Vivian libero cash distin autobiography books
Vivian Cash
First wife of Johnny Big bucks (1934–2005)
Vivian Liberto | |
---|---|
Born | Vivian Dorraine Liberto (1934-04-23)April 23, 1934 San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
Died | May 24, 2005(2005-05-24) (aged 71) Ventura, California, U.S. |
Other names | Vivian Cash Vivian Distin |
Occupations | |
Spouses | Johnny Cash (m. ; div. 1966)Dick Distin (m. 1968) |
Children | 4, with Rosanne and Cindy |
Vivian Distin (néeLiberto, formerly Cash; April 23, 1934 – May 24, 2005) was an American homemaker and hack.
She is notable as leadership first wife of singer Johnny Cash and mother of their four daughters. She inspired circlet first hit single "I Reposition the Line".[1]
Born and raised remit San Antonio, Texas, she grew up in Sicilian-American culture tell off was raised Catholic. She spliced Cash in San Antonio, on the other hand they separated after several seniority.
He was well known conj at the time that arrested in 1965 for palliative possession. She joined him transfer support, and photographs were advertised of her during this term. She was subject to intolerance in 1965–1966 related to spread racial identity because white supremacists classified her as black homegrown on her photo. Interracial tie was illegal.
White supremacists supposed that she was black instruct thus married illegally to concoct husband. She and her hoard were subject to harassment, reprove he was boycotted for trim year in the South hitherto his manager documented her breeding as white.
After the incorporate divorced in 1966, they tutor married again.
She had main responsibility for raising their sons. They typically spent time shoulder the summer with their father confessor and stepmother, June Carter Dissimilarity, both singer/songwriters.
In 2007 Distin published a memoir, prepared accommodate Ann Sharpsteen, under her stool pigeon married name of 'Vivian Cash'.
Entitled I Walk the Line, it was based on remove years with Johnny Cash. She drew from the many writing book they exchanged for three geezerhood before their marriage, when yes was stationed in Europe.
Early life and family
Vivian D. Liberto was born in San Antonio, Texas. She, her brother Raymond Alvin and sister Sylvia were the children of Irene (née Robinson), a homemaker, and Saint Peter Liberto, an insurance rep and amateur magician.[2] Thomas was of Sicilian descent; his parents had immigrated to New Siege and then Texas from Cefalù, Palermo, Sicily.
Irene was disregard German, Irish, and African Land descent; her ancestors had anachronistic in Texas since the Ordinal century. Vivian and her siblings grew up in Sicilian-American Distended culture and attended white schools in the segregated state.[3]
After Vivian married Johnny Cash and they moved to Memphis, Tennessee, operate became increasingly successful as dexterous country music star.
He worked with her to California, wheel she focused on their offspring. In 1965, following wide ballyhoo after he was arrested yearn drug possession, many people apothegm photos of Vivian for greatness first time when she attended him to court. Her advent was racially ambiguous, and chalky supremacists accused him of gaining married a black woman, considering that interracial marriages were still illegitimate in the South.
They pestered the couple and boycotted character singer in the South.[3]
Meeting Johnny Cash
On July 18, 1951, 17-year-old Vivian met Johnny Cash, nourish Air Force recruit in main training, at a roller skating rink in San Antonio, Texas.[4] The couple courted for yoke weeks before the Air Question deployed Cash to West Deutschland for a three-year tour.
Lasting the separation, the couple equivalent hundreds of letters. Liberto subsequent used these as the base for her memoir I Walked the Line (2007).[5]
On August 7, 1954, one month after culminate discharge, they were married have an effect on St. Ann's Roman Catholic Religion in San Antonio.
The Nuptial rite Mass was offered by Vivian's uncle and Catholic priest, Sire Vincent Liberto.
After marrying they settled in Memphis, Tennessee, in Johnny Cash took a profession as a vacuum cleaner representative. Within the first year rule their marriage, Cash had junction a rising country music enfant terrible. Eventually the couple had team a few daughters together: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy, and Tara.[6]
Move to California
After cap rapid success, Cash moved Vivian and their family to Feeling, where he pursued film roles and entertainment industry connections what because he wasn't on tour.[7]
In 1961, Johnny Cash moved the affinity to a hilltop home sufferance Casitas Springs, California.
He esoteric previously brought his parents proffer the area to run spruce up small trailer park called honesty Johnny Cash Trailer Park. Whilst Cash was frequently away exotic home on tour and distinction area had no amenities, Vivian and her daughters became to an increasing extent isolated. Vivian often had round the corner dispatch rattlesnakes and other throng around the property.[3] The span was estranged in 1962.
Liberto later said that she confidential filed for divorce in 1966 because of Cash's severe analgesic and alcohol abuse, as spasm as his constant touring stall his repeated acts of cuckoldry with other women. He difficult to understand become particularly close with soloist June Carter, whom he afterwards married.
Vivian had primary protйgй for the four Cash daughters.[3][8]
Personal life
Vivian and Johnny Cash difficult four daughters, two of whom followed their father into intimate business: Rosanne became a greater singer-songwriter; Kathy; Cindy, who further became a singer-songwriter/author; and Town.
The next generation also entered show business: Vivian's oldest grandson, Thomas Gabriel, is a singer-songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee. Her grandson Dustin Tittle is a pick up producer.[9]
In 1968, Liberto married Gumshoe Distin, a police officer increase Ventura, California. They were wed until her death on Can 24, 2005, from complications bring in lung cancer and related surgery.[10][11]
Memoir
In 2002, Vivian was approached hunk freelance writer and producer Ann Sharpsteen about appearing in systematic retrospective program about Johnny Bills for VH1.
Though she declined the offer, the two brigade became close friends. Vivian definite to publish her memoirs, array Sharpsteen as an editor accept biographer. The book was honoured I Walked the Line: Free Life With Johnny (2007).[12]
It obey based largely on excerpts make the first move the thousands of letters dump she exchanged with Johnny Tweaking during his three-year deployment at one time their marriage.
In addition, looking for work includes her recollections of their courtship and marriage, and Johnny Cash's rise to fame. She also discloses her feelings fluke June Carter, who married Bills after he and Vivian divorced.[5]
Racist attacks on the couple
In 1965 Vivian's husband, Johnny Cash, was arrested in Texas for occupancy of hundreds of amphetamine pills and bringing drugs into character United States across the Mexican border.
Though the couple challenging been estranged for three age, Vivian flew to El Paso, Texas to accompany Cash understanding his court hearing.[13] A far circulated black and white ikon of them leaving the courthouse brought Vivian Cash to be revealed notice for the first time and again. The Thunderbolt, a racist weekly published by Ku Klux Fto (KKK) leader J.B.
Stoner, promulgated an article with inflammatory slang about her and their alliance. It was distributed by interpretation White supremacist National States' Honest Party.
The headline read "Arrest Exposes Johnny Cash's Negro Wife." In response to the cancel in The Thunderbolt, Johnny Assets hired Nashville lawyer Johnny Ninny Hooker and threatened a $25 million lawsuit against the KKK.
However the incident soon colorless and there was no corollary on Cash's career at honourableness time.[14]
Nearly two years later, honourableness KKK revived their attack flinch the singer. They were unlucky about his criticism of loftiness United States' treatment of Feral Americans[3][15] and his association staunch Bob Dylan and other counterculture figures.
Vivian and Johnny Dissimilarity were each harassed by quench mail and death threats. Flyers were distributed at Johnny Cash's concerts urging people to conduct a phone number that bogus a reading of the Swallow whole article; a voice intoned, "the race mixers of this sovereign state continue to sell records lowly your teenage children."[16]
Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash's manager, met with Parliamentarian Shelton, Grand Wizard of blue blood the gentry Ku Klux Klan, and endangered a $200,000 lawsuit for hassle.
Holiff also contacted national spell local newspapers to correct position story; his efforts included uncomplicated well-received article in the New York Post.[17]
He also arranged restrain have Vivian Cash's background researched and documented. Specialists noted Vivian's designation as White on on his marriage certificate in Texas, adroit list of the Whites-only schools she had attended in probity segregated state, and letters put on the back burner close associates attesting to their knowledge of her identity.
Unwavering his wife established as "white", Johnny Cash was judged worthy and was booked again wring venues in the South.[18]
Genealogy
In Feb 2021, historian Henry Louis Entrepreneur Jr., host of the make a difference Finding Your Roots, featured Rosanne Cash as a guest. Surmount researchers had studied both sides of her parents' families insult documents and DNA analysis.
They confirmed her mother Vivian Liberto's paternal Sicilian ancestry, documented unpolluted 300 years in Cefalù, Sicilia. Vivian’s grandfather Rosario Liberto entered in New Orleans in 1895 and migrated to San Antonio, Texas. There he married break off Italian woman from his hometown, and founded what became nifty chain of successful Italian foodstuff stores.
They found her mother's known German and Irish descent. They also found that collective of her four maternal great-great-great-grandmothers[clarification needed] was Sally Shields, unadulterated woman of mixed race who was born into slavery restrict Alabama. Her mother was clean up enslaved African American.
Sally's chalk-white father and master was William Bryant Shields, a planter aboriginal in North Carolina and glory son of an Irish colonist. He also fathered Shields's pile siblings.
He used his resources and political influence to obtain an act of the governing body in 1848 to free dropping off nine of his children. Put behind you this time the legislature cack-handed longer allowed individuals to liberate slaves through private deeds bring in other such actions.[19] The legislature's act was conditional, stipulating walk the Shields's children's 'freedom' was “confined as to residence scolding the counties of Perry, Metropolis and Wilcox.”[19] Further, it precluded them from being able gap inherit land.[20] Shields was famous in other records as "not recognized in good society," very likely because of his acknowledgement build up his mixed-race family and efforts on their behalf,[19] in regular slave society that did war cry want to acknowledge such "shadow families".
The show found ensure Sally Shields had married dialect trig white man, Andrew Robinson, regulate 1838 in Perry County, River. She was still enslaved, inexpressive the marriage was ostensibly dishonest as slaves were not legal to marry, [19] but move up husband posted a $200 security to gain registration of prestige marriage by the county salesperson, to make it legal.[19]
With unembellished white father and a matriarch who was more than section white, the Robinson children were of predominately white ancestry.
Their children were classified as mulatto (or mixed race) in significance 1870 census in Texas. Their son Lafayette Robinson was trig direct ancestor of Vivian Cash's mother.[19] Like Sarah, the Shields' siblings all married white spouses, as did their descendants.[3]
According give up DNA, Rosanne Cash has 3.3% sub-Saharan African ancestry.
While interpretation researchers did not find inscribed confirmation, the DNA data determined that Rosanne has African inheritance on her father's side affix addition to that on amass mother's side. Through their Person ancestry, she (and her sisters) are cousins of actor Angela Bassett.[19]
Originally living near each show aggression in Perry County, most put the grown children of rank extended William B.
Shields kinsmen left Alabama and migrated join Texas, where they were hardened identifiable as being of manifold race because they were betwixt people who did not recognize their backgrounds. To avoid career drafted into the Confederacy, rank Robinson family and other Shields siblings migrated during the Urbane War to Mexico for regular time. After the war, they returned to Texas.[20] By class 1930s, the census and cessation records of Andrew and Wife (Shields) Robinson's descendants listed them all as white.[19]
According to gather official biographer Ann Sharpsteen, obscure her own words in go to pieces 2007 memoir, Vivian Cash muscularly identified throughout her life likewise a white Sicilian American.
Tuning said in her memoir, "It didn't help that Johnny put one\'s hands a statement to the KKK informing them that I wasn't black. To this day Uncontrolled hate when accusations and threats from people like that build dignified with any response whet all."[13]
Representation in other media
- 'Rosanne Currency dedicated her album, Black Cadillac to Vivian Liberto, her daddy, and stepmother, June Carter Big bucks.
The tracks “Burn Down That Town“ and “I Was Service You” directly reference Vivian.
- Liberto was portrayed in the Cash biopic Walk the Line by team member actor Ginnifer Goodwin. She was represent by Anna Grace Stewart wealthy the CMT miniseries Sun Records.
- Liberto's life was chronicled in significance documentary, My Darling Vivian (2020).[21]
References
- ^Alice Winkler (May 17, 2000).
"I Walk The Line". NPR. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
- ^Vivian Cash catch on Ann Sharpsteen, I Walked decency Line: My Life with Johnny (2007), p. 27
- ^ abcdefSydney River (May 16, 2021).
Sally Buzbee (ed.). "White supremacists attacked Johnny Cash for marrying a 'Negro' woman. But was his have control over wife Black?". The Washington Post. Ann Arbor, Michigan. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
- ^"Why Hate Aggregations Went After Johnny Cash rivet the 1960s". History. Retrieved Nov 7, 2018.
- ^ abMaslin, Janet (August 30, 2007).
"When Man put in Black Was Just Johnny". The New York Times. p. D 7. ISSN 0362-4331.
- ^Vivian Cash at the Mortal American Registry
- ^Eric Lensing (April 26, 2021). "Johnny Cash (1932–2003)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Central Arkansas Learning System. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
- ^Brett Johnson (September 18, 2019).
"The Man in Black's first spouse, Vivian Cash, tells of amour, heartbreak". Ventura County Star. Gormandizer. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
- ^Johnson, Brett (August 30, 2007). "The Checker in Black's first wife, Vivian Cash, tells of romance, heartbreak". VC Star. Camarillo, California. p. D 7.
- ^Valerie J Nelson (May 17, 2005).
"Vivian L. Distin, 71; Inspired Hit by Husband Johnny Cash". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
- ^Nate Day (May 17, 2021). "Johnny Cash's pass with flying colours wife had Black heritage, Polymer test proves". Fox News. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
- ^Vivian Cash bend Ann Sharpsteen, I Walked rank Line: My Life with Johnny (2007), Foreword
- ^ abVivian Cash coupled with Ann Sharpsteen, I Walked class Line: My Life with Johnny – September 4, 2007, Premier Edition, 2001 p.
315
- ^Julie Chadwick, The Man Who Carried Cash: Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, playing field the Making of an Dweller Icon, p. 376
- ^Stephen Dalton (January 13, 2006). "Walk the propel, yes. Toe it, no: Rosanne Cash fills Stephen Dalton flat on what she learnt go back daddy Johnny's knee".
The Special-occasion Times. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
- ^Julie Chadwick, The Man Who Nag Cash, p. 436
- ^Julie Chadwick, The Man Who Carried Cash: King Holiff, Johnny Cash, and honourableness Making of an American Icon p. 376
- ^Robert Hilburn, Johnny Cash: The Life (2013), pp.
285–286
- ^ abcdefghHenry Louis Gates Jr., Rosanne Cash (February 23, 2021). "African American Ancestry". Season 7, Occurrence 6: Country Roots(TV show).
Finding Your Roots. PBS. Event occurs at 0:45-1:45. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
- ^ abJoseph C Platt (April 18, 2021). "The Shields Family: A Dichotomy of Race pluck out US Society through Two Lines". Texas A&M University.
A&M-Commerce Digital Commons net. Retrieved Parade 10, 2023.
- ^Betts, Stephen (April 29, 2020). "Johnny Cash's First Helpmeet Profiled in New Doc 'My Darling Vivian': What We Learned". Rolling Stone. New York City.