Documentary Shows Johnny Cash Straying from the Line

By ROB PATTERSON

Johnny Cash is a truly monumental American musical artist. But one aspect of his life that faded into the background and was misrepresented in the Cash biopic “I Walk the Line” was his 13-year marriage to his first wife Vivian Liberto, the mother of his four daughters and inspiration for his early classic song of the same name as the movie.

A new documentary film, “My Darling Vivian,” opens up that aspect of Cash’s life and tells Liberto’s somewhat turbulent tale with a genuinely touching sensitivity that nonetheless pulls no punches about both partners in that union. It’s truly a labor of love, produced by Dustin Tittle, the grandson of Cash and Liberto, and threaded with the commentary of the couple’s four daughters: noted singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle, Cindy Cash, and Tara Cash Schwoebel.

The story begins with the sweet onrush of young love when Air Force serviceman Cash meets Liberto at a San Antonio, Texas, skating rink in 1951 and the two fall madly for one another. Three weeks later, he ships out to Europe. During his time overseas, they exchange some 1,000 letters, some of them quoted in the film, one of them from him to her accompanied by an engagement ring. When Cash returns to the States in 1954, they marry a month later. Soon after the duo move to Memphis where Cash begins recording for Sun Records. His first single and eldest daughter Rosanne’s birth happen within a month of each other in 1955. Cash hits the road and the petals start to fall from the bouquet of roses.

In the years that followed – the Cash family moved to Southern California in 1958 – three more daughters were born in rather rapid succession. Liberto suffers the loneliness that comes with being married to a touring musician. A private person who avoids the spotlight, she suffers acute embarrassment when Cash is arrested for smuggling amphetamine pills across the border from Mexico. His drug addiction dampens Cash’s ability to connect with his wife and children during the times when he is home. When he falls for June Carter, who eventually becomes his second wife, Liberto is heartbroken. Her tendency towards depression magnifies her travails.

Home movies and photographs help illustrate the story as the four sisters dig into their memories, recall the chaos of their unique upbringing, and express their love and empathy for their mother while acknowledging her foibles and weaknesses while at the same time noting her gifts and strengths. It’s a work of genuine unflinching honesty that touches and moves the viewer as we witness how Cash’s success and stardom as well as his addiction issues damage and in time shatter a love that started with such passion and promise.

The Cash sisters generously hold no rancor towards their father for what happened. All four show a wisdom that comes with genuine adulthood in discussing their parents.

Cash fans know well how his love with June helped define Cash’s life and how she helped him recover from his pill-popping ways that were to some degree a result of the expectations and rigors a touring musician must deal with. It’s a major skein in the mythos that surrounds the Man in Black.

Now they can know another important aspect of his life. And the film ends on a grace note when Liberto visits a wheelchair-bound Johnny after June’s passing. He magnanimously supports her as she prepares to publish her memoirs to tell her story. And she obviously still loves him in some ways. It’s a bittersweet denouement to an emotionally fraught story, but we’re left with a firm sense of humanity of all involved and an enriched if also a bit tattered picture of the legend’s life the public never knew.

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Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2020

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