The actress Barbara Lee Payton (née Redfield; Nov 16, 1927–May 8, 1967) was better known for her stormy social life and battles with alcohol and drug abuse than her acting skills.
Payton has been dubbed “one of the all-time great ‘hot messes’ in Hollywood history.”
Born in Cloquet, Minnesota, Payton was the daughter of Erwin Lee (“Flip”) and Mabel Irene (née Todahl) Redfield, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants and one of six siblings. They openedan ice cream store and restaurant in Little Falls, Minnesota.
In 1938, the family moved to Odessa, Texas. With financial assistance from his sister, Payton’s father started his own business, tourist cabins named Antlers Court, hoping for a profitable enterprise in a city like Odessa, whose population was booming because of the oil business.
Payton’s father was a hard-working but difficult man, emotionally closed off, slow-talking but quick-tempered. His interaction with his children was minimal, and childcare responsibilities were left to his wife, who occupied herself with homemaking and managing family difficulties. Both of Payton’s parents had long-standing problems with alcohol. Payton’s first cousin, Richard Kuitu, remembers visits to the home of his uncle and aunt. The Redfields often started drinking at midmorning and continued long after midnight. Kuitu recalls the violent temper Lee Redfield had when fueled by alcohol, which sometimes resulted in the physical abuse of his wife, Mabel.
As early as age 11, Payton gained attention for her appearance, which her mother encouraged. In school, Payton excelled in history and English, and ceramics, showing talent for “creating beautiful objects from scratch.”
In November 1943, at age 16, she eloped with high-school boyfriend William Hodge, an act of impulsive teenage rebellion. Payton did not fight her parents’ insistence that the marriage be annulled. Months later, she quit high school in the 11th grade. Her parents did not object to her leaving school without a diploma.
In 1944, Payton met her second husband, combat pilot John Payton, stationed at Midland Army Airfield. The couple was married on February 10, 1945, and moved to Los Angeles, where John rolled at University of Southern California under the G.I. Bill. Payton, restless and feeling confined by her life as a housewife, expressed a desire to pursue a modeling or acting career.
Payton started a modeling career by hiring a photographer to take photos of her sporting fashionable outfits. This portfolio attracted the attention of Saba of California, a clothing designer, which signed her to a contract modeling a new line of junior fashions called Sue Mason Juniors.
In September 1947, the Rita La Roy Agency in Hollywood brought her work in print advertising, in catalogs for Studebaker cars and clothing ads for magazines such as Charm and Junior Bazaar.
The couple had a son, John Lee (1947–2023), on March 14, 1947, but the marriage was strained, and the they separated in July 1948. Driven by her high-energy personality, she focused on promoting her career, attending the town’s hot spots.
Her notoriety as fun-loving party girl in the Hollywood club scene caught the attention of William Goetz, an exec of Universal. In January 1949, he signed her to a contract with a starting salary of $100 per week.
After her divorce from John Payton in 1950, she lost custody of their son in March 1956 after her ex-husband charged that she exposed John Lee to “profane language, immoral conduct, notoriety, unwholesome activities” and failed to provide the boy with a “moral education.”
Payton first gained notice in the 1949 film noir Trapped co-starring Lloyd Bridges.
In 1950, she made a screen test for John Huston for his MGM crime drama The Asphalt Jungle. But the part of the sultry mistress of a mob-connected lawyer ultimately went to Marilyn Monroe.
After being screen-tested by James Cagney and his producer brother, William, Payton starred with Cagney in the noir thriller Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in 1950. William Cagney was so smitten with Payton’s appeal that she got a contract by William Cagney Productions and Warner at a salary of $5,000 per week, a large sum for a novice actress.
For a relative newcomer in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Payton held her own among the Hollywood veterans. Her portrayal of the hardened, seductive girlfriend, whom Cagney ultimately double crosses, was praised by critics. Her acting skills, and her significant screen charisma, were recognized.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was the high point in Payton’s career.
Her screen roles opposite Gary Cooper in Dallas (1950) and Gregory Peck in Only the Valiant (1951), both Westerns, were mediocre pictures.
In 1951, she made the low-budget horror film Bride of the Gorilla, co-starring Raymond Burr.
In addition to her first two marriages and affairs with Howard Hughes, Bob Hope, Woody Strode, Guy Madison, George Raft, John Ireland, Steve Cochran, and Texas oilman Bob Neal, Payton was married three more times.
In 1950, Payton got engaged to actor Franchot Tone. Payton then began an affair with B-movie actor Tom Neal, and went back and forth between the two men. On September 14, 1951, Neal, a former college boxer, attacked Tone at Payton’s apartment, leaving Tone in coma with smashed cheekbone, broken nose, and concussion. The incident garnered huge publicity, and Payton decided to honor her engagement to Tone. Payton and Tone were married on September 28, 1951, in Payton’s hometown of Cloquet, Minnesota. When Tone discovered that Payton continued her relationship with Neal, he filed divorce in May 1952.
The Payton–Neal relationship ended their Hollywood film careers. They cashed in on the notorious press coverage by touring in plays such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, based on the popular 1946 film. They also starred in The Great Jesse James Raid, a B-movie Western that received limited release in 1953.
In England, Payton co-starred in two low-budget pictures for Hammer Films: Four Sided Triangle and The Flanagan Boy (or Bad Blonde).
In May 1953, Payton announced that she and Neal were to be married that summer in Paris, but the couple cancelled their engagement and broke up the following year.
In November 1955, Payton married George A. “Tony” Provas, a furniture-store executive, age 23, in Nogales, Arizona. They divorced in August 1958.
Payton’s hard drinking and living destroyed her physically and emotionally. Celebrity bartender and hustler Scotty Bowers has alleged that for a time, she was regarded as a high-class call girl. Her alcohol dependence and drug addiction led to skirmishes with the law, including arrest on Sunset Boulevard for prostitution.
Payton won an uncredited bit part in the 1963 Western comedy film 4 for Texas, her last acting role.
In 1967, Payton sought refuge from her turbulent circumstances when she moved to San Diego to live with her parents. She had been separated from her husband Jess Rawley two years before.
On May 8, she died at her parents’ home of heart and liver failure; she was 39.
Several books were written about her life, including her memoirs,”I Am Not Ashamed” (1963), “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story” (2007) by John O’Dowd, “L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes and Bad Times” (2005) by John Gilmore, and B Movie: A Play in Two Acts (2014) by Michael B. Druxman.
Filmography
1949
Silver Butte, Rita Landon, directed by Will Cowan
Once More, My Darling Girl Photographer, Robert Montgomery (Uncredited)
Trapped, Meg Dixon, Richard Fleischer
The Pecos Pistol, Kay McCormick, Will Cowan
1950
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye Holiday Carleton, Gordon Douglas
Dallas, Flo, Stuart Heisler
1951
Only the Valiant Cathy Eversham, Gordon Douglas
Drums in the Deep South Kathy Summers, William Cameron Menzies
Bride of the Gorilla Mrs. Dina Van Gelder Curt Siodmak
1953
Four Sided Triangle Lena/Helen Terence Fisher (aka The Monster and Woman)
Run for the Hills Jane Johnson, Lew Landers
The Great Jesse James Raid, Kate, Reginald Le Borg
The Flanagan Boy, Lorna Vecchi, Reginald Le Borg (aka Bad Blonde)
1955
Murder Is My Beat, Eden Lane, Edgar G. Ulmer
1963
4 for Texas, Town citizen, Robert Aldrich (Uncredited)
