The breakthrough of Clint Black’s wife, Lisa Hartman Black came in the early 1980s. Growing up in Houston, Texas, Lisa decided to focus on singing. Maybe it’s because of her genes. Lisa’s father, Howard Hartman, is a country music singer, and she grew up watching him perform.
“By the time Lisa was four years old, she knew all of West Side Story, and she would do all the parts,” her mother revealed.
Lisa cut her first album in 1976 through the help of American producer and manager, Allan Carr. Lisa was only 17 then. Later on, she released two more; however, a hit single has eluded her. A year later, Lisa was introduced to established songwriter Jeff Barry, who was impressed enough to produce her first record. Despite the good reviews, the album flopped commercially.
But it opened another door for Lisa Hartman.
It Led Her to Hollywood
Indeed, when one door closes, another one opens. Lisa may have failed to become the singer she dreamed of, but it did bring her to Los Angeles, where she started to appear in a series of TV shows.
She starred on the short-lived Bewitched spin-off, on ABC’s Tabitha. Since then, Lisa became a familiar face on television, with several guest roles, four TV movies, and a role in the 1981 TV miniseries Valley of the Dolls in which she got to sing as well as act.
Lisa got the biggest break in her life in1982 when she took on the role of rock singer Ciji Dunne on the prime time drama Knots Landing. Ever since then, Lisa has been unstoppable. She even attained a bit of immortality in Hollywood that when her character was killed off on Knots Landing in 1983, the audiences vehemently protested. To appease the public uproar, Lisa was brought back to the series with a new persona, Cathy Geary, who is also a singer. The character later marries an unbalanced televangelist played by a young Alec Baldwin.
“She reminds me of a young, feisty Diane Keaton,” producer Allan Carr said. “She can have two full careers: glamorous, young, leading-lady roles, and a career as a singer.”
Throughout her career, Lisa Hartman has also produced five studio albums.
When Hollywood Collided With Country Music
It was a New Year’s Eve concert in 1990 when the actress met Clint Black in their shared hometown of Houston, Texas. Sparks flew right away between the two.
The country crooner can’t help but get smitten with Lisa Hartman.
“Anyone would be taken by her looks, but she was a really, really pleasant person, and I didn’t know her from Eve. I’d never seen her movies. All I knew was that she was a TV actress,” Clint said.
Despite their demanding schedules from their thriving careers, Clint and Lisa were able to grow their relationship. “Once I met him and got to know him and then started learning about his music and all of that, and his poetry, I had to kind of forget about it when I was around him. I’d find myself looking at him going, ‘You write all that stuff? Where does it come from?'” Clint Black’s spouse recalled.
And it wasn’t long before the happy couple to realize they need to start a life together. “I knew intuitively that she could be trusted with my heart and my life,” Clint said. So, before his show on a college running track in Salt Lake City, Utah, Clint got down on one knee and asked Lisa to marry him.
On October 20, 1991, ten months after they first met, Clint and Lisa tied the knot on the country singer’s 180-acre Texas farm. After ten years of marriage, the couple became first-time parents when they welcomed their daughter, Lily Pearl Black, into the world. The couple then relocated to Nashville.
Lisa Hartman Black and Clint Black Breaking Through Together
The couple achieved a breakthrough together with their duet song “When I Said I Do.” The song peaked No. 1 on the Billboard Charts in 1999 and even earned a Grammy Award nomination. The love song also won Vocal Event of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards. The couple’s second duet, “Easy For Me to Say,” made it to No. 26 on the charts in 2002. While the couple’s touching duet, “You Still Get to Me,” which was released in 2016, is a testimony to their happy love – even after all these years.
After 28 years of marriage, the couple definitely learned a few key things about marriage. “We know that flames don’t just keep burning on their own, we have to fan them. Love and passion is something that you have to nurture, and if you do, it’ll grow. I think we’re smart enough to know it’s all up to us,” Clint said.
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Clint Black, Lisa Hartman