variety of odd jobs while struggling to make it in the music business, burdened with expensive medical bills as a result of his son's defective esophagus. He and his wife soon divorced. In 1966, Dave Dudley released a successful Kristofferson single, "Viet Nam Blues". The following year, Kristofferson signed to Epic Records and released a single, "Golden Idol"/"Killing Time", but the song was not successful. Within the next few years, more Kristofferson originals hit the charts, performed by Roy Drusky ("Jody and the Kid"), Billy Walker & the Tennessee Walkers ("From the Bottle to the Bottom"), Ray Stevens ("Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Once More with Feeling") Faron Young ("Your Time's Comin'") and Roger Miller ("Me and Bobby McGee", "Best of all Possible Worlds", "Darby's Castle"). He also gained some success as a performer himself, due to Johnny Cash's introduction of Kristofferson at the Newport Folk Festival.
