The hard-drinking blue-collar poet with a deep love of Shakespeare

Country music legend and Hollywood star Kris Kristofferson, who has died aged 88, didn't think he'd live past 30. But it wasn't until he saw himself on screen in A Star Is Born that he finally quit booze

- Matt Nixson

KRIS Kristofferson once admitted to nearly destroying himself through hard-partying because he believed being a serious artist meant "living on the edge" alongside the twindemons of drink and drugs. "I thought all serious artists were self-destructive," the star, who died aged 88 at home in Hawaii on Saturday, once remarked. "That anybody worth their salt was going to be out there living on the edge."

The country music legend, who was also a Hollywood leading man and admired char acter actor, was a mass of contradictions; a thoughtful intellectual who studied at Oxford University before joining the US Army and volunteering for Vietnam; a major songwriter whose biggest hits were recorded by other people; and an imposing 6ft bluecollar hero who was never happier than when he was discussing poetry.

His most famous songs included Me and Bobby McGee, Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down, and Help Me Make It Through the Night all of which first became hits for other artists. Over seven decades, Kristofferson's career varied between triumph and mediocrity, so much so that at times it was almost as if he was deliberately trying to alienate fans.

Yet his best films, including playing a troubled rocker in A Star Is Bom alongside Barbra Streisand in 1978, were box-office successes, and his songs, inspired by a love of literature, would transform country music in the Seventies when the genre was awash with mediocre tunes and cliche.

Admired for his grit, emotional vulnerability and the literary craft of his writing, he frequently topped the US country charts and cover versions of his songs became hits for Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin and Gladys Knight among others.