The great Kris Kristofferson — poet, troubador, actor, soul man — has passed at age 88.

Film acting-wise, Kris enjoyed a truly great peak period between the early ‘70s and early ‘80s. I think his finest all-time role and performance was in Paul Mazursky‘s Blume in Love (‘73).

His decade-long run: Cisco Pike (‘72), Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (‘73), Blume in Love, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (‘74), Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (‘74), The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (‘76), A Star Is Born (‘76), Semi–Tough (‘78), Heaven’s Gate (‘80), Rollover (‘81).

It’s been 43 years, but I seem to recall Rollover being a relatively decent effort. Second-tier Alan Pakula but passable. It more or less predicted the 2009 worldwide crash, and the legitimized-with-empty-bullshit reasons why it would happen. And it was made right as the Reagan administration was deregulating the crap out of everything.

David Shaber (The Warriors, Last Embrace, Hunt for Red October) wrote it. Key line: “Of course it’s a game…that’s ALL it is.”

But Rollover was largely sold as a hot-sex-in-high-places thing**. Wall Street hotshot Kris Kristofferson, looking buff and well-coiffed in one perfectly-tailored three-piece suit after another, giving Jane Fonda‘s chemical-company chairperson the old invitational eye-twinkle.

Hume Cronyn, as First New York Bank chairman Maxwell Emery, delivered the reality-check assessments, and very effectively.

Fonda and Kristofferson were allegedly involved during filming (i.e., one of those “what happens during filming stays there and goes no further” affairs), but I only heard this once from a second-hand source.

I checked Amazon and Vudu to see if it’s streaming in high-def…nope. I can’t roll with 480p any more.