Vivian Liberto serves as a legendary figure, and the author of I Walked The race who was most commonly known clearly as the first wife of Johnny Cash (1932-2003), possibly one of the best-selling and most admired country music artists of all time.

In the year 1950, Liberto was a mother of four along with a homemaker who remained in support of the scene from her ex-husband’s fame. Her only and first book, I Walked the Line: My world with Johnny, gave an insight straight into the sweet, bitter, and unforgettable memories or her marital journey considering the music icon.

The celebrity was committed to Dick Distin, a Ventura Law enforcer, from 1968 into the time of their death on May 24, 2005 (age 71), shortly after her manuscript was completed. Her book is a retort towards the Oscar-winning 2005 film Walk the race, which casts Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

She is considered the gracious woman in support of inspiration of the 1958 hit song I Walk the race, allow me to share few details based on her and marriage with ex-husband Johnny Cash.

Vivian Liberto Race, Biography and Ethnicity

In the year 1934 of April 23rd Vivian Dorraine Liberto was born in Texas, San Antonio, United States, and raised within a Roman Catholic family.

The theme of her ethnicity and race has been something of controversy since her marriage to her famous ex-husband Johnny Cash. Although Vivian Liberto did identify as Italian American, a 1950s newspaper headline referred to her ethnicity as black, which made her and Cash a target to a white supremacist group who said the money from Cash’s hit music supplied him “with drugs and black women.”

They turned out to be a subject associated with a hate campaign from her husband’s Southern fans after having a photograph of both of them pursuing the courthouse steps made the newspaper headlines. Cash had run off utilizing a deferred sentence after pleading guilty to drug possession, and Vivian recalled in their book, your little lady and “Johnny received death threats, and an already shameful situation was built infinitely worse.” Despite all speculations based on pictures, Liberto’s parents, in addition to her children, have refuted claims she had was black.

Parents of Vivian Liberto

Vivian had one sibling, she was the only daughter of Thomas Peter Liberto (1905-1971) and Irene Robinson Liberto (1913-1979). Raymond Alvin Liberto (1932-2008) was her elder brother.

Vivian’s Marriage With Johnny Cash & Kids

July 18 In the year 1951 of July 18, Liberto at the age of 17 met Cash in San Antonio in the roller-skating rink. There he asked her to skate almost in the closing time. Both spent quality time for three weeks before Cash left for Germany as Air Force personnel. They almost exchanged 10,000 pages of lover letters to maintain their long-distance relationship.

In the year 1954 of August 7, they got married in San Antonio, which was also her hometown. Their marriage took place a month after he returned from Europe’s Air Force duty. Cash and Liberto sorted everything at Memphis where he pursued his musical career while working as a home appliance salesman.

In a while, they transported to California in 1958, bought an old house belonging to Johnny Carson at Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino. When it occurs, Cash was quickly transforming into famous among the music industry.

Shortly after the birth from their fourth child in 1961, the pair sort more privacy for a 12 acres real estate in Casitas Springs, Calif. where they resided until their divorce. The new common was Vivian Liberto who filed for divorce in 1966, following Cash’s drug abuse and infidelity with country singer June Carter while she remarried officer Dick Distin in the late 1960s and retired to a quiet life in Ventura, Cash connubial Carter the very same year.

Her silence during recent times after separation from her ex-husband over drugs and June Carter was detailed in her book released in 2005. She wrote that losing him has been a “degrading, horrible experience,” adding that she should have been more relentless at saving her marriage “as June was relentless at destroying it.” In her statements, as written among the book, she would have given anything to hear Johnny say he was sorry.

Vivian Liberto and Johnny Cash had four kids together within their thirteen numerous marriages from August 7, 1954, to 1967. Her children are Rosanne Cash whom she’d on May 24, 1955; Kathy Cash (April 16, 1956); Cindy Cash (July 29, 1959); and Tara Cash (August 24, 1961).

Net Worth of Vivian Liberto

There hasn’t been a reliable report on Vivian Liberto’s net worth, but reports with her lifestyle said she always had food, flowers, and friends in her own house. Her first daughter Rosanne said Liberto enjoyed a breathtaking quantity of loyalty and respect mostly for her hospitable and friendly personality.

Death of Vivian Liberto

Liberto died on Tuesday, May 24 of 2005, at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura nestled amidst countless close relatives – her second husband, daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, few dear friends, and her parish priest.

She died of complications from surgery 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.