Valerie June Carter Cash (June 23, 1929 – May 15, 2003) was an American country singer, songwriter, comedienne, actress, and author. A five-time Grammy Award winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Before her marriage, she performed as June Carter, a name she continued to use professionally, including on songwriting credits. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. In 2009, she was posthumously inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame, and in 2025, she was named a posthumous inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Valerie June Carter was born on June 23, 1929, in Maces Spring, Virginia, to Maybelle (née Addington) and Ezra Carter. Her mother performed country music with her sister-in-law Sara and brother A. P. Carter. Carter began performing with the Carter Family at age 10, in 1939.
In March 1943, when the Carter Family trio stopped recording at the end of the WBT contract, Maybelle, encouraged by her husband Ezra, formed "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle." Helen played accordion, Anita played bass fiddle, and Carter played autoharp and served as front person and comedian. The group first aired on WRNL in Richmond, Virginia, on June 1. Doc Addington and Carl McConnell, Maybelle's brother and cousin, known as "The Virginia Boys", joined them in late 1945.
At 16, Carter was a co-announcer with Ken Allyn and read commercials for Red Star Flour, Martha White, and Thalhimers Department Store. In 1946, the Carters and Doc and Carl performed show dates within driving distance of Richmond, across Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Carter attended John Marshall High School during this period. She later said she had to work harder at her music than her sisters, but she had her own special talent: comedy. A highlight of the road shows was her "Aunt Polly" routine. With her thin, lanky frame, she often played a comedic foil alongside Opry stars Faron Young and Webb Pierce. Carl McConnell wrote that Carter was "a natural-born clown, if there ever was one". She revived Aunt Polly for the 1976 TV Johnny Cash & Friends.
After Doc and Carl left the music business in late 1946, Maybelle and her daughters moved to Sunshine Sue Workman's "Old Dominion Barn Dance" on WRVA in Richmond. They later moved to WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they met Chet Atkins while working with Homer and Jethro.
In 1949, the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle, with Atkins as lead guitarist, lived in Springfield, Missouri, and performed regularly at KWTO. Ezra declined repeated offers from the Grand Ole Opry to move the act to Nashville because the Opry would not allow Atkins to accompany them onstage. Studio musicians feared Atkins would displace them as a first‑call player. In 1950, Opry management relented, and the group, with Atkins, joined the Opry. The family befriended Hank Williams and Elvis Presley, and Carter met Johnny Cash.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Carter and her sisters, with Maybelle and Sara joining at times, reclaimed the name "The Carter Family" for their act.
Carter was married three times and had one child with each husband. All three of her children went on to have successful careers in country music. She married her first husband, country singer Carl Smith, on July 9, 1952; they divorced in 1956. Together they wrote "Time's A-Wastin". They had a daughter, Rebecca Carlene Smith, known professionally as Carlene Carter, a country musician.
Carter married her second husband, Edwin "Rip" Nix, a police officer and former football player, on November 11, 1957. Their daughter, Rosie Nix Adams, was born on July 13, 1958, and became a country and rock singer. The couple divorced in 1966 because of Carter's affair with Johnny Cash.
Carter and the entire Carter Family had performed with Johnny Cash for a number of years. In 1968, Cash proposed to Carter during a live performance at the London Ice House, then known as "Treasure Island Gardens", or simply "The Gardens", in London, Ontario. They married on March 1 in Franklin, Kentucky. They had one son, John Carter Cash, who became a musician, songwriter, and producer. The couple remained married until her death in May 2003, four months before Cash died.
She also gained four stepdaughters from Cash's previous marriage to Vivian Liberto, including Cindy and Rosanne.
Carter's distant cousin, 39th U.S. president Jimmy Carter, became closely acquainted with Cash and Carter and maintained their friendship throughout their lifetimes. In a June 1977 speech, Jimmy acknowledged that Carter was his distant cousin.
Carter also had close relationships with a number of entertainers, including Audrey Williams, James Dean, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Jessi Colter, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Robert Duvall, and Roy Orbison.
At the end of her life, she and her husband attended the First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
In April 2003, Carter Cash was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve, and doctors told her that valve replacement surgery was the only solution. She had the surgery on May 7; however, complications arose, and her health deteriorated rapidly over the next few days. She died on May 15, 2003 at age 73. Public funeral services were held at the First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At Carter Cash's funeral, her stepdaughter Rosanne Cash stated, "If being a wife were a corporation, June would have been a CEO. It was her most treasured role."
Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes on September 12. Carter Cash's daughter, Rosie Nix Adams, died from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in a school bus that had been converted into a campervan, on October 24, at age 45. All three are buried at Hendersonville Memory Gardens near their home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
While Carter Cash may be best known for singing and songwriting, she was also an author, dancer, actress, comedian, philanthropist, and humanitarian. Director Elia Kazan saw her perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and encouraged her to study acting. She trained with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. Her acting roles included Mrs. "Momma" Dewey in Robert Duvall's 1998 movie The Apostle, Sister Ruth, wife to Johnny Cash's character Kid Cole, on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993–97), and Clarise on Gunsmoke in 1957. She was notable as Mayhayley Lancaster, appearing alongside Cash in the 1983 television movie Murder in Coweta County. Carter Cash was also Momma James in The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James. She appeared in occasional comedy skits on various Johnny Cash television programs.
As a singer, she had both a solo career and a career singing with first her family and later her husband. As a solo artist, she found success with upbeat country songs of the 1950s, including "Jukebox Blues" and the comedic hit "No Swallerin' Place" by Frank Loesser. She also recorded "The Heel" in the 1960s, along with many other songs.