Is This The Famous Actor Whose Former Lover Sold Him Out?

Earlier this week, we took a look at Elizabeth Kaye’s piece in June’s Elle magazine, in which she describes watching an actor’s film, falling in love with his image on screen, setting up an interview, and then bedding him. Repeatedly.

The identity of the actor was not revealed in the article; our best guess, after ruling out Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Charlie Sheen, Jeremy Irons and Kevin Costner, was Richard Gere.

Commenters guessed Kenneth Branagh, Harrison Ford, Nick Nolte, Anthony Hopkins and Mickey Rourke, among others.

Via email, we got:

Could that the heartthrob actor have been Sly Stallone, way back when? The costume in Rocky (1976)? He cried in that; he was amazing in Cop Land (1997), his vulnerability is intense in that film…I always thought he was an amazing leading man…

And:

Read your piece and can’t believe you left out what was obvious to me: CLOONEY!!

Wore the Batman costume, always does the “thumb down the cheek” move , .i..e see One Fine Day where he kisses Michelle Pfeiffer

He “got around” , uh, yeah. He’s hot and famous. Yep.

He’s still alive (thank you jesus)

And, he feels like a “sellout” for romantic movies. Yeah that fits.

Unfortunately, with the dates and details we were working with, none of these guys fit the profile.

Then, the holy grail of emails arrived:

it’s kris kristofferson. i knew elizabeth back in the day. fyi—she’s got to be at least 60.

This is the part where you gasp, What? Who? Singer/actor Kris Kristofferson was a heartthrob?

The answer: Yes.

The film: 1976 music-biz flick A Star Is Born, in which Barbra Streisand played a singer whose career is ascending while Kristofferson plays an actor whose career is on the decline. Kristofferson, who has been married three times and has eight children, dated Janis Joplin and Barbra Streisand, and if Elizabeth Kaye met him after seeing that film — for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor — she maybe visited him on the set of the 1978 clunker Convoy, a trucker movie starring Ali McGraw. Weird? Yes. Does it seem likely that the “costume” Kaye refers to would be trucker duds? Not really. But filming for the WesternHeaven’s Gate, in which Kristofferson played a Sheriff in 1890s, began shooting in April 1979. In Montana.

Still: Kristofferson is the only name we got from someone who claims to know Kaye. And Elizabeth Kaye is listed as an actress who appeared as a journalist in a movie called Bombs Away, and as a character named Bunny in Trouble In Mind — a 1985 film starring Kris Kristofferson.

Plus: Tapering fingers! Brushing cheeks! In this scene from A Star Is Born:

And general hotness in the Star Is Born tribute video:

Not totally convinced? Neither are we. But this is what we’re working with. If either Elizabeth Kaye, Kris Kristofferson (who is, at the ripe old age of 73, still touring and making music) or Richard Gere would like to set the record straight, we’re listening.