Biography for
Barbara Payton More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

16 November 1927, Cloquet, Minnesota, USA

Date of Death

8 May 1967, San Diego, California, USA (heart failure/liver failure)

Birth Name

Barbara Lee Redfield

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

One of the saddest tales ever to come out of Hollywood has to be that of Barbara Payton. A blue-eyed, peroxide blonde sexpot who had a lot going for her, her life eventually disintegrated, mostly by her own doing. Things started out well enough for Barbara Lee Redfield, born on November 26, 1927, in Cloquet, Minnesota. From a modest, blue-collar background, she grew up to be a drop-dead gorgeous young woman and, following a quickie marriage at age 19, decided to leave home for good to try to capitalize on her good looks in Tinseltown. She headed for Hollywood in 1948 and, within a short time, was placed under contract by Universal, where she began the typical starlet route of bit parts. She reached her peak with routine but promising co-star work opposite James Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), Gary Cooper in Dallas (1950) and Gregory Peck in Only the Valiant (1951). Although her talent (5) was overshadowed by her brassiness (10) and looks (10), her slightly lurid appeal seemed to be enough to carry her through. Caught up in the glitz and glamor, however, her career started taking second place to a reckless life full of capricious romances involving a number of top stars and producers, many of them married. One of her more famous trysts ended up making headlines for her, and none of them favorable. She was juggling two boyfriends at the same time, classy "A" actor Franchot Tone and muscular "B" actor Tom Neal, and they fought almost to the death for Barbara's affections. On September 13, 1951, the men engaged in a deadly brawl and when it was over, Tone was in the hospital with broken bones and a brain concussion. Barbara ended up with both a black eye and a tarnished reputation. She married Tone after he recovered, but left him after only seven weeks and returned to the violence-prone Neal. That abusive relationship lasted four years, though they never married. During that time Barbara's career had plummeted to the point where she was making such dismal features as Bride of the Gorilla (1951). She went to England to try to rejuvenate her career, but no dice; it was over and her life was skidding out of control. Her once beautiful face now blotchy and her once spectacular figure now bloated, Barbara sank deeper into the bottle. From 1955 to 1963 there were various brushes with the law - among them passing bad checks, public drunkenness and, ultimately, prostitution. She was forced to sleep on bus benches, was beaten and bruised by her tricks, and lost teeth in the process. In 1967, after failed efforts to curb her drinking, she finally moved in with her parents in San Diego to try to dry out. It was too late. On May 8, 1967, the 39-year-old former starlet was found on the bathroom floor - dead of heart and liver failure. Somehow through all this misery she managed a tell-all book ironically entitled "I Am Not Ashamed" (1963).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Spouse

George A. Provas	(21 November 1955 - August 1958) (divorced)
Franchot Tone	(28 September 1951 - 19 May 1952) (divorced)
John Lee Payton	(10 February 1945 - 1948) (divorced) 1 child
William Hodge	(1942 - 1942) (annulled)

Trivia

Jessica Lange read Payton's autobiography "I Am Not Ashamed" while filming The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), figuring that the character of hard luck roadhouse waitress Cora perhaps drifted to Hollywood to become an actress. Coincidentally, both Lange and Payton were born in Cloquet, Minn.

Eloped with and married her high school sweetheart, William Hodge. Her parents had the marriage annulled quickly.

In 1964, she was arrested for shoplifting an outfit of clothing.

In 1965, she was arrested and charged with possession of heroin and a hypodermic syringe. The charges were dismissed, due to "insufficient evidence."

Later in life, she carried a statue of St. Jude with her.

Her son was serving in Vietnam when she died.

She died at her parents house. She had been living with them for the last several weeks of her life.

Her autobiography, I Am Not Ashamed, was actually ghostwritten by someone else. According to her ghostwriter, Leo Guild, Barbara had one favor to ask. She didn't want to be paid in cash or check. She wanted payment in red wine because there were claims on her cash.

She was stabbed in 1962 by a drunk and received 38 stitches to heal the wound.

On Feb. 7, 1962, Payton was arrested for prostitution when she propositioned an undercover cop in a Sunset Boulevard bar.

In 1956, her ex-husband Payton accused her of neglecting their son, who had been living with Barbara since he was about 4. A custody battle followed, with her ex-husband accusing her of exposing their son to "profane language, immoral conduct, notoriety, unwholesome activities and no moral education." The judge ruled in favor of the boy's father, and labeled Barbara as "...an unfit mother, not to mention a thoroughly confused and misguided young woman."

Her son, John Lee Payton Jr., was born on March 14, 1947.

In October of 1955 she was arrested for passing bad checks at Hollywood's Liquor Locker. She pleaded indigence, was fined $100 and given a 60-day suspended jail sentence.

When Franchot Tone decided to divorce her, he had a private detective take pictures of her having sex with other men. He then sent the photos to all the major Hollywood studios, hoping they would ruin her career.

In May 1954, when her finances were low, it was alleged that she gave two fur coats, valued at thousands of dollars, to the owner of a bar so that he would tear up her $200 bar tab.

Starting early in her career, she regularly used sleeping pills to sleep and speed to keep her weight down.

The film industry finally shut her out when she began flaunting the interracial relationship she was involved in, with black actor Woody Strode.

During the shooting of Dallas (1950), the crew would celebrate the end of each day's filming by sending her petticoats up a flag pole. They would fly them over the Warner Brothers lot at half-staff.

She was the subject of a spread in Confidential Magazine in the early 1950s when then-fiancé Franchot Tone allegedly caught her in bed with Guy Madison. Tone later married her, despite the indiscretion.

In 1951, while already engaged to Franchot Tone, she proposed marriage to Tom Neal. She allowed him to move into her apartment, which Tone was paying the rent for. She kicked him out when Tone returned from out of town. After this, she went back and forth publicly from being engaged to Neal to being engaged to Tone. Neal and Tone eventually got into a terrific brawl, resulting in Tone lying in a coma in the hospital for 18 hours. After being married to Tone for 53 days, she walked out on him and returned to Neal.

In September, 1949, her boyfriend, Don Cougar, a movie extra and drug dealer, beat up her elderly landlady in the middle of the night in a dispute over the amount Barbara owed for rent. In 1950, Barbara and Cougar were called before a Federal Grand Jury to testify in the perjury trial of Stanley Adams. Adams was a drug dealer already serving time for the murder of Abe Davidian, an informant. Barbara and Cougar supplied Adams with an alibi, but it was weak, and Adams was found guilty of perjury.

Dated or was romantically linked to actor Mickey Knox, producer Howard Hughes, actor John Ireland, gangster Mickey Cohen, actor George Raft, entertainment attorney Greg Bautzer, actors Gregory Peck, Tom Conway, Woody Strode, Guy Madison, Gary Cooper, Steve Cochran, and Jerry Bialac.

She had a six month affair with Bob Hope in 1949 in which he paid for her to live in a luxurious apartment. The affair ended when she began making demands for more money.

One of her early hobbies was cooking, which she was very good at. Later in life, she often cooked gourmet meals for her husbands and friends.

As a child, she was very athletic, especially enjoying wintertime activities like skiing, sledding, and ice skating.

Her parents were Erwin Lee "Flip" Redfield, a construction worker, and Mabel, a housewife. She had a younger brother, Frank.

Personal Quotes

[poem] "Love is a memory. Time cannot kill the cherished tune, gay and absurd, and the music unheard."

Salary

Once More, My Darling (1949)

100/week

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