It has been a year of notable obituaries — and deep confusion
There have been so many notable obituaries in 2024 – they have all merged inside my brain:
Kris Kristofferson, who died after a fall from his balcony during a holiday in Buenos Aires, was known for classic hits such as Me and Bobby McGee and Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), as well as for providing the voice of Dickie Knee on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
His instrumental Jessica became popular as the theme song for Top Gear. And his band the Bluesbreakers was a key training ground for legendary artists such as Eric Clapton and Mick Fleetwood.
Kristofferson was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, and played his first Test for Australia in 1964. However, a promising cricket career was put on hold the same year when he was chosen by Sydney radio station 2SM to accompany the Beatles on their Australian tour.
After negotiating a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, Kristofferson became fashion editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Later he joined Channel 7 as a late-night newsreader, where he ignored the usual conventions and was famous for going wildly off script.
He switched to the ABC in 1992 as the founding host of Foreign Correspondent, as well as Backchat. In an extraordinarily versatile television career, he gained worldwide fame for his portrayal of Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson in Starsky & Hutch, and as Violet Crawley in the British period drama Downton Abbey.
His fitness show, which ran from 1980 to 1984, was credited with heightening the worldwide interest in aerobics.
However, it was probably as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon that he became most popular, his deadpan and stammering delivery a hit with viewers. Meanwhile, in his film work, Kristofferson played opposite some of the greatest stars of the age, including Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born, Jane Fonda in Klute, Jack Nicholson in The Shining and Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita.
His deep voice was praised as a “stirring basso profondo” and added resonance to Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise. And yet, in a completely different mode, he was celebrated for a “breathy alto” that made his melancholic ballads a sensation in France.
Although he did not sing on the charity song We Are the World in 1985, he was its conductor and producer. In 1993 Kristofferson published Tomorrow, When the War Began, the first book in a series for children that became his most acclaimed work.
He also published a number of self-help volumes that were spin-offs from his pioneering radio talk show, Sexually Speaking, which was the first popular forum for open discussion of issues such as female orgasm and premature ejaculation.
Kristofferson was married six times: to Rita Coolidge, Marlo Thomas, Romy Schneider, Nicole Brown, Rosalynn Carter and Albert Finney.
But Kristofferson’s career as a TV host, singer-songwriter, actor, cricketer, journalist, author and fitness and sex guru was derailed shortly after midnight on June 13, 1994, when Brown and her friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death.
Refusing to turn himself in, Kristofferson led police on a low-speed pursuit that was shown live on TV. When finally apprehended, he famously declared: “Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest! What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?”
Though eventually acquitted, Kristofferson never fully recovered from his legal troubles. In 2003 he made a film of himself as he consumed three McDonald’s meals every day for 30 days. The stunt raised some much-needed cash but took a severe toll on his health. The decision by The Age to discontinue his cartoons on its editorial page was a further blow to his confidence.
In an effort to rehabilitate his reputation, Kristofferson helped build, renovate and repair more than 4331 homes with Habitat for Humanity.
Following Kristofferson’s death on December 1, the Australian team wore black armbands in the second Test match against India. He was retired by his owners in 2013, having won $7,953,936 in prizemoney.
Imre Salusinszky is an author and journalist.
South Africa boycott is symbolic
Seizing well-run, productive white farms was never going to be good policy. Neither is siding with Moscow and Beijing within BRICS and lining up with Iran and Hamas against Israel.
Uni heads fail leadership test
Some vice-chancellors have ducked, failing what has become a test of national character – the right of Jews to walk, work and study where they choose without fear of abuse and worse.