IIf Kris Kristofferson had never sung a single note, he would still have been remembered as a great film actor in the Hollywood tradition of hard frontier masculinity, a film star who worked with Scorsese, Peckinpah, Cimino and Sayles. He had a natural, easy charisma in the rugged take-it-or-leave-it tradition of Robert Ryan or John Wayne or the more recent style of Jeff Bridges and Sam Elliott.

Indeed, without his career as a musician, he might have achieved a higher place in the pantheon of screen legends, and his film work may have been one of the casualties of Michael Cimino’s colossal 1980 Folie de Grandeur epic Heaven’s Gate, which damaged the reputation of everyone involved – Kristofferson was cast a little against type or even missed the mark as a Harvard man and a member of the American upper class who gallantly sides with the immigrant settlers against the cruel cattle barons. It would have been interesting to see him swap roles with Christopher Walken, who was the Barons’ mercenary – although Kristofferson recognized the role’s need for granite integrity.

His face was naturally impassive, typical of Mount Rushmore, and he moved with a leisurely, brisk gait, the kind of walk that makes you hang a gun belt diagonally across your hips, although Kristofferson was never the stereotypical Western archetype, and his speaking voice was the rumbling, captivating equivalent of his singing. He worked with Sam Peckinpah on three films, although perhaps his most Peckinpah-like character to grow into was the notoriously violent and racist Sheriff Charlie Wade, who appeared in a flashback in John Sayles’ 1996 Western crime film Lone. star could be seen. There was a natural reserve, even enigma, in his face, the kind of guy who wouldn’t lie down and ask for a favor (Kristofferson brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s saying, “Whoever explains it, loses), but.” With a little half-smile, you could indicate threats and impending violence.

In his understated way, Kristofferson was as much a lover as a fighter on screen – although the template was set with his role in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”: he was never exactly the boyish romantic. Ellen Burstyn is the widowed single mother and wannabe singer on the run from the dangers of life; She meets Kristofferson’s divorcee at a diner, who becomes a kind of husband and stepfather, but rough and weathered, with many flaws and no illusions. An unusual variation on this was the 1976 British-set film The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, based on the Mishima novel and in which Kristofferson plays the merchant marine sailor who charms Sarah Miles and her son – again, he – resentful is independent and free-spirited, with a very complicated attitude to the whole idea of ​​settling down, despite his apparent plausibility as an old-school breadwinner and protector.

In Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, his Billy the Kid faces off against Garrett, played by James Coburn – another great strong-silent specimen, although here Kristofferson is unusually clean-shaven and a bit strange Angelic things revealed in his face. But there was nothing cherubic about his appearance in Peckinpah’s “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” a year later, playing the fully bearded and completely violent biker killer and enthusiastic participant in Peckinpah’s signature choreographed brutality.

For “Peckinpah’s Convoy” (1978), based on the hit single and the short-lived CB radio craze, Kristofferson was the good guy, the neo-cowboy trucker (and lover) whose freedom on the streets is threatened by corrupt law enforcement. It was a counterculture role, in its proto-Maga manner, rather like his weed-selling musician being harassed by Gene Hackman’s cops in Cisco Pike (1971).

Perhaps Kristofferson achieved, or should have achieved, a kind of screen apotheosis in the sensational 1976 box office hit A Star Is Born, in which Kristofferson plays the established rock star who mentors and falls in love with a sensationally talented singer, played by Barbra Streisand , whose career becomes positively stratospheric while his career plummets. The poster showed both of their faces in a heated Joy of Sex style, but it’s questionable how convincing Kristofferson could be as the embarrassingly wounded and downward spiraling loser. Was he able to fully embrace the darker aspects of the role taken on by the other actors who played her, like James Mason opposite Judy Garland in 1954 or Bradley Cooper opposite Lady Gaga in 2018? Well, Cooper’s gravelly, slow-talking performance was obviously due in large part to Kristofferson, and perhaps Kristofferson didn’t need to show any emotion: just being there and coming off second best to Barbra Streisand – a performer who had no intention of being taken in by her alpha male being overshadowed as a co-star – was spectacle enough.

Kristofferson was a performer who gave films the heady taste of whiskey and chewing tobacco: he was always the right guy.