Musician, singer, composer, and actor Kris Kristofferson was the son of a U.S. Air Force Major General and won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. He joined the U.S. Army, became a helicopter pilot, and ultimately earned the rank of Captain. When Kristofferson left the Army, he went off to Nashville to pursue a music career. He cut his first single in 1966, and in 1970 released his first album, later re-packaged as Me and Bobby McGee. Kristofferson was photographed on December 31, 1970, and the article in a “People Are Talking About …” feature describes the thirty-four year old Kristofferson, with “his dead blue eyes and a silver guitar around his neck” as being on “top of the heap.” With two movies finished, one of which The Last Movie (1971) was directed by Dennis Hopper, now he can let his “tumbling, tumbleweed charm take hold.”