The Tragic, Tawdry Life Of Barbara Payton

I’ve been collecting offbeat movie star autobiographies for years, but I’ll never forget the day I finally got my hands the “Holy Grail” of these type of books- I Am Not Ashamed, the ramshackle personal account of Barbara Payton, a Hollywood movie star reduced to an alcoholic prostitute on skid row, turning tricks for $5.

My Hollywood confessional obsession started when I read My Face For The World To See (1971), the goofily endearing memoir by B-movie queen Liz Renay, who spent time in prison for refusing to testify against her gangster boyfriend- Mickey Cohen. Other favorites: Too Much, Too Soon (1957) Diana Barrymore’s frank story of her career and acute alcoholism; Jayne Mansfield’s Wild Wild World (1963); Mamie Van Doren’s My Naughty Naughty Life (1964) & My Wild Love Experiences (1965) and Diana Dors’ ludicrous A-Z Of Men (1984) with entries like: M Is For Musclemen. The funniest by far is Joan Crawford’s My Way Of Life (1971), with hints on how to pack for a trip; plan menus for dinner parties; dress for your man, and includes mind-boggling photos of her dancing with a Zulu tribe while promoting Pepsi with hubby Alfred Steele. But Barbara Payton’s autobiography (which I found on eBay) makes those pale in comparison.

It helps to know a bit about Payton’s tragic, self-destructive life. Born Nov. 16th, 1927 in Cloquet, Minnesota, the bombshell with snow-white blonde hair and blue eyes was a restless young woman who yearned for a more glamorous life. She married her high school sweetheart in 1943, but her parents had the marriage annulled. Her second marriage was to a combat pilot John Payton, and both left for Los Angeles where she began modeling, while her husband went to school thanks to the G.I. Bill.

Her striking good looks finally brought her to film work, co-starring with Lloyd Bridges in the crime drama Trapped (1949) about a ring of counterfeiters.

Screen-tested by James Cagney and his producer brother led to the taut film noir Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), co-starring Cagney. Supposedly she won the role by brazenly storming into the casting director’s office, fanning her legs with her dress and exclaiming: “Shit! It’s a hot fucking day!”

But her claim to fame was her scandalous love affairs with such luminaries as Gary Cooper, Bob Hope, Howard Hughes, John Ireland and Guy Madison. After a messy divorce, Barbara’s headline-grabbing exploits reached their zenith with a torrid triangle among beloved Hollywood star Franchot Tone and tough-guy actor Tom Neal (Detour), of whom Barbara said, “I could look at him and feel hot peppers up my thighs.”

Barbara played both against each other until one fateful night when Neal beat Tone to a pulp- fracturing his cheekbone, breaking his nose and leaving him with a brain concussion. It was an act for which both Payton and Neal were vilified in Hollywood. She was so guilty she married Tone, but seven weeks later she was back in the arms of Neal.

Unfortunately, the only movie work she could find was low-budget crap like Bride Of The Gorilla (1951), co-starring Raymond Burr. Payton and Neal toured the country in a stage version of The Postman Always Lives Twice but their alcoholic, volatile relationship finally burned itself out. Tom Neal faded into obscurity. In 1965 Neal was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for murdering his third wife, Gail Bennett. (Barbara was discovered watching from the audience of the packed courthouse during the trial).

When Holloway House, a North Hollywood paperback publisher approached Payton to pen I Am Not Ashamed in 1963, she had been arrested for writing bad checks (for liquor). Her son had been legally removed from her custody. She was found sleeping on a bus bench on the corner of Sunset Boulevard clad only in a bathing suit and a coat. And she had been picked up numerous times by the police for solicitation. “I know I’m an old coot now (almost 35)- dragged-out, wine-soaked prey for men’s five dollar bills, “ she wrote. “Today right now I live in a rat-roach (they’re friends) infested apartment with not a bean to my name and I drink too much Rose wine. I don’t like what my scale tells me. The little money I do accumulate to pay the rent comes from old residuals, poetry, and favors to men. I love the Negro race and I will accept money only from Negroes.”  The book, culled from liquor-fueled ramblings on audio tapes, meanders from one sordid subject to another: “I had a body when I was a young kid that raised temperatures wherever I went. Today I have three long knife wounds on my solid frame…..How did I get them? Some drunk got mad at something I said, or I did something to get someone mad. It isn’t very clear to me. I’ve got to be more careful in the future.” 

She openly admitted to prostitution: “I’m a whore and by God the men are going to pay dearly for me!”  The book’s photos of a fat, disheveled, Payton sprawled on a coach are shocking. Four years after this notorious tome’s publication her bloated, unrecognizable, body was discovered on the bathroom floor. She was only 39 years old. “How, or why, had I failed?” mused the poor, tormented Payton: “What had happened? Yet somehow I wasn’t ashamed. It was in the cards. I played them as best as I could.”

Amazingly, I Am Not Ashamed has been reprinted by Spurl Editions.  A sensational book about Barbara Payton– Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by John O’Dowd really covers everything about her tragic life, but with great compassion and intelligence. What’s so heartbreaking is that years later, actresses who thumbed their noses at convention and brazenly lived their lives the way they wanted were lauded as rebels and “originals.” Payton paid a stiff price for her defiantly shameless exploits at the time. She will always remain one of my celluloid heroes.