Movies: Backstory: When Did It First Start To Burn?

Johnny Cash wrote two very entertaining books about his life--Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography--that don't suffer much for not being entirely candid. But when director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted; Cop Land) and his wife and producing partner Cathy Konrad (Scream, Identity) started to mine Cash's tales for a screenplay about his early struggles with drug addiction and his relationship with wife June Carter Cash, they hit dead ends. "There are enormous holes in those books," says Mangold. "We wanted to dramatize a period of several years, but all we had to go on was his saying, 'I was taking...

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