And the Rest Is History (24 page)

The years that followed were punches to Johnny's soul, despite the wealth and gold records. The competing demands of fame and family, and his ever-present feelings of alienation, made him sing the “Cocaine Blues”; he also was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. Under the influence of his demons, he trashed hotel rooms, totaled cars, failed to show up for gigs, and committed random acts of adultery. On one memorable occasion, he became enraged when he fumbled with his microphone, and then he used it as a weapon to smash sixty footlights on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. For the price of their ticket, those in the front row were showered with glass. Restless, he was happy to always be on the move, and it would come as a relief to hear his band members ask, “Hey, John, how soon do you think you can leave?”

In the early 1960s, June started touring with her mother and sisters as the Carter Family, and shortly afterward Cash began accompanying them; this led to June and Johnny performing duets such as “If I Were a Carpenter.” Soon the only thing rivaling their onstage chemistry was their offstage one. This caused a great deal of consternation for June, who was then remarried to Nashville police officer Rip Nix, with whom she had a daughter, Rosie. She was also against adultery, on both a moral and religious level. However, in 1965, in Las Vegas, at the Mint, Johnny and June gave in to their passion. June had fallen for the Man in Black, a complex soul, equal parts saint and sinner.

In an emotional tsunami, June found herself afterward driving her car as fast as she could at four in the morning. When she asked herself what she was doing, her answer was that she was “falling in love with someone she had no right to fall in love with.” Not only were they both married and parents, but she was alarmed with becoming involved with a man whose lifestyle had ended the life of her friend Hank Williams. She likened her dilemma to a ring of fire, a metaphor born from her fundamentalist Christian faith. This phrase later became one of her most famous lyrics.

June's response to Johnny's begging her to be with him was that until he was free from his chemical dependencies, their one-night stand would remain just that. Cash was unable to shake his drug habit or his love for June. However, ultimately for her he was able to “walk the line” of sobriety, at least as much as he was able. Cash wrote of the woman who had saved his life both physically and spiritually, “What June did for me was post signs along the way, lift me up when I was weak, encourage me when I was discouraged, and love me when I felt alone and unlovable. She's the greatest woman I have ever known. Nobody else, except my mother, comes close.”

In one of the most romantic of all proposals, while performing live at a concert in London, Ontario, Johnny Cash asked June Carter to marry him. Her answer was to just get on with the show. However, when the crowd of seven thousand roared for her to say yes—she did. After eighteen years, multiple music awards, drug addiction, and three failed marriages between them, Johnny and June were married one week later on March 1, 1968, in Kentucky. The bride's dress and the flowers in her hair were in her favorite color of light blue. A nonalcoholic reception followed at their lakeside estate in Tennessee, which they had christened Camelot. Their nuptials produced another Carter/Cash classic, “Jackson.”

In 1970, June gave birth to their son, John Cash Carter, whom they idolized and took on stages throughout the world, even before he could walk. Of their marriage, which lasted for thirty-five years, Cash said he could not envision life without her. She was equally laudatory: “God puts his hand on some people and says, ‘You can be Johnny Cash.'”

Unfortunately, Camelot had its dark side. Johnny at times lapsed into drug abuse (he once overdosed on pills he had smuggled into his hospital room), but for the most part, with June's help, he was able to apply the brakes to his self-destructive behavior.

The circle was broken when June passed away, holding Johnny's hand. Through their unconditional devotion they had transformed the ring of fire from one of damnation to one of redemption.

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1957

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he Olympians went into creative overdrive when meting out punishment: Prometheus, for daring to steal fire from the gods, was chained to a rock; every night a vulture would feast on his liver, only to have the organ grow back the following day. In similar fashion, when Onassis betrayed Callas, for his sin of hubris, the tycoon and the diva were cast as leading players in a twentieth-century tragedy.

Sophia Cecelia Kalogeropoulos (who would achieve fame as Maria Callas), whose life emulated a Greek drama both on and off stage, was raised in Queens. As an adolescent she was overweight, with bad skin and thick glasses, which was especially painful in comparison with her attractive sister. However, for compensation she had a gift from the gods: an ethereal voice.

In 1937, Maria's parents divorced, and her mother, Evangelia, relocated her two children to Athens, where she hoped to launch Maria's singing career. Two years later the swastika was flying over the Acropolis, and the Kalos family suffered severe starvation and terror. After the war Maria left Greece and the mother with whom she clashed. When she next stepped foot in Greece, it was as La Divina; it was also when she would fall in love with the man who would dominate her life.

Maria's destiny, Aristotle Sokratis Onassis, was born in Turkey; however, when the country turned on its ethnic population, members of his family were killed and he fled to Greece. In 1923 he left for Buenos Aires with $250 and limitless ambition. He started a tobacco import business with Turkey, and his road to his first million was helped along through smuggling and other illegal activities. His business ethics can be gleaned from his remark that he would never trust a person who did not accept a bribe. When he returned to Greece, it was as a self-made millionaire with an ego equivalent to his fortune. He married Athina Livanos, daughter of a shipping magnate, whose old money lent respectability to his new money. His son, Alexander, to whom he referred as his alpha and omega, was followed by daughter Christina. Onassis's happiness and hubris were at their height.

The first time Maria met Aristotle was on the evening of September 3, at an international jet-set ball held in the Hotel Danieli, overlooking a Venetian canal. The event, hosted by the grande dame of the gossip column, Elsa Maxwell, was in Maria's honor to celebrate her opera performance in
Anna Bolena
. The hostess arranged Maria's introduction to Aristotle, feeling that two of Greece's most famous citizens (Callas had been on the cover of
Time
magazine in 1956) should make each other's acquaintance. By this time, Maria, who had undergone a metamorphosis by shedding sixty-five pounds, was a beauty with the world of opera at her feet. There was an immediate rapport between the diva and the tycoon, and they began to converse in animated Greek. Soon they discovered they had far more in common than language: Hellenistic heritage, survival of the war, and self-made success. Moreover, there was a magnetic physical rapport.

Onassis repeatedly invited Maria and her Italian manager husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, to his floating pleasure dome,
The Christina
; however, as they were focused solely on her career, they repeatedly declined. A year and a half later, Callas performed
Medea
in London, and her not-very-secret admirer flew in for the event, though he had little appreciation of opera, saying, “It sounds like a lot of Italian chefs shouting risotto recipes at each other.” Afterward he staged an elaborate reception for her at the Dorchester Hotel, decorating it with thousands of red roses and inviting world-renowned guests.

A month later the Meneghinis finally agreed to a cruise, little imagining that the getaway would alter all of their destinies. Onassis gave a tour of the splendors of his ship; amid the opulence were bar stool cushions covered with the foreskins of whales killed by his whaling fleet. This permitted Aristotle to deliver his bon mot: “Madame, you are sitting on the largest penis in the world.” Maria enjoyed Aristotle's ribald humor; one can assume it was not for the ears of his other high-profile guests, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, or their beloved green parakeet, Toby, who had accompanied them. On one evening Maria found her host so charming that she stayed up long after her husband had retired. After that, every night was a late one for Maria and Aristo, as she called him. She began to sense the possibility of freedom, both personal and sexual, that her marriage to her husband, thirty years her senior, had denied her. Before the fateful cruise ended, there was an evening when she never returned to her cabin; she had met her life's grand passion. For his part, Aristotle did not resist his siren.

Maria informed her husband that their marriage was over: “Aristo and I have been caught up in this twist of fate and we are unable to combat it.” Meneghini was never to recover, and for the rest of his life he mourned the loss of his wife. In their Italian villa he kept everything as she had left it, as her shrine. Onassis, however, was not willing to break up his family and empire and wanted to keep Maria as his mistress. Callas, madly in love, was willing to settle for this; she had never experienced love before. As she said, “It is wonderful to be happy and to know it right at the time you are.” However, with the gossip-friendly litany of money, celebrity, and adultery, the scandal became international gossip, and Athina (although she had her own lover) filed for divorce. Maria was jubilant, hoping the mistress could now become the wife, especially when, at age forty-two, she discovered she was pregnant.

Callas retreated to Switzerland to await the birth while Onassis split his time between visiting her and his life in Greece. When she was in her eighth month, ill and swollen, and not wanting her lover to return to her while she was in that condition, she urged her doctor to deliver her baby by an early cesarean. The result was a premature son, Omeros, who survived for two hours. Maria, who had longed all her life for a child, was beside herself with grief. Onassis flew to the hospital to comfort her; Maria was to spend the rest of her days in the painful realm of “what could have been.”

In 1963, Onassis purchased the island of Skorpios, where one could see Ithaca; Maria's dream was to spend her life with her Aristo in their Aegean retreat. Perhaps had their son lived, that scenario would have come to pass.

Nine years into their affair, Maria found herself caught in the horrific role of the pursuer rather than the pursued. With mounting alarm, Callas read of the romance of the Greek billionaire and the most famous widow in the world: Jacqueline Kennedy. Aristotle acted as if it were all rumors and continued his relationship with Maria even as huge bouquets of flowers bearing four letters—JILY (Jackie, I Love You)—arrived for Jackie. The Greek billionaire wed the former Mrs. Kennedy in a ceremony on Skorpios. The international press dubbed the new Mrs. Onassis “Jackie O”; Callas would have used a different epithet.

Aboard the
Christina
, Aristotle celebrated the acquisition of his ultimate trophy wife while Jacqueline celebrated the acquisition of her trophy ring—with a price tag of $1.25 million. However, not all were pleased. Alexander, who viewed Jackie's attention to his father as one of the purse rather than the heart, said of his new stepmother's nuptials, “It's a perfect match. My father loves names and Jackie loves money.”