Blade and A Star Is Born actor Kris Kristofferson has passed away.
Kris Kristofferson, a legend of both music and film, has passed away. The country legend and Academy Award nominee died this past Saturday at the age of 88, according to his family. He died at his home in Maui, Hawaii. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him,” the family said in a statement. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
For genre fans, Kristofferson was best known for his co-starring turn in 1998’s Blade, which revolutionized the entire genre of comic book movie adaptations. Kristofferson played Whistler alongside Wesley Snipes’ titular Blade, and he could go on to reprise his role in both Blade II and Blade: Trinity.
Kristofferson as Whistler in Blade
– New Line Cinema)
Kristofferson’s on-screen career began in 1971 with the release of a Dennis Hopper-directed film called The Last Movie and it spanned a total of five different decades. His final performance came in Ethan Hawke’s 2018 Blaze, which told the story of songwriter Blaze Foley, a pioneer of the outlaw country movement that Kristofferson was such a monumental part of.
While comic and genre fans know Kristofferson for his turn as Whistler in the Blade movies, other film fans know him for some of his acclaimed films in the 1970s. He made audiences swoon when he starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Two years later, in 1976, he starred alongside Barbara Streishand in A Star Is Born.
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