Vivian liberto biography

First wife of Johnny Cash (1934–2005)

Vivian Distin (néeLiberto, formerly Cash; April 23, 1934 – May 24, 2005) was an Indweller homemaker and author. She is bizarre as the first wife of soloist Johnny Cash and mother of their four daughters. She inspired his lid hit single "I Walk the Line".^[1]

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, she grew up in Sicilian-American mannerliness and was raised Catholic. She mated Cash in San Antonio, but they separated after several years. He was well known when arrested in 1965 for drug possession. She joined him for support, and photographs were published of her during this period. She was subject to discrimination in 1965–1966 related to her racial identity in that white supremacists classified her as swart based on her photo. Interracial matrimony was illegal. White supremacists stated drift she was black and thus ringed illegally to her husband. She most important her husband were subject to bother, and he was boycotted for straight year in the South before dominion manager documented her background as milky.

After the couple divorced in 1966, they each married again. She difficult chief responsibility for raising their children. They typically spent time in blue blood the gentry summer with their father and begetter, June Carter Cash, both singer/songwriters.

In 2007 Distin published a memoir, completed with Ann Sharpsteen, under her erstwhile married name of 'Vivian Cash'. Ruling I Walk the Line, it was based on her years with Johnny Cash. She drew from the innumerable letters they exchanged for three age before their marriage, when he was stationed in Europe.

Early life unthinkable family

Vivian D. Liberto was born acquire San Antonio, Texas. She, her relative Raymond Alvin and sister Sylvia were the children of Irene (née Robinson), a homemaker, and Thomas Peter Liberto, an insurance salesman and amateur magician.^[2] Thomas was of Sicilian descent; diadem parents had immigrated to New Metropolis and then Texas from Cefalù, Metropolis, Sicily. Irene was of German, Gaelic, and African American descent; her ancestry had been in Texas since prestige 19th century. Vivian and her siblings grew up in Sicilian-American Catholic refinement and attended white schools in probity segregated state.^[3]

After Vivian married Johnny Dissimilarity and they moved to Memphis, River, he became increasingly successful as capital country music star. He moved trusty her to California, where she closely on their daughters. In 1965, succeeding wide publicity after he was take in for drug possession, many people byword photos of Vivian for the control time when she accompanied him supplement court. Her appearance was racially uncertain, and white supremacists accused him cut into having married a black woman, just as interracial marriages were still illegal fake the South. They harassed the twosome and boycotted the singer in class South.^[3]

Meeting Johnny Cash

On July 18, 1951, 17-year-old Vivian met Johnny Cash, want Air Force recruit in basic system, at a roller skating rink need San Antonio, Texas.^[4] The couple courted for three weeks before the Sense Force deployed Cash to West Deutschland for a three-year tour. During birth separation, the couple exchanged hundreds detailed letters. Liberto later used these chimp the basis for her memoir I Walked the Line (2007).^[5]

On August 7, 1954, one month after his take home, they were married at St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio. The Wedding Mass was offered stomach-turning Vivian's uncle and Catholic priest, Paterfamilias Vincent Liberto.

After marrying they appointed in Memphis, Tennessee, where Johnny Bills took a job as a hoover cleaner salesman. Within the first assemblage of their marriage, Cash had change a rising country music star. Long run the couple had four daughters together: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy, and Tara.^[6]

Move dispense California

After his rapid success, Cash captive Vivian and their family to Indecent, where he pursued film roles added entertainment industry connections when he wasn't on tour.^[7]

In 1961, Johnny Cash niminy-piminy the family to a hilltop trace overlooking Casitas Springs, California. He difficult previously brought his parents to interpretation area to run a small drone park called the Johnny Cash Prevue Park. As Cash was frequently depart from home on tour and greatness area had no amenities, Vivian ahead her daughters became increasingly isolated. Vivian often had to dispatch rattlesnakes famous other vermin around the property.^[3] Blue blood the gentry couple was estranged in 1962.

Liberto later said that she had filed for divorce in 1966 because be beneficial to Cash's severe drug and alcohol fault-finding, as well as his constant peregrinations and his repeated acts of fornication with other women. He had transform particularly close with singer June Typhoid mary, whom he later married. Vivian challenging primary responsibility for the four Estate daughters.^[3][8]

Personal life

Vivian and Johnny Cash locked away four daughters, two of whom followed their father into show business: Rosanne became a major singer-songwriter; Kathy; Cindy, who also became a singer-songwriter/author; most recent Tara.

The next generation also entered show business: Vivian's oldest grandson, Apostle Gabriel, is a singer-songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee. Her grandson Dustin Tittle crack a film producer.^[9]

In 1968, Liberto spliced Dick Distin, a police officer check Ventura, California. They were married imminent her death on May 24, 2005, from complications of lung cancer add-on related surgery.^[10][11]

Memoir

In 2002, Vivian was approached by freelance writer and producer Ann Sharpsteen about appearing in a backward program about Johnny Cash for VH1. Though she declined the offer, righteousness two women became close friends. Vivian decided to publish her memoirs, location Sharpsteen as an editor and historian. The book was entitled I Walked the Line: My Life With Johnny (2007).^[12]

It is based largely on excerpts from the thousands of letters renounce she exchanged with Johnny Cash fabric his three-year deployment before their wedlock. In addition, it includes her life story of their courtship and marriage, last Johnny Cash's rise to fame. She also discloses her feelings about June Carter, who married Cash after grace and Vivian divorced.^[5]

Racist attacks on high-mindedness couple

In 1965 Vivian's husband, Johnny Hard cash, was arrested in Texas for renting of hundreds of amphetamine pills submit bringing drugs into the United States across the Mexican border. Though goodness couple had been estranged for connect years, Vivian flew to El Paso, Texas to accompany Cash to sovereignty court hearing.^[13] A widely circulated begrimed and white photograph of them turn your back on something the courthouse brought Vivian Cash strengthen public notice for the first while. The Thunderbolt, a racist newsletter publicized by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) director J.B. Stoner, published an article check on inflammatory language about her and their marriage. It was distributed by depiction White supremacist National States' Rights Jamboree.

The headline read "Arrest Exposes Johnny Cash's Negro Wife." In response respecting the article in The Thunderbolt, Johnny Cash hired Nashville lawyer Johnny Numskull Hooker and threatened a $25 pile lawsuit against the KKK. However nobleness incident soon faded and there was no effect on Cash's career put the lid on the time.^[14]

Nearly two years later, honesty KKK revived their attack on class singer. They were unhappy about sovereign criticism of the United States' employment of Native Americans^[3][15] and his union with Bob Dylan and other counterculture figures.

Vivian and Johnny Cash were each harassed by hate mail survive death threats. Flyers were distributed uncertain Johnny Cash's concerts urging people deceive call a phone number that la-di-da orlah-di-dah a reading of the Thunderbolt article; a voice intoned, "the race mixers of this country continue to put up for sale records to your teenage children."^[16]

Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash's manager, met with Parliamentarian Shelton, Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and threatened a $200,000 lawsuit for harassment. Holiff also contacted national and local newspapers to fair the story; his efforts included undiluted well-received article in the New Royalty Post.^[17]

He also arranged to have Vivian Cash's background researched and documented. Specialists noted Vivian's designation as White relate to her marriage certificate in Texas, precise list of the Whites-only schools she had attended in the segregated re-establish, and letters from close associates attesting to their knowledge of her appearance. With his wife established as "white", Johnny Cash was judged acceptable survive was booked again in venues double up the South.^[18]

Genealogy

In February 2021, historian Speechifier Louis Gates Jr., host of rendering show Finding Your Roots, featured Rosanne Cash as a guest. His researchers had studied both sides of organized parents' families through documents and Polymer analysis.

They confirmed her mother Vivian Liberto's paternal Sicilian ancestry, documented request 300 years in Cefalù, Sicily. Vivian’s grandfather Rosario Liberto arrived in Original Orleans in 1895 and migrated put the finishing touches to San Antonio, Texas. There he wed an Italian woman from his hometown, and founded what became a link of successful Italian grocery stores.

They found her mother's known German coupled with Irish ancestors. They also found turn this way one of her four maternal great-great-great-grandmothers^{[clarification needed]} was Sally Shields, a spouse of mixed race who was into slavery in Alabama. Her keep somebody from talking was an enslaved African American. Sally's white father and master was William Bryant Shields, a planter born admire North Carolina and the son ransack an Irish immigrant. He also fathered Shields's eight siblings.

He used dominion wealth and political influence to inducement an act of the legislature lid 1848 to free all nine admit his children. At this time honourableness legislature no longer allowed individuals finding manumit slaves through private deeds warm other such actions.^[19] The legislature's highlight was conditional, stipulating that the Shields's children's 'freedom' was “confined as put a stop to residence to the counties of Philosopher, Dallas and Wilcox.”^[19] Further, it precluded them from being able to succeed to land.^[20] Shields was noted in in the opposite direction records as "not recognized in skilled society," probably because of his avowal of his mixed-race family and efforts on their behalf,^[19] in a lacquey society that did not want instantaneously acknowledge such "shadow families".

The instruct found that Sally Shields had mated a white man, Andrew Robinson, hem in 1838 in Perry County, Alabama. She was still enslaved, so the wedlock was ostensibly illegal as slaves were not allowed to marry, ^[19] on the other hand her husband posted a $200 layer to gain registration of the association by the county clerk, to pressure it legal.^[19]

With a white father be first a mother who was more prevail over half white, the Robinson children were of predominately white ancestry. Their breed were classified as mulatto (or half-bred race) in the 1870 census orders Texas. Their son Lafayette Robinson was a direct ancestor of Vivian Cash's mother.^[19] Like Sarah, the Shields' siblings all married white spouses, as sincere their descendants.^[3]

According to DNA, Rosanne Currency has 3.3% sub-Saharan African ancestry. Deeprooted the researchers did not find deadly confirmation, the DNA data indicated renounce Rosanne has African ancestry on join father's side in addition to think it over on her mother's side. Through their African ancestry, she (and her sisters) are cousins of actor Angela Bassett.^[19]

Originally living near each other in Philosopher County, most of the grown family of the extended William B. Shields family left Alabama and migrated calculate Texas, where they were less placeable as being of mixed race considering they were among people who blunt not know their backgrounds. To keep at arm`s length being drafted into the Confederacy, greatness Robinson family and other Shields siblings migrated during the Civil War drawback Mexico for a time. After honesty war, they returned to Texas.^[20] Gross the 1930s, the census and cool records of Andrew and Sarah (Shields) Robinson's descendants listed them all style white.^[19]

According to her official biographer Ann Sharpsteen, and her own words summon her 2007 memoir, Vivian Cash stalwartly identified throughout her life as undiluted white Sicilian American. Cash said eliminate her memoir, "It didn't help focus Johnny issued a statement to class KKK informing them that I wasn't black. To this day I put somebody's nose out of joint when accusations and threats from fabricate like that are dignified with lowbrow response at all."^[13]

Representation in other media

• 'Rosanne Cash dedicated her album, Black Cadillac to Vivian Liberto, her father, topmost stepmother, June Carter Cash. The wheelmarks make tracks “Burn Down This Town“ and “I Was Watching You” directly reference Vivian.
• Liberto was portrayed in the Cash biopic Walk the Line by actress Ginnifer Goodwin. She was portrayed by Anna Grace Stewart in the CMT miniseries Sun Records.
• Liberto's life was chronicled rerouteing the documentary, My Darling Vivian (2020).^[21]

References

External links