The Barbara Payton Story

Barbara Payton (1927–1967) (born Barbara Lee Redfield in blue-collar Cloquet, Minnesota) was eleven when the family-owned timber business hit the skids. Her father, boomer and hard drinker Lee Redfield, joined a construction company down in the oil town of Odessa, Texas. “I spent half my life watching movies and eating popcorn,” she said, “and when I was sixteen —this is 1943, the war was going on and James Cagney came to Odessa on a bond drive. He was at the picture show and I snuck back and asked him for his autograph. I never could've dreamed I'd someday be standing next to him in front of a camera, starring in the same movie with James Cagney.”

James Cagney and Barbara Payton in "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" (1950) directed by Gordon Douglas

Barbara would say, “I know I can do it —get into movies, because I got the looks and I've got the tits.” “By the time Barbara got to me,” says agent Philip Feldman, “she'd bounced off a few others who'd run her through Paramount and MGM. I was partly responsible for getting her a contract at Universal. She was a hard and nervy girl underneath her special prettiness, and could speak soft, like they say, but carry a big stick. She had the blonde goddess shine that can't be described as anything but a radiance that makes a movie star.” Feldman says, “She was aggressively making the rounds of name circles. With a brassy manner, she'd sidle right up uninvited to important people and swoop them over in a flutter as though she was Marilyn Monroe. One columnist who didn't want to talk to Barbara, who had an ax out for her from the start, like she'd read the writing on the wall plain and clear, was Sheilah Graham. She called Barbara a ‘shameless hussy.’ Rumors got around that Barbara was ‘seeing' Howard Hughes, but there was little evidence other than her invasion of Hughes' party at Ciro's. I recall an occasion when they were at the same table —Barbara and Hughes.

She'd no doubt invited herself to join them because John Ireland, the nervous actor she'd been dating a few times, sat chewing his fingernails while she hopped around the club like a rabbit.”

Actress Marilyn Maxwell and Bob Hope At Ciro's Club (1951)

Bob Hope's soon-reluctant hotel-hopping relationship with Barbara spanned less time than rumors to the contrary suggested. The meetings were few—usually in adjacent rooms registered to Hope. He'd unlock the door and party for a short time before “hitting the sack” for a peaceful, undisturbed sleep. “He snored loud,” Barbara said, “and it was a relief being in another room and shutting the door. The last time he had me traipsing after him, I got up in the morning and the door into his room was locked. At first I thought a maid or somebody'd shut it but room service hadn't been around. I discovered Bob had already checked out and there was a note for me at the desk. It wasn't even in his handwriting. ‘What a pleasure it was to have met you,’ it said. And he'd be looking forward to seeing me again.”

Actress Mamie Van Doren, under contract to Universal, says, “I'd see Barbara at a lot of the parties, drinking freely —very fluidly, you might say, and being chased after by men and her chasing after them herself. Barbara and I were friendly to a point because of Universal, but I can't say we were bosom pals. I was always more interested in my career, in the work I'd be involved in, but Barbara's concerns seemed to focus on having a wild time. I never had to chase anyone because I could stand still and men would be all around me."

"But Barbara —and I felt sorry for her— went after people in an almost ravenous manner. It was no secret about her and Bob Hope. She told me he'd rented a little motel room on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, on a weekly basis for his fling with Barbara. But she said he complained about the bed, that it wasn't to his satisfaction. He wasn't ‘performing’ as he wanted to, she said, so Hope ordered a new bed and had it delivered to the motel. Barbara told me he couldn't perform any better on the new bed than he'd done on the old one. She laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.”

According to Arthur Marx’s biography, "The Secret Life of Bob Hope", Hope’s subsequent long-term affair with actress Marilyn Maxwell, after breaking-up with Barbara Payton, was so open that the Hollywood community routinely referred to her as “Mrs. Bob Hope”. Hope paid Barbara off to end the affair quietly. Payton later revealed the affair with a tell-all printed in July 1956 in Confidential magazine. “Hope was at times a mean-spirited individual with the ability to respond with a ruthless vengeance when sufficiently provoked.”

“Not only did Hope give her the bum's rush,” said Lila Leeds (actress, party girl and Barbara's friend) “but Universal called her in to hand down her walking papers.” The dismissal from the studio was based on a morals clause in her contract: Chasing a married man— “an important celebrity,” she was told.

Lloyd Bridges and Barbara Payton in "Trapped" (1949) directed by Richard Fleischer

"Trapped," starring Lloyd Bridges, ran in the noir genre of lower-budgeted, second-feature films. Actor John Hoyt says, “She had a halting, intense energy, and was just twenty-two when she made Trapped. The picture was filmed in a documentary style like Naked City and the Mark Hellinger pictures. Earl Felton who wrote the script said Barbara was one of the best things in the picture. He liked her and they were friendly, got into a lot of involved conversations. Felton later shot himself —a suicide. Richard Fleischer, who directed the picture, said, ‘Payton's got a quality that's unusual, like she's run around a track, is catching her breath and holding it at the same time.’ Being a big star was right at her fingertips. She was very beautiful and in an individual way, meaning that nobody looked quite like Barbara. Nobody gave a hoot she'd been one more face in the parade of Bob Hope's philandering ways, and the only real concern was some of the characters she was associating with.”

Hollywood took notice of Trapped. This led Barbara to producer William Cagney, the brother of James Cagney. “Everyone was talking about her,” said Cagney, “because of her work with Lloyd Bridges. She was exciting and explosive. When she came for an interview she was tense and jumpy, and I told her to relax. She pushed her hair back off her face with one of those quick sweeps of her hand and gave me an icy look. I asked if she knew anything about the picture we were doing called Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. She said no.”

I told her the part was that of a gun-moll type to play opposite James Cagney. Cagney Productions signed Barbara for Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye on a joint seven-year contract with Warner Brothers. Her starting salary was $5,000 a week. In Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a cynical, violent film, Barbara gave her inarguably best performance. Warner's prolific director, Gordon Douglas, said, “She gave it her all. She had an erratic manner that vacillated between softness and fury, and her undeniable beauty leaps off the screen. She was fun to work with, and was under the guidance of James Cagney. She couldn't have had a better mentor.”

Universal wanted her for another picture, but Warners wouldn't let her do it. They didn't know for sure what to do with her, but they weren't going to loan her out. So while they stuck her in another movie. ‘Testing the waters,’ they'd call it.” The picture starred Gary Cooper, a Western called 'Dallas'.

“Barbara wasn't starring in it,” says Ann Richards. “She didn't have a leading role. In fact she had fifth billing and was playing a hootchy girlfriend of Steve Cochran.” Confused and angry that she didn't have the starring role, Barbara began dishing out a hard time. “The start of her fall, you could say,” says agent Feldman. “No matter how big you get, you don't dictate terms in Hollywood. They'll let you think you're dictating terms as long as you're showing a profit, but you're not really dictating the terms.”

Steve Cochran halfheartedly cooed his sympathy. He'd attended a couple of Barbara's parties and on the movie set shared nips in a trailer. They latched onto one another initially, Cochran carrying the same chip on his shoulder, though he was an accomplished actor, unlike Barbara. The difference in chips was that Cochran had long since placated his frustration with a steady, hard-hitting career as a tough-guy actor.

John O’Dowd (who wrote Barbara Payton's biography "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye"): Barbara and Franchot Tone were totally ill-suited for one another and I believe their marriage was doomed from the start. While they initially had a respect and a genuine affection for each other, this quickly disappeared after Franchot realized that Barbara couldn’t remain faithful. Later, their relationship was filled with duplicitous and vengeful acts fueled by obsessive jealousy and game-playing and an almost sadomasochistic feeding off of each other’s weaknesses and most fragile emotions.

Franchot Tone had divorced Jean Wallace in 1948

Franchot Tone and Barbara announced their engagement at a Stork Club party. “To the love of my life,” he said. “The flower of my heart.” But Tone was confused by Barbara's involvement with the likes of Don Cougar and Stanley Adams. “I would personally never have known such low-gauge personalities,” Tone said. “People mixed up with hoodlums and dope dealing. I couldn't leave her stranded, and I swore to be at her side, despite the ridicule I was receiving for getting involved.”

Warner Brothers took careful notice of the bad publicity and reviewed Barbara's past problems with Universal. The decision had already been made to cast her in the female lead opposite Gregory Peck in Only the Valiant. Peck was starring as a cavalry officer. The film was shooting in New Mexico, with Gordon Douglas directing.

Gregory Peck and Barbara Payton in "Only the Valiant" (1951) directed by Gordon Douglas

“The story was weak,” says Neville Brand. “The script could've been written on toilet paper.” Working again with Barbara, Brand says, “Nobody seemed to give a damn about the movie except Gregory Peck. Gig Young was also in it, and from the start, Gig and Barbara paired up off camera, both raising their separate cups, I presume, the result being some of Barbara's scenes cut because she was terrible, acted obnoxious and rowdy, her and Gig laughing and carrying on. Gregory Peck grew hotter under the collar each day. He finally had her barred from the set except for the scenes in which he had to work with her.” “Laughs are laughs,” says Gig Young, “but after a few days Barbara could give you the worst headache you've ever had. She could be absolutely a holy asshole. She shouldn't have been a drinker—should've laid off the jug. Show you how tough she was. Talk about the characters she kept on the side, and these guys were hoods. Then I caught her sticking a needle in her leg and I said, ‘what the hell are you doing? You a junkie?’ She said, ‘It's for pain. I'm in pain!’ She didn't have her fucking lines and Gordon Douglas, a swell man —was going nuts with her.

She couldn't draw upon herself. You couldn't get that close to her as a person to help her. I tried but she was resistant. She could deliver simple lines but couldn't make the part between the words come to life. Couldn't make a real person out of any of the characters she was playing. Like she was lost in her own world —standing in the middle of a movie set yet off somewhere in her own rose garden.”

It was during the making of Drums in the Deep South, a King Brothers independent picture for RKO-Radio, starring Guy Madison and filmed at the Goldwyn Studios, that Franchot brought to the surface her frail faithfulness in the flesh.

Married to troubled, ex-Paramount leading lady Gail Russell, Madison said he was avoiding confrontations with his wife. Avoiding even seeing her, he told Barbara as they'd stop for cocktails after a day's shoot at the Formosa Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Ann Richards: “Barbara said that Guy Madison told her he isn't gay and isn't even a bisexual. He claims he's straight as a gate and he's set to proving it. Barbara was having a ball and a fling because she says Guy's wife is so soused she doesn't even know he's in her life and he's lonely. He says working with Barbara has got him horny as hell.” Franchot personally followed Barbara and Madison from the Formosa to the apartment on Hollywood Boulevard where Barbara was staying —Tone paying the rent, the liquor bill, and footing for her new clothes, shoes, and costly furs. The confrontation between Guy Madison and Franchot in Barbara's apartment reached Confidential magazine. They published the story, bringing a heap of bad publicity down on Barbara. The studio said, “She appears as nothing but a slut in this thing —a bum.”

Franchot left for New York, Barbara pledging her love right back. “We'll be married soon as I return,” he said. “You'll be my wife, my bride. You'll belong to me forever, despite what anyone says. I love you and adore you and I want to bury myself in you. I'll die for you rather than ever cause you pain.”

Two days later, bored stiff, she sat at a swimming pool watching well-muscled Tom Neal in bathing trunks as he threw a beach ball to a giggling redhead in the water. Rippling in the sun, his skin glossed with Johnson's baby oil, Neal bounced along the edge of the pool graceful as a dancer. Barbara would later say, “He could make his muscles stand up and wink.” Tom Neal was “born too well to have turned out so bad,” says Toby Baker.

Ann Savage and Tom Neal in "Detour" (1945) directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

"He was a troublemaker, the only one I had problems with in all the years I was in movies. He would go out of his way to rub you the wrong way! Otherwise, he could be charming. He was like two different people." -Ann Savage about Tom Neal

Reduced to “poverty row” movies, Tom connected with a young director named Edgar Ulmer, maestro of the minuscule budget. They shot a cheap, quick film—a sixday, back-lot special called Detour, an unintentionally extraordinary film that would beat the test of time as the most despairing of all B-noir movies.

Through Ann Savage, Tom met Vicky Lane, who'd starred in 'The Jungle Captive'. Vicky and Tom became inseparable. “I went over to RKO,” Tom says, “and did a John Garfield part in one picture and bingo! Things clicked. I was working in one picture after another and Vicky and I got married. I was living in paradise… for a while.” A year and a half later, in 1950, Vicky divorced him on grounds of mental and physical cruelty.

Barbara Payton arriving the hospital to visit fiancé Franchot Tone who was beaten senseless by Tom Neal

Franchot was delivered into surgery at California Hospital, his nose broken and mashed, his cheekbone fractured, and suffering a concussion. The press swooped down on the hospital. Bill Watson of the Hollywood Citizen-News says, “The love brawl was the hottest thing we'd had in years. I knew Barbara Payton. I'd talked to her before. Who's she going to marry? One day someone —the next day someone else! ‘Franchot did not swing first!’ she said, ‘How could I have ever wanted to marry such a brute!”

Barbara, beaming for the cameras, reported that she was scheduled to be back in Hollywood the following week for the lead in Walter Wanger's 'Lady in the Iron Mask'. No sooner were they back in L.A. than she learned that producer Wanger had dumped her from the picture, replacing her with Patricia Medina. Barbara was told by an associate at Warners, “The word's out. With all the crap that's been going on, this rotten publicity, you've not only shot a hole through your foot, you've blown the foot right off your leg.” The “love brawl” had soured the studio but it was her continued connection to hoods and dope dealers that sealed her fate.

Fearing a box office drop due to Barbara's misbehavior, Warners opted not to put her into another big picture. At the same time continuing to get their money's worth, they passed her over to producer Jack Broder for his low-budget, horror film, Bride of the Gorilla. Broder said, “Without as much at stake on the back end, we gave Barbara top billing in the belief that the controversial publicity she was getting would create a draw at the box office.”

The film featured Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney, Jr., and actor George Sanders’ alcohol-slogged brother, Tom Conway. Burr would say, “Barbara's a gorgeous gal but she's like a sack of cats. She means well—she tries. Our director, Curt Siodmak, a wonderful man, did his best in every way to keep her in one piece for the picture. Barbara was absolutely stunning. Her beauty is magnetic and slightly mysterious. I'll never understand what happened to her or how it could have happened. I'm sorry for her —deeply sorry.” Director Curt Siodmak said, “I was working with three alcoholics and a sex maniac.” Realart's promotion of Bride of the Gorilla launched with special previews for Halloween. Barbara's appearance on screen was greeted with hoots and hollers, loud whistling and stomping.

Tom Neal and Barbara Payton debarking from a plane, 1953

Barbara's marriage to Franchot lasted for fifty-three days. A defeated, deflated Tone said, “She can't get Neal out of her hair. I am disillusioned and heartsick and there's nothing before us but divorce and hardship.” The much-publicized reconciliation between Barbara and Tone lasted less than three weeks. They were in the Warwick Hotel in New York when Franchot caught her “cooing,” he said, to Neal on the phone. “She was talking dirty to him. About his dick! I went in the bathroom and vomited.”

The blow that hit the hardest landed when Barbara returned to Hollywood. Her first contract option was up for renewal and William Cagney, in accord with Warners, declined to renew the option. Barbara's seven-year contract had collapsed after one year. Feldman says, “It was a tragedy. She'd had everything and threw it away. She'd been warned, but Barbara didn't seem to have any way of listening to what was being said or how to play the game.”

Barbara made two movies abroad, Bad Blonde and The Four-Sided Triangle, both forgettable pictures but amusements to England's moviegoers. Smelling possible employment, Tom joined her in London where they resumed their fights, sexual marathons, and drinking binges. With nothing further offered in London, Barbara and Tom made the trip back to Hollywood. Another press conference was summoned long distance by Barbara, to be held as soon as she stepped off the plane. “Tom Neal,” she announced, “has taken over the management of my career, and I will only be accepting strong film roles…”

Neal's management of Barbara's career, like an ape groping a bunch of bananas, landed her the role of a cave girl in the pathetic, Sonny Tufts slapstick B-movie, Run for the Hills. Still talking shop, pictures pending, and negotiations she couldn't discuss, Barbara showed up in Las Vegas, gravitating to an unknown actor named Gordon Scott. Soon to be Hollywood's next Tarzan, Scott was an almost instant replay of Barbara's attraction to Tom.

Barbara’s relationship with Neal was “one long bloody spectacle” and labeled as “Glitterville’s Top Tramp” over the course of a few years, her name was linked with: George Raft, Bob Hope, Guy Madison, Gregory Peck, John Ireland, Ralph Meeker, Errol Flynn, Marlon Brando, James Cagney and Lloyd Bridges. While the sex scandals helped bury Barbara’s career, her connections with organized crime ensured there would be no career comeback. Source: mostlyfiction.com

John O’Dowd: Barbara’s relationship with Tom Neal was another exercise in masochism, I believe. They were both externally rough and irreverent, and they seemingly had over-the-top sex drives that they indulged often with not a thought (or care) to the possible consequences. Neal was also said to have an explosive temper — easy to anger and to react in an often physically aggressive manner — and for some inexplicable reason Barbara seemed to enjoy needling him and invoking his anger.

Barbara had serious self-worth issues as well as some heavy psychological baggage and severe emotional problems. I have no doubt that she was mentally ill. I don’t think Barbara ever stood a chance at succeeding in relationships with either Franchot Tone or Tom Neal — or with anyone else, for that matter. She needed intense, long-term psychotherapy, something that she, sadly, never received. Source: www.altfg.com

Another Marlon Brando sidekick, New York actor Sam Gilman, ex-friend of Carlo Fiori, says, “Payton was a junkie, plain and simple. She was hooked solid like a tuna on a nail." As a result of his past association with Tom, Ulmer brought Barbara in for the part. “She was desperate,” Ulmer said, “the desperation that was right for the character and the picture… Barbara Payton was haunted.”

Hugo Haas, another low-budget film noir director, says, “Ulmer's picture had a sense of immediacy few major studios were capable of capturing. They do not have the range of freedom from restriction, nor the creativity. Later I wanted to use Barbara but there was all the trouble she was in and she had gained weight since she appeared in Murder Is My Beat … She was drunk when I talked to her and I believed she was beyond the point of being in control… I personally felt she seemed suicidal.”

Unlike Barbara, Tom drifted from Hollywood but wound up broke in Palm Springs. He got a job as a head waiter in a restaurant. Soon he became manager, and through a customer got the idea of venturing into a one-man landscaping business. “A glorified gardener,” he'd joke. “I wouldn't have been able to get a job in Hollywood to save my life.” Tom passed exams for a landscape architect and opened a small business in Palm Springs. Tom went to Chicago to see his son and when he returned unexpectedly the night of April Fool's Day, accused Gail of leaving him for another man and the last fight erupted into violence. Gail was shot dead from a single .45 bullet entering her left temple. Her body was on the couch when the police arrived but the gun was nowhere in sight. Tom was arrested and charged with murdering his wife.

Barbara was taken into custody for passing bad checks at the liquor counter of a Hollywood market. Making faces, “mugging” for the newsmen, she joked that the arrest was nothing more than a prank. She stopped kidding when the police escorted her to jail and booked her for the bad checks. Her ex-husband was some kind of hero, his plane had been shot down and he'd spent a long time in a Korean prison camp. He took temporary custody and filed in court for full custody.” John Payton's list of complaints included “neglect” of the child, routinely exposing him to “profane language, immoral conduct, unwholesome activities, and no moral education.” She lost custody of the boy and was granted only “monitored visitation rights.”

Speaking honestly, Barbara said she'd hit the skids. “I'm a drunk. I drink wine all day and I'm writing poetry.” She was turning cheap tricks to stay afloat—boulevard creeps and downtown jokers and losers on Main Street. She was shooting smack but denied she was an addict. Sergeant Joe Lesnick had worked narcotics when he busted Barbara “with the smack and a load already under her skin.” He told me, “We weren't interested in the two-bit tricks she was turning in that motel room—that was Vice. We were on her for junk, trying to nail her connection. It was kept out of the papers because a guy at the Hollywood Citizen felt sorry for her—with a lot of damn good reason… She was a sad, sad case.”

Mamie Van Doren: “I felt sorry for Barbara. So much pain… I knew her long enough to see the change from one of the most beautiful girls to ever make it into being a star, and with a unique and unusual personality. But she was someone misery seemed to love. She was a person that broke herself, and even broken and wasted, she didn't leave Hollywood. That's the most pitiful part of all of it, because she'd be there in your face —a reminder and a terrible testament of how you can fail in the system, and how it can devastate. But Hollywood was not to blame. One had to look deeply into Barbara —if one could stand getting that close to the abyss.” -"L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times" (2005) by John Gilmore

In "The Song is You", a novel by Megan E. Abbott (2008), we find some references to Barbara Payton's story interspersed within a noirish tale in the tradition of James Ellroy's 'The Black Dahlia' and Joyce Carol Oates's 'Blonde': "The Song Is You" conjures a heady brew of truth and speculation, of fact and pulp fiction, taking the reader on a dark tour of Tinseltown, from movie studios, gala premieres, and posh nightclubs to gangsters, blackmailing B-girls, and the darkest secrets that lie behind Hollywood's luminous façade. Apply a sly feminist sensibility to postwar Hollywood noir, and you get a sordid saga in which women normally consigned to one-note victimhood turn out to be alarmingly complicit in their own downfalls in this solid follow-up to 2005's lustrous 'Die a Little'. Gil Hopkins is a studio fixer who helped cover up a song-and-dance team's involvement in the disappearance of an aspiring actress. When a gal pal shows up years later demanding help, Hop tries coming to grips with the conscience he never knew he had. A fevered, schizophrenic exploration of L.A.'s darkest corners follows as Hop opens cans of worms only to work desperately to keep any from wriggling free. -Frank Sennett (Booklist)

"Truth was, as much he liked Barbara, he'd been growing weary of the type. The itchy colts, always fixing to run into a fence, a tree, anything. Barbara Payton, hell, she was all tits and mouth, and he'd been around her kind just long enough to know that no amount of 'potential' in the world could save from her deathless desire to ruin herself. In five years, maybe less, he knew there'd be crinsom spider veins on that milk face, either two handfuls too much or too little on those ivory-for-now, soon-to-be ashen-gray hips. These types always went to seed, you could hear it rattling around under their shiny hair every time they shook their heads." -"The Song Is You" (2008) by Megan Abbott

Elisha Cuthbert would be an ideal choice in the case of reviving Barbara Payton's life and memory through a future on-screen project.

Barbara Payton, July 1951

Elisha Cuthbert, October 16, 2012