Photo courtesy of the Estate of Vivian Distin
Photograph of Vivian Liberto and Johnny Cash
When Johnny Cash married June Carter, scion of the family credited with setting the course for country music as we know it, his first wife, Vivian Liberto, was forgotten. According to the documentary My Darling Vivian, slated for Sundance but shifted to Amazon Prime, his first wife was an intensely private person and was happy—when her marriage ended—to escape the spotlight. Her daughters maintain that Vivian started a new life and seldom mentioned to her new friends that she once was married to one of the most familiar names in American music.
Directed by Matt Riddlehoover, My Darling Vivian is built around interviews with all four daughters from Cash and Liberto’s marriage—Tara Cash Schwoebel, Cindy Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle and recording artist Rosanne Cash. Their memories differ on details but concur on the big picture: they were a happy family until, suddenly, they weren’t. “One day he came back,” says Rosanne, recalling her father’s changed behavior, “and he wasn’t him. He was gone.”
Continually on the road and in the studio, Cash succumbed to a common malady of the era’s touring performers, amphetamines and barbiturates. He was busted crossing the border from Mexico, his guitar case filled with pills. He got off but continued on the downhill fast track. Most historians credit his marriage to June Carter for putting him back on the straight path.
Vivian was only 18 when she met Cash and the trove of letters they exchanged when the U.S. Air Force posted him to Germany are besotted with love. The film includes rare photographs, home movies and audio from Cash’s reel-to-reel recorded messages to her from Germany—the earnestness of devotion in his voice is unmistakable. One can only imagine that he wrote the plainspoken poetry of commitment in “I Walk the Line” with Vivian in mind.
They were in some ways an unusual match. He was the solemn, granite-voiced singer from a remote Arkansas cotton farm. She was a fun-loving city gal, a dark and exotic beauty of Sicilian descent with a flair for elegance. Vivian neither contributed to nor hindered husband’s career but seemed content as mother and housekeeper. Cash’s star rose quickly, straddling rockabilly, country and folk; the heat of celebrity burned too hot for either of them. The daughters in My Darling Vivian recall fans and wannabe songwriters clustering at their doorstep. They have many sharp remarks to make about the occasional guest at their parents’ star-studded barbeques, June Carter.
Tara, Cindy, Kathy and Rosanne all agree that their mother needs to be rescued from oblivion on one side and, on the other, her representation in the horrendously mediocre movie about their father, I Walk the Line (2005), which depicted her as a nag and a drag. My Darling Vivian casts light on early chapters in the life of a unique figure in American music whose career—despite several low points—remained viable for half a century.
