Profile
Barbara Payton
Actress
Female
Born
Nov 16, 1927
Hometown
Cloquet, Minnesota
Died
May 8, 1967
Death Place
San Diego
Other Names
Redfield, Barbara...
Barbara Payton was an American film actress best known for her stormy social life and eventual battles with alcohol and drug addiction. Her life has been the subject of several books including Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story (2007), by… Read More
Romance
Check out the latest love interests for Barbara Payton.
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George ProvasMarried 1955 - 1958
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Jerry BialacDated 1949
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Ted BriskinDated
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Buddy AndersonDated
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Bob NealDated
News + Updates
Browse recent news and stories about Barbara Payton.
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Marcos Históricos Do Western: 1950 1951 Tribuna Do Norte NatalGoogle News - Aug 13, 2011
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Barbara Payton And Blood Sisters Band Debut At Como's Royal Oak Daily TribuneGoogle News - Jun 01, 2011
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Rape Reports Up In Various Cities Ventura County ReporterGoogle News - May 26, 2011
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Bob Seger Hits Emotional Sweet Spots At Last Palace Show The Detroit NewsGoogle News - May 22, 2011
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Barbara Payton.
CHILDHOOD
1927
Birth
Born on November 16, 1927.
TEENAGE
1943
15 Years Old
In November 1943, the then sixteen-year-old eloped with her high school boyfriend William Hodge.
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1944
16 Years Old
In 1944, she met her second husband, a decorated combat pilot named John Payton, who at the time was stationed at Midland Air Base. The couple were married on February 10, 1945 and moved to Los Angeles where John enrolled at USC under the G.I. Bill.
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During this period in her life, the couple welcomed their son, John Lee, who was born in February 1947.
TWENTIES
1948
20 Years Old
Payton managed to combine the responsibilities of wife, new mother and professional model, yet the strains on the Payton marriage finally reached the breaking point and Barbara and her husband separated in July 1948.
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1949
21 Years Old
Payton first gained notice in the 1949 film noir Trapped, co-starring Lloyd Bridges.
In 1950, she was given the opportunity to make a screen test for John Huston's production of the forthcoming MGM crime drama The Asphalt Jungle.
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1951
23 Years Old
In 1951 while engaged to actor Franchot Tone, Payton began having an affair with B-movie actor Tom Neal.
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1955
27 Years Old
Payton's hard drinking and hard living ultimately had a devastating effect on her once enviable beauty, destroying her both physically and emotionally. From 1955 to 1963, her growing alcoholism and drug abuse led to multiple skirmishes with the law including the passing of bad checks and eventually an arrest on Sunset Boulevard for prostitution.
THIRTIES
1962
34 Years Old
Writer Robert Polito recalls a thirty-four year old Payton in 1962, when she was a habitué of a Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard establishment, “Coach and Horses,” where the young Polito’s father tended bar: “Barbara Payton oozed alcohol even before she ordered a drink … her brassy hair; her face displayed a perpetual sunburn, a map of veins by her nose … she carried an old man’s potbelly … her gowns and dresses … creased and spotted … She must have weighed two hundred pounds … She does not so much inhabit a character as impersonate a starlet.”
1963
35 Years Old
In 1963, she was paid $1,000 for her ghost-written autobiography, I Am Not Ashamed, which included unflattering photographs taken of her at the time.
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1967
39 Years Old
In 1967, ill and seeking refuge from her turbulent circumstances, she moved back to San Diego, California, to live with her parents.
FORTIES
1967
40 Years Old
On May 8, 1967, Payton died at her parents' home of heart and liver failure.
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Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Payton.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.