Wednesday, November 30, 2005

By Betsy Pickle, Scripps Howard News Service

 

As friends of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, actor-director James Keach and his actress wife, Jane Seymour, had the insider's perspective on a legend.

Stephen Chernin, Associated Press
James Keach, co-writer of the movie and wife actress Jane Seymour arrive at the premiere of the motion picture "Walk The Line", Nov. 13, 2005 at the Beacon Theater in New York.
"He was a bad boy, an outlaw, but part of that was a perceived image," Keach says of Cash. "It was a cool thing for people to think that. June didn't put up with that stuff."

Seymour agrees that there were two sides to Cash.

"He was Cash, and he was John, and those two people fought within him at all times," she says. "That's what makes him so edgy and dangerous and, I think, so current."

Keach and Seymour put their insights on the Man in Black and his beloved wife to work in "Walk the Line," the new biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny and June Cash.

"I think an amazing thing might just happen," says Seymour. "I think a lot of really young guys are just going to go, 'Wow, this guy may have been then, but he speaks to me now.' "

Keach began working on what would become "Walk the Line" several years before the Cashes died, four months apart, in 2003. Cash had become a fan of Keach and his older brother, Stacy, when he saw them in the 1980 film "The Long Riders." He had corresponded but had never met Keach and Seymour until he did an acting stint on Seymour's show "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," which Keach directed. The Cashes and Keaches became fast friends after that.

"Johnny asked me to do this," Keach, who is one of the film's producers, says by phone from Los Angeles. "I directed a film called 'The Stars Fall on Henrietta' with Robert Duvall, and John liked it. He loved what we'd done on the show ['Dr. Quinn']. He liked 'The Long Riders' and all that stuff. And he knew that I knew people in Hollywood."

"I don't think there's ever been a case where somebody that famous decided that they wanted their story told honestly and they found somebody they really trusted and said, 'Guide this. Make this happen,' " says Seymour.

Keach says Cash didn't want his life story turned into a TV movie.

"A lot of people had asked him about doing a TV movie, and he didn't want to do it, really," Keach says. "He said, 'I don't know how anybody would do it. What do you think, James?'

"I said, 'Well, what I would do is I'd do the love story between you and June. To me, that's where it's at. She's your angel, and she pulled you out of all this stuff, and here you are. We're sitting here.' "

The Cashes went through rough times, most visibly with his struggles with pills and alcohol, before they got together.

"They were friends for 10 years," says Keach. "They went through divorces with other people. All his stuff with the band. All his stuff with the public. They witnessed each other's behavior. Life was happening around them, so when they finally did get together, they knew what they were getting."

"They were really rare," says Seymour. "So many people don't persevere. They knew they belonged together. They made it work. I don't think life was easy till the day they died. They always had struggles. That makes it even more profound."

Seymour says the relationship between her husband and Cash made the difference.

"Between James and Johnny, there was such a deep connection that James got John to open up about a lot of stuff -- a lot of very dark, tough stuff for him to deal with," she says. "He managed to help John realize that if he was going to tell the story, he couldn't just tell the glossed-over version. He had to tell the gnarly truth."

Seymour was responsible for getting the other perspective.

"June and I would just go off," she says. "I got June's side of the story. She would tell me stories like you wouldn't believe."

Though Keach now spends more time behind the camera than in front of it, he does have a small part in "Walk the Line." He plays the Folsom Prison warden seen during the film's bookend segments. The casting came about by chance, but Keach says he's happy he did the part.

"The coolest thing about playing the warden for me is, off-screen, you hear 'Mr. Cash' -- the first time you hear his name, it's me," he says. "I'm the first guy who says his name, and I was the one who started the movie."

See our multimedia Dr. Quinn tribute to Johnny and June