This Day in Country Music History (Johnny Cash “Walks the Line” in 1st Marriage)

August 7, 1954—At St. Anne’s Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas, on a hot, humid day, The Man in Black wed the woman in white, as Johnny Cash, discharged from the Air Force the prior month, married Vivian Liberto, whom he had met just before his enlistment four years before.

Despite his pledge to stay with her “till death do us part,” the union did not survive his exposure to fame as a country-music superstar, his raging amphetamines addiction, or his encounter with a member of country-music royalty, June Carter.

What was the singer’s pickup line to the Catholic schoolgirl? I bet it was the same one he used to woo audiences over five decades: “Hi, I’m Johnny Cash.”

Walk the Line (2002) is one of the better entries in the musical-biography genre, but that’s not to say it’s faultless. In the inevitable focus on Johnny and June Carter Cash, one person is inevitably slighted: the last person in the love triangle, Vivian Cash.

At least two of the children of Johnny and Vivian, Rosanne Cash and Kathy Cash, were unhappy with the biopic’s portrayal of their mother, with Kathy actually bolting out of a screening. And well she might do that: Vivian was depicted as a harpy who practically drove her husband out with her screaming and her periodic pregnancies that threatened to tie him down to a conventional career rather than the bohemian artistic life he was meant for.

Vivian Cash is in something analogous to the same position as Cynthia Lennon: as the castoff consort to a musical monarch with immense talent, equal charm—and demons from childhood that often overrode his best instincts. Vivian might have even had it worse with the public than Cynthia, who at least benefited from residual sympathy from fans who believed that Yoko Ono contributed to the Beatles’ breakup.

In contrast, June Carter Cash did not separate her husband from fellow musicians; in fact, she drew him further into this lifestyle. Moreover, she was not only blessed with a special musical talent but with powerful vivacity.

I got a sense of this several years ago when, after her death, a local New York radio station aired an interview with her. As she related her days studying acting in New York (where she came to know a very young James Dean), the advancing years fell away and you fell under the spell of a still-girlish voice, showing off a terrific sense of humor. It was obvious why Cash had fallen hard for her.

In 1950, at a roller-skating rink in San Antonio, he had fallen equally hard—but without the guilt—for Vivian. The short time they spent together before he shipped off (only three weeks) only hastened their relationship. "We would walk on the river, and we sat there and did what we shouldn't have done and carved our names in the bench," she told an interviewer more than 50 years later.

Even separated by an ocean, the passion shared by Cash and Vivian still burned brightly, as they exchanged, if you can believe this, 10,000 pages of letters over four years.

Unfortunately, the young man’s torment was apparent, too. Many men might think twice about confessing to their far-away spouse about drinking and visiting prostitutes, but not Cash. It was a portent of a troubled marriage.

Once they were married, the blue skies were fewer and the dark clouds more numerous for the couple. An unfulfilling job selling appliances and an inability to break into radio strained the family finances—then led to Cash’s career-changing visit to the Sun Records studio in Memphis. Never too far from her husband was lingering survivor’s guilt (a brother had died during childhood).

Afraid of the women he met on the road, Vivian asked him point-blank if he had ever strayed. He assured her that though the temptations were plentiful, “I walk the line.” (When she wrote her own memoir with Ann Sharpsteen 40 years later, Vivian recalled scribbling down the lyrics to this signature song while Cash was driving, or while the couple were in their living room.)

It’s too bad that Joaquin Phoenix committed career hari-kari in his David Letterman appearance a while back, because his performance in Walk the Line showed how sleek, electric and dangerous Cash was onstage as a young man. I wish all of the film could have matched the truth of his acting.

I’m not just talking here about how Walk the Line distorted the singer’s relationship with Vivian. I’m also referring to the way it distorts his relationship with June.

As Michael Streissguth demonstrated in his biography of the singer two years ago, the myth—one continued by the film—is that after finding love with June, Cash was able eventually to conquer his amphetamine addiction and never stray from his wedding vows again.

The reality was that, aside from a six-year period in the early 1970s following the birth of his son John Carter Cash, the singer continued to struggle with temptations toward pills and extramarital dalliances until his final illness.