Blur the Line

You could consider me a minor (though respectful) Johnny Cash fan, and you could describe my interest in the new biopic Walk the Line as infintesimal at best. Growing up in the early '70s, nearly all of my exposure to Johnny Cash came via his and June Carter Cash's many televised appearances with the Reverend Billy Graham on his stadium crusades. Who's that guy who's always on with Billy Graham, Mom? That's Johnny Cash. Word association? Johnny Cash. "Billy Graham." Period.

When Cash died, I expected to hear something, some token word, about his Christianity and his evangelical tours with the Reverend Graham. All of the "hip" magazines dragged out publicity photos of Cash in front of a tattered and burned American flag and focused on his "troubled" life. No word on his work with Billy Graham, though.

Wondering if Graham would make an appearance in the film, I checked imdb.com and hit the full cast listing. Hmmm...Maid at Door, Lady in the Aisle, Pill Man. Dime Store Manager's Husband, Vegas Maid, Stage Hand. Lessee...Farmer's Wife, Jack the Drunk, Passionate Preacher. Passionate Preacher? Could it be?

Cash himself was a pretty passionate preacher, at least in my memory. Which apparently is the only place I'll ever see Graham and Cash appear together.

UPDATE: I'm at my mother's right now leafing through her copy of Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham. Hollywood wasn't always interested in Johnny Cash (from page 436):

In 1971 June dreamed she saw her husband on a mountain with a Bible in his hand, talking about Jesus. The next year, they made a movie about the life of Jesus called The Gospel Road. Holiday Inns expressed interest in sponsoring it as a TV special, but the corporation wanted artistic as well as financial control. The Cashes said no; they wanted to tell the story their way. That meant they had to finance it themselves.

Johnny got his friends together -- Kris Kristofferson and the Statler Brothers, among others -- to write songs that would tell the story of Jesus. June played Mary Magdalene; Johnny himself narrated.

But...the Hollywood studio was having trouble marketing the movie.

"Well, Johnny," I [Graham] said to him, "we'll just buy it from them"..."Since then, it has been one of the best evangelistic film tools that the BGEA has had, with hundreds of prints in circulation. Missionaries are using it in video vans in Africa, India, and elsewhere."