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(somber music)

(film reel whirring)

- You know, what's interesting is that,

I bet all four of us have slightly different mothers

and Kathy and I probably have the closest to the same.

And Tara and I probably have the most different.

And Cindy a bit different,

because she definitely changed over time.

You know, the woman of her 20s and early 30s,

that was tough.

- Hi folks, this is Johnny Cash.

- Johnny Cash. - Johnny Cash.

- Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two!

♪ I keep a close watch on this heart of mine ♪

(camera flashing)

Yeah, there was a girl.

She had black eyes and the blackest hair.

When I left, she cried.

- Johnny Cash was an 18 year old Air Force trainee

stationed down in San Antonio, Texas

when he first met Miss Vivian Liberto.

(somber music)

- [Johnny] Hello Vivian, how is my sweetheart?

Yours is alright but he's lonesome for you as usual.

But then I'm always lonesome for you, Viv.

I'll be thinking of you til we're together again, honey,

and I'll never stop loving you.

As long as I live, I'll never stop loving you.

I love you, Vivian.

(somber music)

- My experience, just what I've seen

out there has been

that people really don't know her.

- You know who VL is, don't you?

- Vivian Leigh?

- Nope.

- It's someone prettier than Vivian Leigh.

- I don't know, I think ever since "Walk the Line"

came out too, that really did some damage

and made her look very bad and just was not shown

in a very nice light.

- My band is here in Memphis.

- Your band?

John, your band?

Your band is two mechanics who can't hardly play.

- I haven't seen the movie

and I don't want to see the movie.

- Stay clear of my children.

- [June] Vivian, I-I was just saying hello.

- You heard me. - Viv.

- I understand the movie depicted her differently

than she was and honestly, I don't think anyone

had an impression of her before that.

- She stayed so private and so out of the public.

I mean she would have friends for 10 years

that never knew she was married to my dad.

- She had been offered interviews, a lot of money,

a lot of books and she refused to ever say anything.

- When she was writing her book, late in life,

she said, "There are things you kids don't even know,

"that's why I wanna write the book."

- She was a very private person.

And was not prepared for all of the attention

and public life and my dad's notoriety and fame.

There was nothing in her past

that would have prepared her for that

and it's nothing she ever wanted.

And then of course, when there was something

that was negative, like when he got arrested

for bringing pills across the border from Mexico,

something like that just devastated her.

- You know, appearances were incredibly important to her.

And she was so elegant.

A really nice figure, she dressed beautifully.

Her hair was always done.

She's very exotic looking.

- Mom's hair was jet black and it was past her waist

and it was really thick.

It was just beautiful.

And then in the 60s it went up into a big pile on her head

and she, you know, it was just a work of art.

- I would run my hand over her dresses in her closet.

She had beautiful dresses.

I thought that was the epitome of womanhood.

I couldn't wait for the day when I could wear

something like that.

After their divorce, they saw her as,

I don't know, as nothing.

So my mother faded into a kind of negative obscurity.

- That's what's so sad about the end

of their marriage after 13 years.

13 years is a long time.

- To experience such a loss like that

and have the whole world see it,

I think that was really hard for her.

Really, really hard.

(camera flashing)

- My mom had terrible anxiety.

She had a really tough childhood

and you know, through years of therapy

I began to understand that she was damaged

from the get-go and was working out a lot.

Well, she didn't really work it out so much.

(film reel whirring) (light music)

- My mom was born April 23rd, 1934

in San Antonio, Texas.

Her ancestors had come over from Sicily

and that's where my grandpa, Tom and Irene were from.

Irene Robinson was my grandmother's maiden name.

Her father was incredibly strict

and Catholic, devout Catholic.

They believed in mortal sin and had

to go to Mass every Sunday

and all of the rituals and restrictions

in the Catholic Church, that was center.

She went to Saint Mary's in San Antonio.

All girls, Catholic School. (school bell ringing)

She took some domestic classes,

you know, had to take Homemaking

and the girls would have to dance together

because there were no boys.

So my grandfather, Tom, was an amateur magician,

but he would be called to perform at parties

and he was also a champion rose gardener.

And he was asked to create a breed of rose

for Ladybird Johnson's visit to San Antonio

and he had beautiful rose bushes.

Of course that's where my mom got that,

her love of rose bushes and gardening.

As strict as my grandpa was, my grandma, Irene,

was kind of loose and didn't really have a sense

of the parameters of how you lived your life

that my grandpa did.

And that my mom eventually adopted.

My grandma was an alcoholic

and I didn't hear very many stories about that

but I understood that at some times

my mom would come home from school

and grandma would be passed out on the sofa

and she would clean the house

so that Grandpa, when he came from work,

wouldn't know that Grandma had been passed out.

So my mom did take on an adult role and

I think that my grandpa was violent

that he hit Uncle Ray.

- I know that my grandfather didn't believe

in spanking girls.

So if the girls did something, he spanked Uncle Ray.

Uncle Ray told me that years ago

that he would say, "This one's for Vivian

"and this one's for you."

I know, I don't get it either.

- You know, I heard that he never hit the girls

but I don't know how much to believe of that.

So the summer of 1951, my mom was 17 years old

and she was a big roller skater.

And she went roller skating one night

and she met this young man who was in the Air Force

who was stationed in San Antonio for a short time.

I think before he went up to skate with her,

he bet his buddy that he could walk

that girl home that night.

And he won the bet.

- He told me that he fell in love with her

the minute he saw her.

So he knocked her down so he could meet her.

- I've never heard that Dad ran into Mom

on the skating rink.

I never heard that.

Did she say that?

- Well, I always heard that they physically bumped

into each other, my dad and my mom.

- She found out later he bumped into her on purpose

'cause he thought she was cute.

- No, I don't think so.

He definitely made a bet that he could walk her home

and then I think he went up to her

and said something to her and then started skating with her

and then started flirting with her

and then walked her home.

And then they saw each other for three weeks

before he was shipped off to Germany.

And then they wrote each other

when he was in Germany nearly every day.

Sometimes twice a day.

My sisters and I have over 1000 letters

they wrote to each other.

They were besotted.

"My sweetheart, my angel, my darling.

"I can't wait to see you.

"I think about you day and night."

It was endless.

- Mom kept a diary of every time she got a letter

and every time she mailed one.

There's a photo of my dad in his uniform

in the barracks in his bedroom

with a picture of her on the wall

and him acting like a monkey while he looks at her.

- You know, a handsome young guy in a uniform.

Dad was probably the most exciting thing

that had ever happened for her.

- It was like they just knew they were meant

to be together and there was no doubt about it.

He proposed through the mail.

- And he actually sent her engagement ring through the mail.

- You know, they were very, they were incredibly young.

Incredibly young and that all comes out.

And there's some really fascinating things, too,

of him talking about albums he was listening to

and playing guitar with some of his buddies

and seeing a film about Folsom Prison.

The most heartbreaking thing is that they had planned

that she would come over and visit him at Christmastime

and then her father said no.

They were heartbroken.

She didn't speak to her father for weeks.

That's what I heard.

(film static) - Viv, I had to fill up

the other side with something.

If you don't like it, you can just scratch this side off

but it has a meaning, honey.

- He would send her letters on tape

and I think he sent her a song or two

that he was working on or had written.

♪ Am I the one who'll always hold you ♪

♪ Til the end of time ♪

♪ Or will there be another lover ♪

♪ To steal a love that's mine ♪

- But the one that sticks out for me

is that letter that he sent her on tape.

- [Johnny] Hello, Vivian, how's my sweetheart?

Yours is all right but he's lonesome for you as usual.

But then I'm always lonesome for you, Viv.

This isn't quite the same as being with you, honey,

but maybe I can tell you some things I want to.

The most important thing, I guess, is that I love you.

I do, Vivian, I love you very much.

It won't be long now, honey, and we'll be together for life.

We won't be counting the days much longer, angel.

Just keep those precious letters coming

until we are, sweetheart.

They mean so much to me over here

I'll be thinking of you til we're together again, honey,

and I'll never stop loving you.

As long as I live, I'll never stop loving you.

I love you, Vivian.

(romantic music)

(pen scratching)

- He got home on July 4th, 1954.

I cannot imagine how intense that was for them

after thousands of letters

and being separated for so long.

And like, there's a desperation to be together

and get married and talking very seductively

about that day in their letters to each other.

They got married August 7th, 1954 in San Antonio.

(light music)

And I remember my mother saying how hot that day was.

I mean, you know, San Antonio can be unbearably hot

in the summer.

He wore his uniform

and she wore a very elaborate wedding dress

with veil and sleeves in that heat.

And then they drove to Memphis for their honeymoon.

I don't know where they spent their first night

but I remember my mother telling me

that when they went to breakfast the next morning

after their wedding night,

she was so embarrassed and hoped that the people

in the restaurant didn't know what they had been doing.

And they'd been doing something

'cause I was born nine months later. (chuckling)

I think they moved to Memphis

because my dad had an offer of a job

with his brother, Roy.

I wrote a song about that trip.

It goes, "Headlights on a Texas road.

"Hank Williams on the radio.

"The church wedding, we spent all we had.

"Now the deal is done to become Mom and Dad."

So I imagine that they were making that decision,

you know, for all of us in the future.

Memphis was not an hour from where my dad grew up

but I know when they moved to Memphis,

they didn't have a nickel.

They were so poor.

My mom's sister told me once

that she came after high school graduation

and that they didn't even have money for groceries.

That she had to spend her graduation money

to help buy groceries for them.

My mom told me she had two dresses

when she was pregnant with me.

That that's the only thing she could wear

and that she would sit on the front porch

and eat a dishpan full of cherry tomatoes every day.

That that's what she craved, that's what she wanted.

- You know, she said those were the hardest times

and they were also the best times.

- She told me that was the happiest time in her life.

She said that many times over the years.

She would've traded it all to go back

to that little apartment in Memphis.

(somber music)

- My dad went to see his brother, Roy,

at the car dealership and he walked

into the mechanic's garage

and Marshall Grant was working there.

And Marshall always said that he saw my dad walk in

and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

Like, he just knew that they were going to be together

and create history together.

And my dad said to them,

"Roy says you boys play a little bit of guitar."

And Marshall said, "A very little bit."

And then they started getting together and playing.

Well, my mom became very close to Marshall's wife, Etta.

They were like sisters.

I always felt good that she had such a close friend

moving to Memphis not knowing anyone, no money.

My dad had a job as a door-to-door salesman.

He was terrible at it.

A classic story is that one day he knocked on a door

and the woman opened the door and he said,

"You don't wanna buy a refrigerator, do you?"

(laughing)

Or he would talk a customer out of a product

because it was too expensive.

So he didn't do well at that.

- Dad wasn't a salesman except when it came to himself.

He showed up at Sam Phillips' door at Sun Records

every day until Sam listened to him, so.

- You know, my dad's first record came out

a month after I was born so then the whole thing started

with him going on the road and doing shows

and I remember Mom saying that the first time Dad went

on the road, she was terrified to be left home alone

with me and that Dad went around to every window

and every door and make sure the locks were working,

make sure everything was locked, you know,

to try to calm my mom's fear

and that he was very worried too.

Like, this was just unheard of, somebody to go on tour.

Just completely out of their knowledge

of the world or upbringing.

I think she would meet Etta in town in Memphis

to go to the Woolworth's and have a soda.

Etta always said they just had so much fun together.

When she went back for her post-partum check-up

at six weeks after giving birth to me,

the doctor told her she was pregnant with Kathy.

And Kathy was born ten months and 23 days after I was born.

I don't know if my mom was thrilled.

She probably was because she always said

she wanted six children.

Or feeling a little overwhelmed, like,

"How am I gonna deal with two babies?"

Not like a little kid and a baby, but two babies.

There's a legendary story in our family

about her weaning me off the bottle

before Kathy was born because she couldn't deal

with having two babies on the bottle.

And me, when Kathy was born, toddling into her room,

sticking my hand through the crib and stealing the bottle

out of Kathy's crib.

I was not ready to be weaned at 10 months.

- It's time for Country Style U.S.A,

and here's our star, Johnny Cash!

(audience cheering)

- And then all of a sudden,

here comes this huge, huge career.

- This feller's good looking, isn't he?

- Oh, he's handsome.

- And I imagine he sings pretty good too.

- [Host] So good that he's one of the biggest new stars

in country music today.

- He got big enough where he didn't have

to open for Elvis Presley.

(camera flashing)

- Everything started snowballing.

It all came pretty fast.

"I Walk the Line" went up the charts.

It was his first number one.

♪ I keep you on my mind both day and night ♪

- [Kathy] And that was his love song to mom.

♪ Because you're mine ♪

♪ I walk the line ♪

(audience applauding)

- We went everywhere as a family

unless Dad was on the road or rehearsing.

Everything was real tight, you know.

I remember being really, really happy in Memphis.

And family was around too.

We had uncles and aunts, my grandparents.

Grandma and Grandpa Cash had moved to Memphis by then.

We had a lot of family picnics

and Dad would end up chasing Mom with ice

to put down her shirt or shorts or whatever

and it always ended up with him picking her up like a baby.

A lot of great memories in Memphis.

I thought her name was Honey (chuckling)

because that's the only thing Dad called her.

That and Baby.

I thought Baby was a nickname and Honey was her name.

And when somebody called her Vivian,

I just sounded so weird to me.

They were always very affectionate.

- My mom said that people were making fun of them

five years after they were married

because they were still holding hands everywhere they went.

I just know they were very in love

in the beginning and for quite a long time.

- When Marshall and my dad would come off the road,

they would come to pick my mom and me and Kathy up

at Etta's house.

And my dad would pick me up and throw me over his shoulder

and Etta said that I would pat him on the back

like, already, I knew it was a hard life.

(film reel whirring) (light music)

So in 1958 we left Memphis,

moved to Encino, California in the valley of Los Angeles

and Cindy would have just been a month or two old maybe.

- I was six weeks old.

And Dad said he didn't wanna buy a crib

until we got to California 'cause he didn't want

to have to move it.

So I slept in a dresser drawer

and he called me his rockabilly baby.

(laughing)

- [Announcer] Who do you trust?

Here's the star of our show,

Johnny Carson. (audience applauding)

- And we bought Johnny Carson's house

on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino.

(camera shutter clicking) - There was this story

that Johnny's wife had left a pie in the oven for my mom.

I don't know if that's true,

but I heard that my whole childhood.

We had moved to California because my dad

had an offer to be in a film

and his manager, agent thought

that this was the next career move for my dad

to go into films.

Like Elvis, I guess.

And so the film he made was one called

"Five Minutes to Live"

which was later retitled "Door-to-Door Maniac".

You know, I don't think I've ever seen that film.

They certainly wouldn't have let us see it as children.

But that didn't really pan out.

My dad wasn't getting good films.

I don't think he was necessarily a good actor

but we stayed in Los Angeles.

(water splashing)

(light music)

(water splashing)

- Dad had this affection for animals

which was great, we all love animals

but he liked unusual animals

so we had a monkey named Homer,

a parrot named Jethro,

and an Irish Setter named Penny Cash.

(chuckling)

It was a lot of fun.

If you're a kid, it was a lot of fun.

I don't know how that was for Mom,

taking care of a monkey, a dog, a parrot and three kids

at the time, while he's on the road

but I'm sure it was overwhelming at times.

- He brought home animals all the time.

And Mom would say, "What did you do now?"

- I remember him bringing home a crate

of baby chicks one time and letting them out

in the living room

with my mother being furious about that.

(parrot squawking) - I think it was the parrot

that cried just like Cindy when she was a baby.

And so my mother would go running in there

and it would be the parrot crying. (chuckling)

I think she thought, "Well if we move to California,

"he'll be working and home every night

"if he's doing TV shows or a movie or whatever,"

but that wasn't the case.

He was doing luncheons with the executives

and then the TV shows and then the road

and he was promoting himself.

- It's so nice to be back on Town Hall.

It's been about seven months since we've been here.

And we've been doing a lot of work since then.

We've been to Australia, Tasmania,

New Zealand, Alaska, Piticollac Cove

Where's Piticollac Cove?

♪ You ask me if I'll miss her kisses ♪

♪ I guess I will every day ♪

♪ I don't like it but I guess things happen that way ♪

- She had a husband who was at this point very famous.

Traveling all the time,

no friends there.

In the beginning, no help.

I don't know that she made any close friends

the entire time that we lived in Hayvenhurst either.

I remember, I think, Aunt Sylvia visiting.

- On the corner from our house,

there was a bus stop there,

and she noticed a woman there every morning

in a uniform, like a housekeeping uniform.

And she said, "I was so desperate for help

"that I remember running to that bus stop

"crying, asking her if she had any extra time."

(somber music)

- I mean, it had to have been incredibly difficult.

It had to be hard.

But one of the most powerful memories I have

of living in that house is the day these television cameras

came to our house to film

this show called "Here's Hollywood".

And they interviewed my mom and dad

and then took pictures of them in the kitchen

and took pictures here and filmed the house.

And then I remember we children

had to go out in the backyard with a keeper

to keep us away while they talked to my mom and dad alone.

I remember resenting this so much.

That kind of celebrity intrusiveness.

I don't know.

Just the beginning of the Kardashian concept.

I could tell my mother hated it too.

I remember thinking that she became very false.

She disappeared behind this facade

and I remember thinking, "Where's Mom?

"What is that?"

(somber music)

(camera flashing)

She was not prepared for the level of notoriety

and public attention she got.

She somehow metabolized that as humiliation.

- You see how easy it is to keep a man happy?

- [Fred] They sure work hard, don't they, Barney?

- How's the missus?

- Just fine.

I think she's here tonight. - Is she here tonight?

We'll have some dinner after while.

(audience laughing)

- So my dad and mom became friends

with Curly and Carol Lewis.

And Curly was a contractor.

So he got it in his head

to build this house Curly was going to design

in Casitas Springs.

Now, Casitas Springs was halfway

between Ojai and Ventura.

And it was in this little,

it was this village, practically,

this tiny little stop in the road that you...

The road to Ojai went here.

If you just curved off and then back on the main road,

this was Casitas Springs.

It was just one road through it

with some poor houses.

You know, it was some lower-middle-class houses down here.

Well he was gonna build this house on this mountain

above this town.

Like this big house overlooking these very basic dwellings.

I mean, that in itself is so weird.

It didn't make sense.

The house was completely out of place.

So isolated, no amenities.

Crazy.

- I think they were both really excited about it.

They were gonna build their own house.

I mean, they were in their 20s?

Building their own house?

- Long, long, long, long driveway

leading up to the house.

A ravine on one side.

Dangerous.

Rattlesnakes everywhere.

- I remember my first memory is standing

in front of that house while it was being built

and I was standing next to my mother

and she was holding my hand

and her belly was out to here with Tara.

- Right before we were getting ready to move to Casitas,

Mom went into labor with Tara.

- My mom had epic stories about childbirth.

So much so that I was absolutely terrified

at the idea of giving birth.

Awful stories about my dad not being able to be in with her

and them giving her a washcloth to chew on.

Then them knocking her out right at the moment of birth

which is the most awful thing they used to do to women.

It's like, you go through labor

and work, and work, and work, and work

and right at the moment you're about to give birth

they knock you out.

And then you wake up in your room with some baby

and they go, "This is your baby." (laughing)

I just can't even imagine.

With Tara, you know, this story,

this awful childbirth story took on epic proportions.

- You know, my mom always used to say,

"They strapped me down and left the room,"

and it was horrid for her.

It was really bad.

- It was 16 hours and she always said,

"And it was a dry birth."

Never knew what that meant.

Like, the amniotic fluid that had broken earlier?

But that happens to almost everyone, you know?

I still don't know what that means

but she said it was so difficult

that immediately after giving birth,

she was crying and she turned to my dad and said,

"I don't want any more babies."

Poor Tara.

- Mom was in the hospital for three or four days.

We moved two weeks later to Casitas.

So here Mom's got four children

all under the age of six.

A brand new house to take care of

and they've just moved in.

And I believe Dad went on the road.

- Welcome back to Nashville too.

- Well, nice to be back with all our friends again.

Got a tour of the South.

- A tour of the whole South.

- Yes. - Wonderful.

- It didn't dawn on me then but much later, you know,

in my 30s, I started thinking,

"Why would he put us in such an isolated place

"when he was already on the road all the time?"

You know, he had this idea of his rustic hideaway castle

but he wasn't there that much.

- I remember when we moved in, the entire yard was dirt.

I remember her planting rose bushes.

She had a cactus garden eventually

but I don't know how she unpacked

and set up house all by herself.

It just seems like an impossible task for one person.

- It was scary for her.

Up on a mountain top in the middle of nowhere

with a bunch of rattlesnakes, scorpions and tarantulas.

- My mom was a really good shot.

Dad had taught her how to shoot

so she took care of more than one rattlesnake.

- I remember all of us standing behind my mother's skirt

while she shot a seven foot rattlesnake 15 times.

That was really scary

'cause that thing would not quit crawling

and it was spread out in front of our whole garage door

from one end to the other.

I know that's why she had live-in maids.

She didn't have live-in maids

'cause she wanted live-in maids.

She had 'em because she wanted another adult there.

- We had bobcats.

We had fans wanting to party on our front yard

hoping Dad would come out and listen to their songs.

- People would drive up there to find Johnny Cash.

Sometimes one o'clock in the morning.

And my mother was terrified.

I remember once, she went to the door.

Somebody was knocking on the door

and she looked out through the glass on the side

and said, "It's some old drunk," you know,

and she wouldn't open the door.

That happened all the time.

But he did stay away for long periods

and it was heartbreaking and it was really hard for my mom.

And then one day he came back and he wasn't him.

When he got on drugs.

Like, that is seared in my memory.

And he, before that, had always been so affectionate

and so present with me and I felt his love.

And he came in the house and he was gone.

(shutter clicks)

It's like, "Where's Dad?"

It was traumatic.

- I don't remember anything bad.

My mom just kept us protected from all that.

I didn't even know my dad was famous.

I saw him on a show called "The Rebel"

and he gets killed, a guy hits him over the head

with a whiskey bottle and kills him.

I thought it was real and he was dead

and I was hysterical.

I was four.

My mom said she had to call all over the place

to get my dad on the phone

to make me realize he wasn't dead.

- I think after I was born, things got really difficult

between my mom and dad.

He was on drugs a lot and so when he would come home,

it would be a week or two later

than he said he was gonna be.

- I remember her letting me stay up and wait for my dad

to come home one night.

There was a window, you could look down the long driveway

and you could see the bottom where the road

came up to our house.

So if you saw a car come onto the Casitas road,

that could be Dad.

If you saw a car come onto the Casitas road

and turn into our driveway, that was Dad.

So a few came onto the Casitas road

and we got excited every time

but it never turned.

Never turned.

I think she sent me to bed at one or two in the morning

and he hadn't come.

But then the next day he came

and of course then they fought

because she used that against him.

"I let Rosanne stay up, you never came."

(sighs)

- When they built the house, they loved to have barbecues

so they built this barbecue pit.

- [Rosanne] Yeah, my mom was a wonderful hostess.

Generous, laughing,

very social.

- Dad was good at bringing home animals.

Just random animals.

So he brought home a little black goat one time.

And we thought that was our pet so it was Billy, the goat

and it stayed in the backyard.

We played with it for about a month

and all of a sudden, all we got to hearing about

was this barbecue and who was invited.

And come to find out, this was Billy's barbecue.

I was furious.

This was a pet I played with.

Well, Dad was from the country

and you know, you didn't get attached to barbecue.

So Tex Ritter came, I remember him.

I remember Patsy Cline being there.

I remember June Carter being there.

I remember my mom and my grandmother being kind of upset

after it was over and the next day or something,

I remember my grandmother warning Mom

about her a little bit.

(light music)

- [Johnny] Thank you very much.

Nice to be back in Hollywood.

- So my dad was playing the Hollywood Bowl.

1963 so I would have been eight years old.

June was on the show.

- We had not seen Dad in a while

and so we got all dressed up.

- My mom was wearing a white coat.

We went backstage after the show

and I felt very awkward.

Even though it was my dad,

he felt very separate at this point.

And June was rude to my mother.

She said something like, you know,

"Is that dirt on your coat, Vivian?"

I don't know, there was this friction between them.

- I was standing there with my mom and grandma Cash

and sisters and I remember June sliding in the back seat

of the limo with Dad and waving at us and saying,

"Bye girls, bye Vivian."

And I remember thinking, "That was odd."

- It seemed kind of clear to me

in this unconscious way, but I felt it very clearly

that my dad had moved off.

That we were separate.

(dramatic music)

- Dad had left a long time ago in his head

and I think he just...

He was trying to figure out how to manage leaving for good

because he just kept going longer and longer

without coming home.

And I remember a whole year that he didn't come home.

- I don't remember my dad being gone for a year.

I mean, I'm sure it seemed like a year

but he would not have stayed away for a year

and sometimes he would disappear at the end of a tour

and nobody knew where he was

but eventually he always checked in and came home.

But then he and my mom would fight

the whole time he was home

so he wouldn't wanna come home and fight.

- I know they were so different, you know.

My mother was, she wasn't a real quiet little thing.

If she was mad you knew it.

And Dad could not stand conflict.

Arguing.

- I remember our birthdays came and went.

And Mom and Dad's anniversary came and went.

And I remember Christmas came and went.

And he showed up sometime after Christmas.

I remember being furious with him

and wondering, you know, just kept saying,

"Where have you been?"

- Seems like I remember Dad sleeping in the guest house.

One time I remember he came home

and he had a suitcase full of money.

He had been paid in cash for an entire tour

and he and my mom laid the money out on their bed

and I remember my parents being very serious

and getting along.

It was very odd.

They were getting along

because they were counting their money together.

(laughing)

Oh my god.

- I don't get to see you very often.

Every time I see you, I enjoy your work very much.

- Thank you.

Proud to be with you.

- You're looking well.

- I'm feeling fine.

- It was dire.

He was on drugs, he was 130, 40 pounds, six feet two.

There was just something horribly wrong

but nobody told us what it was.

(light music) (bowling ball rolling)

(bowling pins clattering)

My mom disappeared into her rage about my dad being gone.

And then about him being with June and her knowing it.

And into her fear that she was gonna lose him

and anxiety and her resentment.

- Well, Mom weighed 95, 97 pounds the whole time I was a kid

so when she got upset, she lost even more weight.

She just didn't eat.

She cried a lot and she didn't sleep much

and you know, she was smoking herself to death.

I mean, she didn't even know how to find him

to talk to him about it. (audience applauding)

- There were many times, if I would like have a nightmare

or wake up in the middle of the night for some reason,

and go into my mom's room, she wouldn't be in there

and I would go into the den and all the lights would be off

except for one little reading lamp over her chair

and she would be on the phone with my Aunt Sylvia,

her sister, crying.

That's the only thing I remember.

I think she was just doing the best that she could

but probably crumbling inside at the same time.

But I think she was super, super strong.

- I know she was a very strong woman, always,

and so she just, she just did the best she could.

- My sisters would tend to protect her

and to hold a very particular picture of my mom.

And also, I experienced the brunt of a lot of it.

I mean, honestly, I would come home from school

with the most intense knot in my stomach

wondering if my mom was gonna be alive.

And I remember if the dry cleaning was there

or the carpets had been cleaned

and like, she had, there was the paper on the carpets

to walk on while it was still drying,

I remember feeling this sense of relief, like,

"Well, if she got the carpets cleaned,

"she's not gonna kill herself right now."

I had this knot in my stomach every day of my childhood.

Every single day.

She was enraged, she was frightened, she was anxious.

She was grief stricken.

Had violent outbursts.

Never knew when that was gonna happen.

There was a sense of a lack of safety in my house

and chaos.

So no parenting and this constant fear

that one of 'em was gonna die.

I'm not saying this out of self pity, you know,

I'm saying it looking back from decades on and going,

"That was fucked up."

Like, that's not how children should be raised.

(film reel whirring)

So I did take on a more adult role with the kids,

my sisters, and acted like little mother.

They called me Little Mother.

I was always mothering them.

Particularly Tara.

And Kathy.

I was always very protective of Kathy.

When we were in Casitas,

we went to Academy of Saint Catherine,

we took the bus there

and I was so worried about Kathy

the whole time I was in class for the first few months.

And Kathy didn't do well.

She did not wanna be away from my mom.

You know, and then there came this point

where Kathy almost died.

And she got a bacterial disease

and it was impossible to diagnose

and they sent her blood around the country

trying to diagnose her.

She had this fever of like 106 or something.

She was in the isolation ward of the hospital.

And my dad came home.

That got him home.

- It took her two or three days

to even get a message to him.

The only way she knew to get a hold of him

was to call someone in the band

or someone that, you know, she thought he was working with.

- There was still an element

of resentment of my dad in that.

Like, "This is what it takes to get you home?"

And they packed Kathy in ice to bring her fever down

and it was just horrific.

They sent me to my grandma and grandpa Cash's

who lived not far down the road.

I remember sitting in the bathtub

at my grandparent's house praying with all my might

that Kathy wouldn't die.

And I always felt guilty about it too.

I was constitutionally stronger than Kathy

and I thought maybe I,

it was because she was born so soon after I was.

Maybe I took everything good from my mom

and Kathy didn't get it.

I don't know.

I had guilt about that.

(piano riffing) - I found out

about three years ago

that during that year, he was living in Soho

or The Village or something with Bob Dylan,

hanging out with Bob Dylan.

Thanks!

(laughing)

(suspenseful music)

(cameras flashing)

Dad got arrested in El Paso.

He had gone to Mexico to buy amphetamines

and I guess barbiturates, I don't know.

He got arrested with pills in his guitar case.

(plane engine humming) So Mom went to El Paso

to the courthouse with him.

(cameras flashing)

Coming out of the courthouse,

somebody that works for the newspaper took a photo

and Mom had on all black, her hair is all black,

and she turned out darker than Dad.

- [Rosanne] There was this rumor that my mother was black

and then that my father had married a black woman.

And in the south in the 60s,

that was just, it was beyond, you know,

that just didn't happen.

(camera flashing) It was kind of a big deal

at the time.

(suspenseful music)

- She didn't talk about that very much to me.

And I think it was a very painful experience for her.

There was a lot of negativity around it.

And it was portrayed as a very negative thing

and the KKK was out to get my father

and prove that he was married to a black woman.

- I remember Mom getting something in the mail

at the post office in Casitas that really shook her up.

I remember it was a really dark time.

Just everything was dark.

(somber music)

- And it actually scared her a lot

and she projected a lot of that fear on the kids as well.

You know, it's like she didn't want us

to play too far away from the house, or.

- She was scared to death the KKK was coming for her

and that Dad would be on the road

and she had no idea what to do.

Everyone knew where we lived.

I mean, people showed up from all over the United States

in our front yard.

- We, I mean, what, they were gonna kill us?

She said, "Yes."

She said, "I was afraid to let you girls outta my sight."

We also found all the letters that people had

to write, proving she was Caucasian

so that he could be booked in the South again.

Yes.

(typewriter keys clacking)

(typewriter bell dinging) (suspenseful music)

(pen scratching)

(typewriter keys clacking)

(typewriter bell dinging)

They had to go to court to prove it

'cause they had canceled every concert.

- I remember being in the back seat of the car,

driving to court and my mom was in the front seat

and she just had this running commentary

just, at my dad.

"Look at all those people looking at us.

"How does that make you feel with kids in the car?"

She almost couldn't process it.

It played into her very deepest wounds

that were already there from childhood.

So it made it doubly difficult.

(ominous music)

- Mom didn't sleep.

She stood in this big picture window we had

in our living room that overlooked the front yard

and the driveway and she would stand in the dark

in that window where she could look out

but they couldn't see in.

And she always had a cup of coffee and her cigarettes

and the gun was real close by.

And she was standing guard while we were in bed asleep.

She didn't sleep much for many years.

It was really, it really took a toll on her.

- You know, it was inappropriate for her to tell me this

but she said, "Doctor Hall," who was our family physician,

"Told me that if I didn't get myself together,

"somebody else was gonna be raising my kids."

And she said, "And that's when I tried

"to start turning things around

"and not being suicidal and so distracted."

- So she filed for divorce thinking it might shock him

into coming home.

She actually did that thinking he would come

to his senses and come home.

And it backfired on her.

She filed for divorce and he let it go through.

- I remember going in, I remember the room we went into

and everything, and I remember her saying,

"I have something I need to tell you."

And I said, "What?"

- She set Rosanne and I down and told us

that she had filed for a divorce and I said,

"Well, what does that mean?"

And she said, "Well, the only thing

"that's gonna be different is your daddy's clothes

"won't be in the closet."

- I said, "Oh, okay, well that's okay.

"I don't care about his clothes."

You know?

- I think my older sisters have more clear memories

of how it actually was happening

but I was probably outside playing

and making up songs and not really aware

of the tragedy that was unfolding

between my parents' marriage and my dad's drug addiction.

Dad was always gone on the road anyway,

so it didn't really change things for us.

- I don't have a clear memory of my mom telling us

about getting the divorce.

I have a vague memory of it.

The main memory I have is relief

that they were gonna get divorced.

I remember thinking, even at 12, you know,

(sighs) "Maybe both of them will be happy now."

Divorce isn't always bad.

- Well, when he first moved out,

he moved in with Waylon in an apartment

in Madison, Tennessee

and Waylon had a $1000 a day cocaine habit

and Dad was popping pills and there was no way

in hell my mother was gonna let us come and stay

with him in that apartment.

So Dad got in his car, started driving around

and he came upon the house on the lake

and just the frame was up.

And he parked the car and got out and said,

"Who's in charge here?"

And they said, "Braxton Dixon" and Dad walked over to him

and he said, "I want this house."

And Braxton said, "I'm building it for my family,"

and he said, "I'll give you double."

So Dad bought it and called my mom

and she said, "When the house is finished being built,

"they can come."

(light music)

- My grandparents, my aunt, my uncle,

everybody in Mom's family found out

about the divorce by reading it in the paper.

- I know she left town when it came out in the paper.

She took us girls and we went somewhere

because my mother was very private and had, I think,

some shame around the experience of having to go

through the divorce.

And I also think it was really a very sad, sad time for her.

So that's how she dealt with it.

- By then, the Lewises had moved to Oregon.

She took us to Oregon to visit them.

Just the four of us girls and we would do things like that

but you could tell she was just really sad.

Her heart was broken.

- Her father was still alive.

It just was not acceptable.

It was a mortal sin.

You would go to hell.

I remember her fearing her father's judgment a lot.

And she got it.

And yet she stayed Catholic.

She went to Mass every Sunday.

She sat in the front row.

She worked at the church with the Ladies' Guild.

She did bake sales, she did all kinds of stuff.

Involved herself in the church.

She made friends with the priests and nuns.

But she couldn't take communion

because she was divorced and she was excommunicated.

Divorce was cause for excommunication then.

And that's when I wanted to leave the Catholic Church.

I thought, "You have this woman who is devout,

"who buys into everything you're selling.

"You know, she's buying everything

"and showing up in every possible way

"and you won't let her receive communion?

"That's just wrong."

- So my dad, knowing how much her Catholicism meant to her,

wrote a letter to the archdiocese and said,

"This divorce happened all because of me

"and it's not her fault."

And they pardoned her

and she was able to receive communion again.

- You know, you got a choice,

you can either keep going or lay down and die

and she just kept going.

And, uh...

I don't know.

I don't know how she did it.

She just did.

- Well again, from a six or seven year old standpoint,

you know, we're looking for new houses

and we're looking at really awesome houses

and I remember some of them very well

but then when we found our house

with the indoor swimming pool and the view.

That was pretty exciting.

(electric camera whirring)

This house was a new, fresh start in a better location,

more people around and it just felt really good.

You know, sad that we're moving because there's a divorce

but my mother remarried really quickly after.

- My dad was doing a benefit

for the Boys' Club in Ventura

and Dick was one of the police officers signed

for security and she met him then.

And then as my parents' split became real,

she gravitated to Dick.

There was safety there.

Dick was married.

He left his wife and they got married very shortly

after my parents' divorce was final.

- I wasn't real thrilled about the remarrying part

because I wasn't crazy about him, to be honest.

And my mother said, all she kept thinking about

is that she knew Dad was gonna marry June

and she needed to get remarried before he married June.

I don't know why she felt that way.

I never understood that.

And I never understood why she chose who she chose.

It's still a mystery to me.

- But it was an unspoken bargain

because my mom could not be alone.

She had to be married.

Dick knew what he was buying into.

That there were gonna be a lot of perks.

He got sports cars and toys

and could do what he want.

He became a private detective for a short time,

then a travel agent, then you know,

and then eventually retired from everything.

And my mom really ran the show.

She ran everything.

And he just bought into it.

It was a bargain.

- I think she was happy as she could be.

She joined the garden club, she joined a bowling league.

- She would go to line dancing

and she would go to some country-western bar

with my stepfather and they would dance.

I remember her always saying,

"You girls should learn how to dance.

"You really should learn how to dance."

And I remember thinking, "Why is that so important?"

(laughing)

But she loved it.

She really did.

- She created a life that made sense for herself.

And that was very beautiful.

It really served her.

Her friends, her domestic skills, her paintings,

her making of her own stationary.

All of those things were beautiful

and kind of spread out from, I think, who she really was.

- Every time there was an event.

"Oh, I'll have it."

You know, she always had the parties

and the get-togethers and the baby showers

and the, you know.

Mom's whole key to everything was staying very busy.

She told me a few times, "If I stay busy, I don't think."

And I thought, "But sometimes you need to think."

You know, think things through and she said,

"No, I don't, I don't.

"I just do better if I don't think about certain things."

(upbeat music) (audience applauding)

- [Johnny] I thank you very much.

- After their divorce, they saw her as nothing.

As the woman he had to leave in order to be saved.

In order to be rehabilitated, you know,

and move into this great mythic love story with June.

- My wife, June Carter.

(audience applauding) Hi, honey.

How are you doing?

- And the myth was huge.

June was the one who saved him from drugs.

The Johnny and June show was very big, you know,

it was, like I said, it was mythic.

So my mother faded into a kind of negative obscurity.

(typewriter keys clacking) (light music)

(typewriter bell dinging)

(typewriter keys clacking)

(typewriter bell dinging)

(typewriter keys clacking)

(camera flashing)

- I wanna introduce to you, the man in my life,

as husband, lover and the father of the children,

seven of them, by the way.

When June would be on an interview with Dad,

she would say we have seven kids and I'm tired

and things like that.

We were only spending the summers and a week at Christmas

with Dad and June, so that would really hurt Mom

because she was raising all four of us by herself.

- When I was like 21, I was a tour guide in Dad's museum.

Do you know what was the biggest question I got asked

about my mother?

"How long has your real mother been dead?"

- I had a, I had...

I'm covered up with daughters,

I have six daughters, you see.

He had four daughters and that gave me six daughters

and then we had a little boy, and that gave us seven

and I'm tired.

(laughing)

- [Tara] I think, you know, it was just really difficult

for her to have my father's new wife

claiming her kids.

- She had no voice.

She had no way to communicate to the public.

And she'd always say, "I'm gonna write a book one day,

"you just wait." (chuckling)

- Tara, where are you, baby? - You know, June

had the platform of the public eye and being able

to say, you know, "These are our kids."

And my mother didn't have that platform.

And she was doing so much work raising us

that she didn't feel that people were seeing her

and that was important to her to feel seen.

And for people to recognize her role.

- I also found a letter she wrote to him

after she died that she never mailed

and it was like, "Dear Johnny, I have never, ever

"asked you for one thing since we've been divorced.

"We've been divorced now,"

I think they'd been divorced 15 years,

"But I have one thing that I feel very strongly about

"and I have a favor to ask you.

"Will you please ask your wife

"to stop calling my daughters her children?"

(sighs)

(sniffles)

"You know how much they mean to me.

"I would think you could at least give me this much."

It's really sad.

It really broke her heart that he allowed that.

It was just, it was really,

when I found that letter, I thought,

"Why didn't she mail this?"

I wish she woulda mailed it.

'Cause he probably woulda done it.

He probably woulda asked her not to do it.

(film projector whirring)

- It may have been what happened in Casitas

that led to her wanting to have alarms on everything.

Her house eventually became

like living in an emergency room.

She had bells attached to everything.

To drawers that opened, to the front door,

to the door to the laundry room,

to the garage door, to her washer-dryer,

to her dishwasher.

There were bells going off in her house all the time.

I remember being so exhausted every time I came

to my mother's house, I'd have to go in the other room

and just close my eyes

and she would gasp at everything, you know.

If the bell went off, that someone had come up the driveway,

"(gasps) Who's that?"

It was constant.

And she had the TV, the radio going all the time,

sometimes at the same time.

- Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter, Rosanne Cash.

(audience applauding)

- She was proud of me but she was also suspicious.

She had seen what a life of fame and traveling

and you know, what the music industry was like

and what happened to my dad.

And so she thought that you become a musician

and you get divorced and you get on drugs

and you leave your kids.

- Aren't you out running around on the road all the time?

- Well, I mean, I go out and I come back a little bit

or I take them with me.

I'm a full time mother.

No, I wasn't gonna abandon my children.

I wasn't gonna become a drug addict.

I wasn't, well, I did get divorced, but it was,

you know, it wasn't out of that kind of acrimony.

And she would say, "You're just like your dad.

"You're just like your dad."

And it wasn't with any affection, believe me.

She was tough, you know.

It was hard to get her unmitigated approval about things.

"Why did you wear white shoes with a black suit?"

And, "What are you gonna do about your hair?"

And, "Why don't you start wearing makeup properly?"

You know?

All of those things were so important to her.

- That's right.

Now, let's talk about your hair.

(audience laughing)

This is a beautiful photograph.

You're a lovely woman, I don't need to tell you that.

- I remember the first time I was

on the David Letterman show, it was on my 30th birthday

and I thought I did really well.

And I was proud of myself and I thought to myself,

"I'm gonna call and get my mother's approval for once."

Like, just straight on, not held back approval.

And I called up, I said, "Did you see me?"

And she said, "Who was that person?

"I didn't even recognize that person."

(dial tone humming) I was shocked.

You know, my mom could be really funny too.

Like unintentionally funny.

I remember we went to see "Broadcast News" together

and there was this scene when Holly Hunter goes

into the room with Albert Brooks

and he reveals that he's actually in love with her

and it's this very intense scene

and like at the height of the intensity,

my mom turned to me and said,

"Where's her purse?"

(light music)

Hey, I noticed since I brought the camera out,

mom disappeared.

Oh, here she comes.

- And introducing,

Vivian Distin.

She didn't laugh as easy as she used to, you know.

She took herself too seriously sometimes

but you had to lighten her up

and she'd get to giggling.

- She was a very, very vibrant woman

but I could see the pain.

But then I brought it up to her,

and she just kinda got closed-mouthed about it

and just wouldn't wanna talk about it, you know.

Which is her way of saying, "That's too painful.

"I'm not going there."

- I'm not here to pry into your personal life.

- My personal life is an open book.

- [Columbo] Yes, sir.

- I remember it was no problem for her

to turn the TV on and watch his shows.

Which always was a little odd to me.

It was a little strange to me.

Like, she's okay with still embracing him in our lives

and as the years went on, I realized

that she still carried a very big torch for him

and always loved him.

- It was very obvious.

She died still loving him with all her heart.

- She just said she had never loved anybody

like she loved him and she had never gotten over him.

- No, my mom never fell out of love with my dad.

I remember as a teenager, walking into the bathroom one day

and said, "You're still in love with Dad, aren't you?"

And she would not look at me and would not answer me.

- She loved him til the day she died.

And Dick always knew that too which was interesting.

He was always the specter,

my dad was the specter in their marriage.

We weren't a family where you disappeared.

You stayed connected even though some of it

was destructive or hard, we stayed connected.

(camera flashing) (light music)

- You know, I have to say,

my mother was a better grandmother than she was mother.

And she became a good mother later on,

particularly to Tara.

And she loved us fiercely and would defend us against anyone

but she really came to life with her grandchildren.

(light music)

- She had an 800 number so they would call her all the time.

And it was 1-800-O-VIVIAN.

'Cause back then, you had to pay

for long distance phone calls.

And none of her grandchildren ever had any money, so.

(chuckling)

- When my husband and I moved back to Ojai, California,

my mom was living in Ventura,

which is only like 20 minutes away

so we got to see her a lot

and so she watched my kids when we went

out on a date or something.

And she spoiled them.

She loved them to death.

And I think she would have loved to have all

of her grandkids around all the time

because she just really enjoyed being a grandmother.

- [Man] Who are you talking to?

- Grandma.

- I went to her 50th class reunion

and I knew it was a big deal

and so I met her in San Antonio.

There was this lunch for all the ladies

who were, at this time, 68 years old.

And so all of the women went around the table

and told about their lives and every woman said

how long she'd been married and how many kids she had.

So it came to my mom, and she said,

"I've been married,"

and then she gave the total, whatever it was,

of both husbands, but then she admitted,

"Well then, that's two husbands."

(chuckling)

Because it was a Catholic school, you know.

They didn't believe in divorce.

I felt bad for her.

(light music)

(pen scratching)

When she was writing her book late in life,

she said, "There are things you kids don't even know.

"That's why I wanna write the book."

And I said, "Why would you tell us that way?

"Why don't you tell us instead of writing a book

"about the things you want us to know?"

She had no answer for that.

- Going through all the memories as she was writing it,

it was very cathartic for her.

She said it was her therapy.

That she had never shared any of these things

with anyone because she felt like that

would have been betraying Dad or betraying their marriage.

So she actually went to Tennessee to get Dad's permission

to even publish the book.

(light music)

June passed on May 15th,

so Dad had been alone a couple of months

and Dad was in a wheelchair at that point.

And I pushed him out into the bedroom to see Mom.

It was cute.

She blushed and hugged him

and he kinda grinned and blushed a little bit

and they made small talk and then it ended up

being a really good conversation.

They had about an hour and a half talk

and Mom asked him how he felt about her publishing a book.

That she had worked on one and had told her story

and he said, "Well, of all the people on the planet

"that should tell their story, Vivian,

"I think it should be you."

That thrilled her

and made her feel really good to know

that he was okay with that.

- She was always elated if she had some time

to spend with my dad.

She just really enjoyed being with him

and seeing him.

He meant a lot to her.

- Rosanne was the only one not there.

And we have a picture of Mom, Dad, Kathy, Tara and me

and I hate Rosanne wasn't there

'cause it would have been our family again.

(light music)

- These were Mom's skates that she was wearing

when she met Dad.

She kept anything and everything

that had a memory attached that had to do with Dad.

- There was this giant, red suitcase in our house

and I remember her opening it a couple of times

and just being overwhelmed

by how many letters there were in there.

She saved every one of 'em.

And so she had 'em in chronological order.

She could read, you know, their responses to one another

and it was really quite something that

she saved all of those.

(light music)

- Johnny Cash is dead at the age of 71.

- [Reporter] While fans mourn, the son and daughter

of Johnny Cash prepare to send their father into the ages.

- While you probably may not be able to see it,

the flag is at half staff here

at the Country Music - We'll talk about the

- Hall of Fame. - Greatness of Johnny Cash.

- Some generations of country listeners

are indeed mourning his death today.

- [Reporter] It's a sad night overall in Music City.

- Mom called me every morning after Dad died.

The first time she called, she said,

"Even though I didn't see him or talk to him very often,

"just knowing he was on the planet was enough.

"But now that he's not, I don't know if I wanna be here."

- [Tara] To experience such a loss like that

and have the whole world see it,

i think that was really hard for her.

Really, really hard.

- A couple of months after Dad died,

and enormous memorial tribute was planned for the Ryman.

Everybody was there, from Tim Robbins, Sheryl Crow,

Willie Nelson, just an enormous line up.

(audience applauding) Mom wrote in her book

that people of the Nashville mind-set

preferred that she be written out of Dad's history

and that was pretty clear that day.

- [Announcer] He was a husband to his beloved June,

he was a father to a flock of children.

- Your mom also, Miss June Carter Cash

made me proud to be an American.

- They married with six beautiful daughters between 'em.

John's battles with his demons

would have ended a lesser love story.

- Mom sat through all of that.

I don't really know how she did it.

(audience applauding)

- Please welcome Rodney Crowell.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

I wanna send this song to Vivian Distin.

Blessed Vivian, the grandmother of my daughters

and a woman I admire very much.

(suspenseful music)

- [Ann] It's not okay if they move forward

with the movie and just, if what they produce

is anything like that script, you know,

it's gonna be devastating.

You know, devastating to Vivian.

I mean, that's just not fair.

She's been through too much.

(ominous music)

- She hadn't been feeling good for three or four months.

She was having trouble breathing

and she said, "I keep dreaming about your dad.

"He's sitting in a chair in my bedroom

"and he just keeps going like this."

- (sighs) Well, my mom was diagnosed

with lung cancer the day before her birthday.

Her 71st birthday.

But it was treatable.

So I flew out and I went to her first consultation

after the diagnosis with the surgeon.

He was showing her the slides

and showing her what it was and where it was

and the kind it was.

- Then the doctor said, "I've done 3,500 of these surgeries.

"Never lost a patient.

"It's the easiest lung cancer to have.

"It's contained, it's just one little spot.

"We'll take it out, no big deal."

- So we all felt pretty calm that it was treatable.

- We decided as a family to take turns

to go one at a time to be with her

and I volunteered to be the first person to go.

So she went in the hospital, I don't know,

around May 19th.

- All of a sudden we get a call.

"Everything went great.

"Your mom's doing great.

"It was very small, we got it.

"She'll be going home tomorrow."

- Then I went in to see her and she didn't look good.

I thought, "Something's not right."

She was very, very bloated.

- Two hours later the phone rings.

"You need to get on a plane."

- She had edema that kept getting worse.

She had swelling, her lungs were filling with fluid

and they were going to have to put her

in an induced coma in order to treat her and bring it down.

- When I left, she was in ICU and I kissed her

and she said, "One more," as I was walking away

and I said, "One more what?"

And she said, "Kiss."

And so I went back and I kissed her on the forehead.

- Then they put her in a coma.

So I'm staying in touch with the nurse.

Calling, you know, a couple times a day

to find out how it's going.

On about the 21st, he said,

"She's just not doing well."

And I said, like I didn't know how serious it was,

I said, "Should I come out there?"

He said, "If it was my mom, I'd come out."

And so I went out there on the 21st.

22nd we really knew she was gonna die.

And my birthday is May 24th

and I thought, "She can't die on my birthday.

"She just can't do it."

And then she died on my birthday.

(somber music)

I was in the room when she died.

And I was standing at the foot of the bed.

And I saw her

leave her body.

And I saw her

become a child.

She was only about four or five years old

and she started laughing.

She was so happy.

And it was a comfort, you know.

Like, wow.

She's really free.

Like all of that torment she suffered

from losing my dad, from the various humiliations she had

and grief, just grief,

and the resentment, all of it, you know.

It's like, phew, man, taking off a suit of armor

and becoming a child again.

You know, and then we found out later

it was a medical error.

She shouldn't have died.

They had given her too much fluid in the operating room.

Too much intravenous fluid.

- I was in shock.

I really was.

I think I really went into shock.

I remember getting really upset about something

and Rosanne took me outside and said,

"Cindy, you need to calm down."

And I said, "It's my mother!

"I can't lose my mother."

- [Photographer] Joaquin, up top please.

- And then the movie about my dad came out

later that year in the fall and I thought,

"Damn, she wanted to get out before that movie came out.

"She couldn't have taken it."

It just would have killed her,

that kind of notoriety and...

Well, it did kill her.

She wanted to leave before it came out.

I knew that.

And, you know, kindly, they showed us the film

before it came out and then I left for Paris.

It's like, I don't wanna be around for this.

- Unfortunately the book didn't get any press.

Most anyone I've talked to never even knew she wrote it.

And that's really sad to me.

I wish that we could do something and make her come to life.

And you guys doing this is just,

it makes me so happy.

- I have a lot of cherished memories with my mom.

- You know, she was a great friend.

She loved fiercely.

She was very disciplined.

I got a ton of my discipline from her.

She was tenacious and she was creative.

- She did a little bit of everything.

Anything that was creative, she tried it or did it.

You know, as long as she was doing something

where she felt useful, that was important to her.

- She was an amazing woman

with so many talents and such a thirst for life.

And you know,

I think that's what pulled her through

all of the hard things that she had to go through.

- I don't think the music had anything

to do with it, really.

I think the fast life and pace in California,

when we moved to California,

all the problems really started, and...

I think everybody's aware of what problems.

The pills and from there

it was downhill.

But the first few years, we had a very good relationship.

And I'm happy about that because all the children

hopefully have some good memories.

(chuckling)

(light music)

(suspenseful music)