Carolyn Cassady, wife of Neal Cassady - the Merry Prankster of the Beat Generation - died Friday in England. She was 90.
In the documentary Love Aways, Carolyn (see below), she says, "The only reason anyone's interested in me is because I was married to Neal Cassady and lover of Jack Kerouac."
Carolyn was Cassady's second wife. They met in Denver, when she attended the university there, married in 1948 and had three children. The Cassadys divorced in 1963. Neal died in Mexico in 1968.
"It was Neal's wish to share me" with Kerouac, she acknowledged in the film and her memoirs Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg (1990) and Heart Beat: My Life with Jack and Neal (1976).
The latter book was adapted for the 1980 film, Heartbeat (watch below), starring Sissy Spacek as Carolyn.
