A very beautiful woman but yet a troubled life. She is a very interesting subject with her wild love affairs, drugs, alcholism plus her later years with prositution.
A very beautiful woman but yet a troubled life. She is a very interesting subject with her wild love affairs, drugs, alcholism plus her later years with prositution.
http://www.crimemagazine.com/03/barbarapayton.htm
poor poor woman
i was just reading a story in a book about her, her end was tragic, she was gorgeous!!!~ it is sad how hollywood "throws" people away like that~
Did they really have an affair?
That story makes me want to cry. God Bless her soul...
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Wow, her life really went down the shithole. La Lohan and Spears need to read that story!
You are so right. Those girls should read up on her. They are going down the exact same road she traveled on. Beautiful girls that will end up well you know
I was thinking the same thing while I read this miserable story.
Wow, what a story, this is definitely something I would like to see covered in FAD. I remember the name but had NO idea of her suffering and demise... very sad for a hollywood starlet.
Wow. I never knew a lot of her story. She was beautiful. Now, I have to see what else is on that site...which will cut into my time here. Thanks a LOT!! heheh
Last edited by Darrianne; 10-27-2007 at 04:03 PM. Reason: because I can
I went and wrote Scott a message about writing a story on Barbara Payton. I told him how I thought people were starting to get interested in her life. Now I know that she is not to well known to many here. But I was thinking if some of you could write to him maybe he would really think about the story. Believe me she does have a good story. So write to him and ask him.
I think the resembelance is so uncanny. I think I spelled that word wrong.
May 8,1967: Barbara Payton, heart and liver failure. Beautiful and spectacularly untalented sexpot actress. Broke into the big time in the early 1950s, with a role in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, but soon went nowhere after her affair with actors Franchot Tone and Tom Neal hit the tabloids. In his turn Neal hit Tone, sending him to the hospital with a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a concussion. Payton married Tone, but left him after seven weeks and returned to Neal, then to Tone again. She attempted suicide by sleeping pills in 1952, but was saved by Tone. After the Tone-Neal brawl made national headlines Payton was through in mainstream Hollywood, but could still find work in B-movies and in England. However, after 1955 she never again appeared onscreen. Meanwhile she was arrested for writing bad checks, temporarily lost custody of her son and married a furniture salesman. They divorced in the late 1950s and Payton turned to prostitution and alcohol. She published a memoir, I Am Not Ashamed in 1963, while still turning tricks and was at one time stabbed by a john. In April 1967 Payton moved in with her parents in San Diego, and a month later her body was found by her father in the bathroom of their house. She was dead of heart and liver failure. Payton was 39 years old.
Babs even claimed to have had a threesome with Lana Turner & Ava Gardner. She told/sold the story to the tabs in the 1950s and claimed Ava's husband, Frank Sinatra, walked in on their little orgy, and beat Ava up.
A picture of her son, and her first husband. It was said until his death in 2006, that he never stopped loving her. And would nver speak ill either. Makes me think at looking at this picture, that if she would have just ignored the temptation of fame, she would have been in that picture. Sometimes these stories make me so sad.
I think these above pictures are the best.
OK - I'm in the middle of the biography by John O'Dowd "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, The Barbara Payton Story". I'm to the part where she goes to England to play in a couple of really crappy movies.
Her mom and dad were both alcholics and the book states that her dad was forever on her case about something while she was growing up. It alludes to the fact that he never really liked her and MIGHT have made untoward moves toward her. After she left home, they really haven't spoken (up until the point I'm at anyway).
The book is very careful to show that she was a really sweet person and looked at life in a very positive way - while basically screwing up her life in various ways. It seemed men and sex were always a big problem for her. I get the idea that she may have been a nypho (sp?) although in the 20's, 30's, and 40's, people may not have even known what that was.
Her son, John, speaks very highly of her mothering skills throughout the entire book. The author even quotes John as saying, "Please don't take that skill away from her". It's a very touching and well written book and I highly recommend it for any Death Hag out there. We seem to enjoy lives that are a complete downward spiral straight to the crash and burn. And her life was a complete hot mess from birth.
Happy Reading, My Friends!
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
It's a great book. John O'Dowd had the cooperation of John Lee Payton & I believe Barbara's sister to write the book - that makes such a difference in a biography. It's also clear that O'Dowd has great affection for Barbara, but he doesn't sugar-coat her shortcomings, either.
P~
Such a sad girl, I too thought immediately of Brittney and Lindsay.
Wow she was a knockout. I can't read the whole story now but I've bookmarked it. It seems really interesting. I can't believe she left her kid! I'm only a few paragraphs down but it already sounds like BritBrit.
I guess the fact that no one ,not her siblings, parents,friends,exhusbands, no one held out a hand to help her really bothers me. She was "tossed aside the road and left for dead" in my opinion because no one cared. ALl these guys that "never stopped loving her" where the hell where they? I don't know if she was such a whore she was just ahead of her time because the 60's were all about free love and peace lol, an excuse to fuck who you wanted,do all the drugs you could and keep from going to Viet Nam. She was just born too soon. Poor woman had some real problems before she got to Hollywierd . I am proud of her son for sticking up for her.
if the stars of yesteryear made the coin they make taday for just being in front of a camera = no talent or looks
wood be a diff storey
$1,000,000 went a long way back then
I finished the book. I think her Mom, Lawyer (and his wife) and SIL at least tried to help her. I believe there comes a time in everyone's life where you just have to stand up and take responsibility for yourself and your actions, no matter where you came from. I feel sorry for her and her life, but she never did that. She just kept making 1 bad decision after another. That's why I think she was mentally ill. I can't believe anyone could make that many bad decisions. Everybody has to luck up and get something right every now and then.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
Sorry but I don't think I did this right.
But I am new at this.
Barbara Payton (born Barbara Lee Redfield, November 16, 1927 - May 8, 1967) was an American film actress.
Born Barbara Lee Redfield in Cloquet, Minnesota, she was the daughter of restaurateurs, and raised in Odessa, Texas. In 1945, at age seventeen, she headed for Hollywood in search of a career in movies and was eventually placed under contract by Universal Studios where she began appearing in bit parts. After being discovered by James Cagney and his producer brother William, Payton starred in Cagneyâ??s Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in 1950. She signed a contract with Cagneyâ??s production company.
From 1955 to 1963, there were several skirmishes with the law - passing bad checks, public drunkenness, mental illness, drug abuse, and, ultimately, prostitution.[1] She was paid $1,000 for the ghost-written autobiography I Am Not Ashamed in 1963. Payton admitted to being forced to sleep on bus benches and was often beaten as a prostitute
In 1951, while engaged to movie actor Franchot Tone, Payton proposed marriage to b-movie actor Tom Neal. She went back and forth publicly from being engaged to Neal to being engaged to Tone. Eventually, Neal, a former college boxer, fought with Tone, giving him a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a concussion, and leaving him in a coma in hospital for 18 hours. After being married to Tone for 53 days, she walked out on him and returned to Neal. Their relationship lasted for four years. During that time, the couple capitalized on the press coverage of their steamy affair by touring in plays, such as "The Postman Always Rings Twice."
In addition to numerous love affairs (including ones with Texas oilman Bob Neal and actor Guy Madison, and, reportedly, James Cagney and Bob Hope),[2][page # needed], she was married four times:
In 1967, after failed efforts to curb her drinking, she moved in with her parents in San Diego in an attempt to dry out. On May 8, 1967, the 39-year-old died at her parents' home; the cause of death was heart and liver failure. Payton was cremated and is interred in a niche at Cypress View Mausoleum and Crematory in San Diego, California.
- William Hodge (m. 1943, annulled)
- John Lee Payton, an Air Force pilot (m. 10-Feb-1945, div. 1950, one child, John Lee Payton Jr., born 1947)
- Franchot Tone, actor (m. 1951, div. 1952)
- George A. Provas (a.k.a. Tony Provas, m. 1957, div. Aug. 1958)
Wow, never heard of her, but she's a classic beauty!
I always thought her a tramp, mainly because of the lousy way she treated TONE who adored her.
PAYTON becomes MRS. TONE
1951
PAYTON & TONE
'B' Movie Bruiser TOM NEAL;
Look at the size of him compared to FRANCHOT.
NEAL, btw, was convicted of murdering his
wife GAIL in 1965.
KELT' HOME FOR WAYWARD YOUTH-
Helping Young Men To Turn Around For Over Twenty Years !
Wow. Quite a beauty! She must have something else for Tone & Neal to have such a fight over her.
Very beautiful woman. What a story! They should make a movie about it. Why do gals just love those bad guys?
I cried for shoes .... til I met a man with no feet.
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There is another Barbara Payton thread floating around here, with alot of interesting picyures and comments.
Ok here it is.
Don't be so sure you know the whole story because you read about it somewhere. Unless you were there and actually witnessed it (and if you were there and saw it firsthand, fine) just be careful taking what you read at face value and then posting comments evaluating her family's actions as if you knew what they were. We here today have no idea what her family went through. For all we know, they tried and failed. And failure can hurt as much as inaction.
I cried for shoes .... til I met a man with no feet.
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I wandered onto a site about Barbara today and was amazed to learn that she was born in Cloquet, Minnesota. I lived there for about 3 years before moving to Idaho. Small world.
I just got done too, reading "The Barbara Payton Story" Damm that was a good book, that woman lived a life that we could only dream about, than due to a addicted personality plus with some mental illness it was all destroyed. I mean she went to the bottom and kept digging the hole.
For comparison purposes:
Barbara Payton circa early 50s - maybe around age 25 or so:
Barbara Payton two or three years before her death at 39 in 1967:
Tragic, really.
VCNJ~
She was very beautiful. What a sad end.
There is a movie that is in the works, based on the book. I hope that it gets made soon. I would love to see it.
A while back a dear friend sent me a copy of the book "KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE" it was something I wanted for a long time and I read it cover to cover. It was excellent. Their is a excerpt from the book I wish to share, it touched something in my heart, and it showed how people can be so hurtful and cruel and tender and helpful too.
*During the extremely dark period of her life, Barbara was involved in an incident that is heartrending in its poignancy, and revealed her seldom seen tender side. One morning while sittin g outside her motel room, she found a small, starving dog that had been abandoned by its owners, and despite the building's strict "No Pets" policy, Barbara brought the small dog to her apartment to take care of it. An adorable male cocker spaniel with a black coat, white chest and long ears, the dog was given the name "Tux" by Barbara, who quickly grew attached to her new friend.
Barbara understood the dog, living on the streets; cols...hungry...alone. She looked into his sad eyes and knew exactly how he felt. When the building's landlord heard that she was hiding Tux in her room, and warned her that the animalwould have to go, Barbara refused to get rid of him. As a result, she was promptly evicted, and landed homeless on Sunset Boulevard.
Surrounded by a pair of scuffed-up suitcases, a tattered old mink coat and with her dirty-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, an obviously distraught Barbara was sittin with Tux on a bus stop bench at the corner of Sunset and Fairfax, ruminating about her new course of action, when two local men recognized her and approached her to ask if she needed help.
The late Hollywood actress Marian Miller, who lived at the time in an aprtment on Fairfax Avenue, knewthese men only by their nicknames of "Chip and Dale". They were well known in the neighborhood as a colorful gay couple in their mid-20s who were employed as window dressers ar a downtown L.A department store.
Marian reclles that one of the men had told her that they were so touched by Barbara's story of being thrown out of her apartment for not getting rid of Tux that they invited her abd the dog to stay with them. Barbara and Tux moved into the apartment on Fairfax and Foountain, where for the next several weeks the men provided them with a safe and loving home.
Barbara did all the cooking and cleaning for this makeshift family and apparently tried very hard to keep her demons at bay. Chip and Dale were often seen walking Tux down Fairfax Avenue on a gaudy, gold lease, and were said to be ecstatic that they had been give the chance to take care of someone who had once been,".....a real, honest-to-God, Hollywood movie star" Barbara's unexpected stroke of good luck, however , would end within a matter of weeks.
In a scenerio similar to what had happen to her at her former residence, Barbara soon became the target of an irate and unyielding landlord who demanded that she vacate the premises immediately, Marian Miller recalled that the landlord's problem was not with the dog's presence in the building....but with Barbara's. "He told her that everyone in the building knew she was a filthy rotten slut and that no one, including him, wanted her living there," said Marian "Imagine how that made Barbar feel?"
Not wanting to cause any trouble for Chip and Dale, who had beed so kind to her, Barbara moved out, leaving her beloved Tux in their care. Marian remembered Chip telling her that Barbara refused his offer to help her relocate some place else and that while it broke Barbara's heart to leave Tux behind, she did it to protect the dog from the terrible life she knew was awaiting her on the streets.
Following this incident, Barbara,s self-hatred resurfaced and she resumed her desperate life style. Mariam said that she would sae Barbara wandering around Hollywood dirty, alone and disheveled.*
Wow. That is one big piece of mental illness, right there. Poor woman. It sounds like she was on a downhill spiral for most of her life.
Just drink lots of Kool-Aid, and take one of these blue pills three times a day.
What mental illness did she suffer from?
Another dead hooker story.