Kris Kristofferson once described himself as a functioning alcoholic, and once said he never thought he’d live past 30.

The songwriting legend lived to 88 years old, thanks in part to an iconic film scene.

Some people need God or an intervention to turn their lives around — Kristofferson just needed Hollywood.

• Kris Kristofferson’s wife and kids announced his death on Sept. 29, sharing that he’d died the day prior.
• Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the actor-singer-songwriter subscribed to the theory that all serious artists were self-destructive.
• In 1976, he starred alongside Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born.

Related: Country Stars React ro Kris Kristofferson’s Death

A 1998 article in People found Kristofferson speaking with remarkable candor about his past. At the time, he’d been married to wife Lisa for 15 years, and they had five children together (to go with three from previous marriages). When they met, he tried to tell her he didn’t have time for serious romance, but eventually thought, “Wake up, man. This is what really matters.'”

A Star is Born is about an alcoholic musician named John Norman Howard (Kristofferson) who falls in love with a young singer on the rise (Streisand). Rumors of a real-life romance between the two swirled at the time, further stressing his marriage to Rita Coolrdge. They’d divorce in 1980.

A spoiler is coming next: It applies to both the 1976 film and its 2018 remake.

Toward the end of the movie, his character dies after driving drunk and wrecking his car. Kristofferson would later say the scene where Esther tends to his dead body was so powerful, he quit drinking in real life.

“I remember feeling that that could very easily be my wife and kids crying over me,” he told the magazine. “I quit drinking over that. I didn’t want to die before my daughter grew up.”

The movie came out while Kristofferson was enjoying a tremendous career high after years spent struggling in Nashville. The one-time Rhodes Scholar moved to town and took a job sweeping floors at a recording studio to feed his family, spurning the US Army and his only family by doing so.

A relationship with Janis Joplin symbolizes this time. She died of a heroin overdose in October 1970, just days after cutting his (arguably) most famous song, “Me and Bobby McGee.”

“I never thought I’d live past 30. I could have ended up dead,” Kristofferson would later say.

A statement from his family about his death reads:

It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home. We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.” – The Family of Kris Kristofferson

Other hits Kristofferson wrote include “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “For the Good Times.”