47 Fun Facts About June Carter Cash

In which state was June Carter born, at Maces Spring, in 1929?

Virginia. Two months after June died in 2003, Johnny Cash gave his last public performance in her home valley, at the Carter Family Fold on the old family homestead.

Which first name did June Carter Cash set aside to go by her middle name?

Valerie. She was Valerie June Carter at birth and plain June Carter on stage, adding Cash only in 1968, five years after 'Ring of Fire' had made her name as a songwriter.

In which city did the original Carter Family first record for Ralph Peer in August 1927?

Bristol, Tennessee. Jimmie Rodgers turned up to audition in the same fortnight, and the sessions that launched both acts are now called the 'Big Bang' of country music.

June Carter's family opened shows in the mid-1950s for which rising star?

Elvis Presley. The Carters opened for him just as he was breaking nationally, and June went back out on his tours between her acting classes in New York.

Which instrument did June play in the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle?

Autoharp. June said hers was the weakest voice in a family of harmony singers, so she strummed along, covered her bad notes with jokes and became the act's comedian.

What was the name of June Carter's signature comic character in the family act?

Aunt Polly. June sang comic numbers in a broad hillbilly accent and broke into a clattering dance, and the routine became the highlight of the family's road shows.

Which future Nashville guitar star played lead for the Carter Sisters and joined the Grand Ole Opry with them in 1950?

Chet Atkins. Hired in Knoxville as the sisters' lead guitarist, he stayed on after the move, took charge of RCA's Nashville studios and shaped the smooth Nashville Sound.

At ten, June began singing with her family on XERA, a 'border radio' station that beamed its signal from which country?

Mexico. XERA served Del Rio, Texas, but its transmitter stood just across the border to escape US regulations, so the Carters could be heard across the United States and into Canada.

Which famous film director saw June perform at the Grand Ole Opry and urged her to study acting?

Elia Kazan. June took his advice and moved to New York with her baby daughter, travelling back to Nashville every weekend to keep her place on the Opry.

June studied acting in New York with Sanford Meisner and which famous Method teacher?

Lee Strasberg. The training won June television parts, but in the early 1960s she set acting aside to join Johnny Cash's road show.

In which Robert Duvall film did June play 'Momma' Dewey?

The Apostle. Studios turned the script down, so Duvall paid the $5 million budget himself and cast June as his preacher's devout mother.

On which 1990s TV drama did June play Sister Ruth, wife of Johnny Cash's character Kid Cole?

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman brought the Cashes close to its director James Keach, then married to star Jane Seymour, and Johnny later asked him to film his life story, which became Walk the Line.

'Ring of Fire' was co-written by June Carter and which songwriter?

Merle Kilgore. He was best man when June married Johnny Cash, and in 2004 he was happy to license the song for a hemorrhoid-cream advert until her family refused.

Which relative of June's recorded 'Ring of Fire' before Johnny Cash did?

Her sister Anita. June offered her the song for a solo album, but that version was little heard, and Johnny Cash's remake months later topped the country chart for seven weeks.

Johnny Cash said a dream told him to add which sound to 'Ring of Fire'?

Mariachi horns. Trumpets were a sharp break from Cash's spare, rhythm-driven sound, yet the arrangement became the song's signature and carried it to number one on the country chart.

Who claimed Cash gave June half the 'Ring of Fire' credit because 'she needs the money'?

Vivian Liberto, his first wife. In a memoir published after her death she wrote that Cash told her he had written the song on a fishing trip, while June always described writing it herself.

June's first notable studio duet with Johnny Cash, in 1964, was on which Bob Dylan song?

It Ain't Me Babe. Cash and Dylan were open admirers of each other's work, and with Dylan's blessing the duet carried his kiss-off song into the country top five.

Jerry Leiber, co-writer of 'Hound Dog', helped write which June and Johnny duet under his wife's name?

Jackson. Billy Edd Wheeler drew its sparring couple from the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Leiber told him to scrap his opening verses and start with the last one.

June and Johnny won their first Grammy one day before which event in 1968?

Their wedding. June had insisted Cash give up pills before she would marry him; he got clean, and the Grammy for their duet came the day before the ceremony.

June and Johnny won a second duet Grammy in 1971 for their version of which Tim Hardin song?

If I Were a Carpenter. Tim Hardin wrote it as one man's plea to a lady, but the Cashes traded its lines as a back-and-forth between husband and wife, and that carried the song onto the pop chart too.

What was the title of June and Johnny's first co-billed album of duets, released in 1967?

Carryin' On. Cash proposed to June on stage early the following year, and they married seven months after the album came out.

June was a regular on The Johnny Cash Show, which ABC taped in which Nashville landmark?

Ryman Auditorium. The old tabernacle was then the home of the Grand Ole Opry, and it was backstage there in 1956 that Johnny had first met June.

What was the title of June's first solo album, released in 1975?

Appalachian Pride. Johnny produced it, but June then put his career first and did not release another solo album for 24 years.

June won a posthumous Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for which Carter Family standard?

Keep on the Sunny Side. Her mother's trio recorded their signature song the year before June was born, and she chose it to open the last album she made.

Who produced June's final album, Wildwood Flower?

Her son John Carter Cash. He had also produced her comeback album Press On, and he later wrote the memoir of his mother that became the television film Ring of Fire.

One of June's last appearances was a silent role in the video for which 2003 Johnny Cash single?

Hurt. The video was shot in the lakeside house the Cashes had shared since 1968, and four years later it burned down while being renovated for a new owner, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.

June's first husband, whom she married in 1952, was which country singer?

Carl Smith. He was one of the biggest country hitmakers of the 1950s, yet he later gave up touring and recording altogether to breed horses on his Tennessee farm.

June's daughter from her first marriage became a country star under what name?

Carlene Carter. She took her mother's maiden name on stage, married the English rocker Nick Lowe, and in the 1980s joined June and her aunts in a revived Carter Family.

June and Johnny Cash often appeared on stage with which evangelist, a close family friend?

Billy Graham. The Cashes sang at his crusades for many years, and in 1974 his organisation's film company took over the distribution of their film about the life of Jesus.

Where did Johnny Cash propose to June, on stage, in 1968?

London, Ontario's London Gardens arena was where Cash stopped the show on February 22, 1968 to propose; June accepted in front of the crowd and they married days later.

June and Johnny lived in Tennessee but married in 1968 a short drive from Nashville, across which state line?

Kentucky. They married in the small town of Franklin, just over the state line, eight days after he proposed on stage, and stayed together for 35 years.

What was the title of June Carter Cash's 1979 memoir?

Among My Klediments. June wrote it, and later a second book, in rare spare moments during the decades when she had set her own records aside to tour with her husband.

June and Johnny Cash funded an SOS Children's Village orphanage near their second home in which country?

Jamaica. The Cashes paid for the village's first family house near their holiday home, and when Johnny died in 2003 the family asked mourners to give to the charity instead of sending flowers.

June died in May 2003 after complications from what?

Heart valve replacement surgery in Nashville in early May 2003 led to complications; June died on May 15, aged 73, and Johnny Cash followed her four months later.

Who said at June's funeral: 'If being a wife were a corporation, June would have been a CEO'?

Rosanne Cash. June's stepdaughter went on to call being a wife 'her most treasured role', echoing June's own remark that being Johnny Cash's wife was her life's work.

Who played June in the 2005 film Walk the Line?

Reese Witherspoon sang all her own vocals as June and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.

Who directed Walk the Line?

James Mangold. Johnny and June wanted the film made and met him to plan it, but neither lived to see it: both died in 2003, two years before it reached cinemas.

Which singer played June in the 2013 Lifetime television film Ring of Fire?

Jewel. Where Walk the Line drew on Johnny's memoirs, this film told the romance from June's side, adapting her son's book about her.

June and Johnny both appeared in a 1986 television remake of which John Wayne western?

Stagecoach. The remake was built around the Highwaymen: Johnny played the marshal beside his bandmates Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, with June in the supporting cast.

Who played Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, the 2005 film about his romance with June?

Joaquin Phoenix. He had never sung before, so he spent months in training, learned guitar and lowered his voice, and every Cash vocal in the film is his own.

June's 1949 comedy hit with Homer and Jethro sent up which winter standard?

Baby, It's Cold Outside. Homer and Jethro's new producer at RCA had urged them to try parodying hit songs, and this early attempt, cut with June, became a best-seller.

Before she toured with Johnny Cash, June had watched which friend and Opry star die young after years of drink and pills?

Hank Williams. He died at 29 on New Year's Day 1953, and the memory made June quick to act when she saw Cash's habit on the road: she hid his pills and flushed them away.

June and her first husband recorded which flirtatious duet, later revived in the film Walk the Line?

Time's A-Wastin'. The courting duet outlasted the marriage, which ended in 1956, and half a century on the film's Johnny and June sing it together on stage.

June and Johnny's lakeside home of 35 years, a gathering place for songwriters, stood in which Tennessee town?

Hendersonville. The Cashes held 'guitar pulls' at the house where songwriters tried out new songs, and both are buried in the town they called home from 1968 until their deaths.

After drama school, June won a guest part in which long-running television western?

Gunsmoke. More screen work followed, but within a few years June had put acting aside to tour with her mother and sisters as an opening act for Johnny Cash.

Which close friend joined June in Johnny Cash's 1962 troupe?

Patsy Cline. She was the star female singer of Cash's touring show in her last year, and June was among the close friends she told of a premonition that she would not live long.

After the Carter Family split, June's uncle A.P. Carter went home to run what?

A country store. A.P. went back to Maces Spring to keep shop and Sara moved to California with her second husband, leaving Maybelle to carry on in music with her daughters.