Sad news in the world of movies this morning at Last Movie Outpost. Kris Kristofferson and John Ashton have passed away.
Kristofferson was a country music superstar and actor. He passed away yesterday at his home in Maui, Hawaii. He was 88.
Ashton was best known for his role as John Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop films. He passed away on Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado at the age of 76.
Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson was a South Texan native and Rhodes Scholar who piloted helicopters in the U.S. Army, revived a rugby club while in college, excelled at boxing and football, and worked as a janitor at Columbia Records in Nashville.
His famous songs include Me and Bobby McGee, Help Me Make It Through the Night, and Sunday Mornin‘ Comin‘ Down. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985, entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004, and was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
He landed an Oscar nomination for best score in 1985 for Alan Rudolph’s Songwriter in which he also starred. One of his most famous roles was the alcoholic singer opposite Barbara Streisand’s rising star in 1976’s A Star Is Born.
To Outposters of a certain age, his most notable role is in Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy. Others will remember him as Whistler in the Blade movies.
John Ashton
Ashton played Detective Sergeant Taggart alongside Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold in the first two installments of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. He wisely sat out the third before returning in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F as the now Chief.
Ashton’s acting career began in the 1970s with films like An Eye for an Eye and Breaking Away alongside TV appearances in Columbo, MASH, Dallas, and Starsky and Hutch.
In the 80s he worked with John Hughes on Some Kind of Wonderful and She’s Having a Baby, alongside a role in 1988 action-comedy Midnight Run opposite Robert De Niro. Other roles included Ben Affleck’s 2007 thriller Gone Baby Gone, Little Big League, Trapped in Paradise, and Meet the Deedles.
He frequently guest-starred on shows like The A-Team, Police Squad, Fantasy Island, and The Twilight Zone.
Ashton is survived by his wife of 24 years, Robin Hoye, and multiple children and step-children.