Vivian Liberto is a legendary figure and the author of I Walked the Line who was best known as the first wife of Johnny Cash (1932-2003), one of the best-selling country music artists of all time.
Liberto was a mother of four and a housewife who remained behind the scenes of her ex-husband’s stardom in the 1950s. Her first and only book, I Crossed the Line: My Life with Johnny, has previewed the sweet, bitter and unforgettable memories of her marital journey with the music icon.
The celebrity was married to Dick Distin, a Ventura police officer, from 1968 until his death on May 24, 2005 (aged 71), shortly after his manuscript was completed. His book is a line from the Oscar-winning 2005 film Walk the Line, which stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.
She is described as the graceful woman behind the inspiration for the 1958 hit I Walk the Line, here are some details about her and her marriage to ex-husband Johnny Cash.
Vivian Liberto Biography, Race and Ethnicity
Vivian Dorraine Liberto was born on April 23, 1934 in San Antonio, Texas, USA and grew up in a Catholic family.
The topic of her race and ethnicity has been something of a contentious issue since her marriage to her famous ex-husband Johnny Cash. Although Vivian Liberto identified as Italian-American, a 1950s newspaper headline referred to her black ethnicity, which made her and Cash a target for a group of white supremacists who claimed that money from Cash’s hit music provided him with “drugs and black women.” “
They became the subject of a hate campaign by her husband’s southern fans, after they photographed the two court walkers, making headlines. Cash had just received a deferred sentence after pleading guilty to drug possession and Vivian recalled in her book that she and ‘Johnny had received death threats and an already shameful situation had become even worse’.
Despite all the image-based speculation, Liberto’s parents, as well as her children, have refuted the claims that she is black.
Parents
Vivian Liberto is the only known daughter of Irene Robinson Liberto ( 1913 – 1979) and Thomas Peter Liberto ( 1905 –1971). She also has an older brother named Raymond Alvin Liberto ( 1932 – 2008).
Marriage to Johnny Cash and their children
At age 17, Liberto met Cash on July 18, 1951 at a skating rink in San Antonio when he asked her for a skate as closing time approached. They dated three weeks before Cash was sent to Germany by the Air Force. Throughout this time, they maintained a distant relationship by exchanging more than 10,000 pages of love letters.
They were later married in his hometown of SanAntonio, Texas on August 7, 1954, more than a month after he returned from an Air Force mission in Europe. Liberto and Cash settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked as an appliance salesman and also continued his music career.
They later moved to California in 1958 and purchased an old house owned by Johnny Carson on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino. At the time, Cash was rapidly rising to fame in the music industry.
Shortly after the birth of their fourth child in 1961, the couple sorted out more privacy at a 12-acre property in Casitas Springs, California, where they resided until their divorce.
It was Vivian Liberto who filed for divorce in 1966, after Cash’s drug abuse and infidelity with country singer June Carter. She remarried to agent Dick Distin in 1968 and retired to a quiet life in Ventura, but Cash married Carter the same year.
Her silence over the years after the separation from June Carter was detailed in her 2005 book. She wrote that losing him was a “horrible and degrading experience”, adding that she should have been more relentless to save her marriage”. while June was relentless in destroying it.” In her words, as in the book, she would have given anything to hear Johnny say he was sorry.
Vivian Liberto and Johnny Cash had four children during their thirteen years of marriage, from August 7, 1954 to 1967. Her children are Rosanne Cash who she had on May 24, 1955; Kathy Cash (April 16, 1956); Cindy Cash (July 29, 1959); and Tara Cash (August 24, 1961).
Net value
There was no specific report on Vivian’s net worth, but Liberto’s lifestyle articles said she always had food, flowers and friends at home. His first daughter, Rosanne, said Liberto enjoyed breathtaking loyalty and respect, primarily for his hospitable and friendly personality.
Dead
Liberto died Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, surrounded by many close relatives: her second husband, daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, a few dear friends and her pastor.
She died following an operation for lung cancer and her memorial mass was held at 2 p.m. on May 28, 2005 at Sacred Heart Church, 10800 Henderson Road, Ventura.