His weathered voice and high mileage good looks made it seem almost miraculous that he made it around the sun 88 times. 

And what did Kris Kristofferson do with those 88 years? An Army Air Corps brat (Dad eventually became a general), he was a published short story writer and a “Sports Illustrated” featured athlete (rugby) at Pomona college, a Rhodes Scholar who then studied at Oxford, enlisted and served his country as a helicopter pilot, earning the rank of captain and leaving the military just as Vietnam was heating up.

Because the man was a born poet and songwriter. He took several stabs at music stardom, flew choppers out to oil rigs, living off and on in Nashville, where he got a tape to Johnny Cash via his wife, June Carter. And when Cash didn’t respond to “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “Me and Bobby McGee,” Kristofferson landed a chopper on Cash’s farm to “get his attention.”

As his songs became famous Cash remained his greatest champion. Here they are dueting on my favorite KK composition.

His bearded looks so personified the ’60s that Hollywood grabbed hold of him, seeing him as a rugged, more masculine version of the “hippy” image in a lot of ways. He was cast as a musician in “Cisco Pike” (1972), and the movies made him a star with Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (He played William Bonney, aka “Billy the Kid”).

He stood out in Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starred in the last movie I ever remember walking-out on (“The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea”), and created one of Hollywood’s greatest anecdotes when he co-starred with Barbra Streisand in “A Star is Born” (1976).

Tangling with Streisand’s volatile, bullying hairdresser/lover-turned-novice-producer Jon Peters on the set, Kristofferson informed Peters that “Any time I need sh-t from you, I’ll squeeze your head.”

I interviewed him a couple of times, much later in life, about his evolving politics and protest music and about a rare kid-friendly film he did (“Dreamer”). He was folksy, modest as hell, and he never ever lost that twinkle.

If you want a quick appreciation of his film work, skip past the career-killing (almost) “Heaven’s Gate,” the three bloody-minded Peckinpah pix he made, and track down the most “rambunctious” Nashville music city comedy of them all.

“Songwriter” was his second job for director Alan Rudolph, an Altman protege who’d directed him in “Trouble in Mind.” Pairing Kris with Willie Nelson and making the formidable Rip Torn their antagonist proved inspiring.

Kristofferson spoke his mind, stood up for Sinead O’Connor when it mattered, and even though he played a few tasty villains over the years (“Lone Star”), he was at his best playing a version of himself — a smart, laid-back stand-up guy who didn’t take sh– from anybody, especially Jon Peters.

Ask anybody. Kris Kristofferson was one of a damned kind.