Actress Barbara Payton: Big Time Hollywood Actress to Homeless Junkie Prostitute

What's the difference?

She worked with Gregory peck and Gary cooper as leading men. Same as grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. Funny what different directions all of their careers took.

God, whoever wrote that blog piece OP linked to should be shot. It's nearly incomprehensible.

I would love to read her autobiography. Talk about a tragic figure. Someone should make a movie about her life. It would be Oscar bait for a young actress.

Barbie Ferrera?

I’d never heard of her. Reading up on her. What a sad end to her career and life.

Honestly why couldn’t they cover her in a movie instead of constantly rehashing Marilyn Monroe. Let’s have movies about other tragic starlets.

Also Suzan Ball could be a good subject and some of the silent ones. Olive Thomas, Barbara La Marr, Renee adoree, Marie prevost… why doesn’t Ryan Murphy get onto this. A series that covers one tragic starlet after another… he could easily ring out at least 10 seasons.

Also another tragic universal starlet was Susan Cabot of course.

Helen Wood!

R9 THAT would make a great movie. Talk about tragic.

Suzan Ball

Susan Peters

Gloria Dickson (no relation to DL fave BrendaD Ickson)

But no one fell as hard as Miss Payton.

Payton was the poor man's Cleo Moore.

Jayne Mansfield looked quite ethnic in the early days.

What about Miss Barbara Nichols?

Barbara Nichols and Cassandra Peterson had a lover in common.

R12, Cleo Moore was a poor man's Barbara Payton, in terms of the acting part of her career.

Cleo was.... in her own category in most ways.

She looked like that singer Martha Something, with the ugly mouth.

Martha Raye!

Barbara Payton’s bio is amazing. Listen to You must remember this podcast episode about her - whew!

[quote]God, whoever wrote that blog piece OP linked to should be shot. It's nearly incomprehensible.

It's Kim Morgan, she used to be married to Guy Maddin, now married to Guillermo del Toro. She started out as a film blogger, got a bunch of plastic surgery, snagged a couple of big names as husbands.

She was never very good but she acted like she was an edgy 70s-loving California girl and that really appeals to a certain type of straight guy.

R7 that is a great idea for a Ryan Murphy series.

I would add Gail Russell to the lineup though. Barbara Payton had an affair with Guy Madison while he was married to Gail. Franchot Tone burst in on them and that ended it.

Her infamous memoir was re-released in 2016. It’s both trashy, campy and tragic.

Frank Sinatra walked in on her and his wife or girlfriend in bed together and Babs jumped out the window.

Ava?

[quote] She worked with Gregory peck and Gary cooper as leading men

In junk they were ashamed of. Those two films were bottom of the barrel stuff.

There's also "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," a very good biography of her by John O'Dowd.

R26 I was just about to recommend it. It's very well-written and very sad, especially as her descent passes the point of no return.

For me, it seems like once her ex took their kid away (for obvious reasons), she gave up.

It really should be a miniseries, but FFS ANYONE but Murphy. "SARAH PAULSON IS BARBARA PAYTON!"

Florence Pugh?

Meryl Streep.

Scarlett Johansson IS Barbara Payton.

R30 god No! She wasn’t even good as a Veronica lake type In the black dahlia.

R28 I could see that

Those of you yearning for a tragic starlets series should check out the podcast series Dead Blondes by You Must Remember This.

There’s something so gross and embarrassing about Jayne Mansfield. It could almost be argued that even Miss Payton (!) had more dignity.

Payton was like Angelyne. Living in a fantasy.

She went into the hospital to see Franchot Tone with booze.

This is so sad.

What a life.

They found her dead next to a dumpster. She became a heroin addict. She talked about finding out that she could use her looks and body to get what she wanted at a very young age and documented it. She was proud of it too.

Her parents were also drunks. She went to live with them in her final years. They died shortly after she did.

Bringing booze to the hospital.

She even had her shrinks falling for her - according to her. She tried to get one of them to sleep with her. He left his job to be ethical but was still married at the time with kids. Babs booked a motel with adjoining rooms and waited for a knock from him to make up his mind if he wanted to fuck her. He didn’t. Only kissed and couldn’t go through with it. He sent her a card every year thanking her. He said he almost made the biggest mistake of his life.

“I Am Not Ashamed” is a great read.

Vanity Fair.

Prostitution arrest photo.

She was arrested for signing bad checks at the grocery store and landlord. People on Hollywood were always coming to her rescue.

She got into a fight with one bit actor who she said contributed nothing to society. He took her around and knocked on doors and introduced her to people he was currently paying for (rent, food, etc). He ended up running over a couple and believed in karma - something bad would happen to him as a result. It’s a big story in the book and quite touching.

She’s like your drunken aunt. One reviewer said that you don’t know how much of it is embellished since she’s so drunk.

I read kiss tomorrow goodbye and it was so interesting. I couldn’t put it down

[quote]r39 They found her dead next to a dumpster.

No. She was living with her parents, as you said. I believe she died in their garage.

Top review of I Am Not Ashamed on Goodreads:

Like a terrifying existential nihilist novel written by an evil, slow nine-year-old.

Was she the starlet who was fond of temporary face tattoos?

After reading "I Am Not Ashamed," Barbara Stanwyck sneered, "Well, she damn well should have been!"

Yes, Payton would put on weird stickers on her face. I remember someone posting a bunch of them on here years ago, some were moons and stars, but there were some that I could not decipher.

R23, from her memoirs:

"I became good friends with Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. We three were in Palm Springs together. We were drinking and laying around with not many clothes on and talking about things. Well, he [Sinatra] didn’t approve of the way we were carrying on like that and one night he came in and caught us all together. Well, I jumped out the window and into the bushes, but he caught Lana and Ava together and was mad as hell…I was always in scrapes like that."

She goaded the fight between Franchot Tone and ex-boxer/actor Tom Neal that landed seriously injured Tone in the hospital. Nice of Babs to bring him booze, though...

R52 So is she saying she and Ava and Lana were licking each other's pussies in Palm Springs?

R53 the IDEA!

Franchot Tone trimmed her pussy hair and ate it.

Angel hair pasta

Did Joan teach Tone that trick?

I never got the big deal about her. Not a seductive vulnerability like Monroe's, not a stunning body like Mansfield's, not a great face like Lana Turner's. Payton was just . . . blonde.

She had a healthy, farmgirl quality.

Florence Pugh would be a good choice to play Payton. Another one who's only considered attractive because she's blonde.

In the face, there is a striking resemblance to doomed starlet Dorothy Stratten.

I never got the big deal about Stratten, either. She had blonde hair, long legs, and big tits, but so did a lot of other Playboy bunnies. She certainly couldn't act.

Stratten is only remembered because she was murdered. If she'd lived and married Bogdanovich, she'd have ended up another Hollywood housewife. The same as Sharon Tate.

Jaclyn Smith couldn't act. Are we supposed to forget her too?

I Am Not Ashamed is a fabulous titled and makes me want to read it! Should be a movie.

Who?

[quote]some were moons and stars,

But no pink hearts or green clovers?

She was pretty but nothing special. I tried watching a movie she in and she wasn’t anything special. Hee story is still fascinating. Most people never have such a fat fall from grace.

Payton lucked into a few good roles, otherwise she'd have become a hooker much sooner. The odd thing is that she ever rose as far as she did, not that she fell so far.

I don't think it's that odd.

I find Barbara's story interesting because of the self-made tragedy. She had every chance to be a star, but she sabotaged herself. Reading Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is like watching a car crash in motion

Agree. She could have even made a comfortable life as an ordinary people she didn’t have to become a hooker

Barbara Payton was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, same birthplace as that other midwestern blonde, Jessica Lange.

Payton wasn't going to become a housewife or a secretary. She liked drinking, fucking, smoking, and otherwise being outrageous. That would have been okay--Joan Crawford liked those things too. But Payton had no work ethic, partied her looks away, and didn't like being told what to do. Of course Hollywood got sick of her very quickly.

She never would have had a comfortable, ordinary life.

Her ghostwritten autobiography "I Am Not Ashamed" is harrowing. I don't know how much of it is fact and how much is fiction, but it is a fascinating and depressing read nonetheless. I think she was quite beautiful. Like Lana Turner, she too was a sex addict and loved the booze, but, unlike Lana, Barbara was unable to keep it under control. She was an impossible case and ultimately became a completely non-functioning addict—self-destructive in every way imaginable. Her life was quite sad.

Couldn't she have gone into Burlesque?

[quote]R71 I find Barbara's story interesting because of the self-made tragedy. She had every chance to be a star, but she sabotaged herself.

She did not have the necessary talent to be a star. She only did low budget stuff (“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” was made for James Cagney’s own production company) and simply didn’t display enough onscreen oomph to warrant bigger offers.

Being any kind of performer takes discipline. Payton had no discipline, just a certain animal sensuality that was quickly drowned under a flood of alcohol.

Lana Turner had talent?!

[quote]Lana Turner had talent?!

She had Movie Star talent.

Lana Turner made money for the studios and mostly did what she was told. That's really all it took. You didn't even have to be beautiful: Plenty of stars weren't (Garland, Davis, Astaire). Just make money and behave.

Did Payton ever carry a film on her own? All she seemed to do were play girlfriends, and there were plenty of sexy blondes around who were easier to work with.

Yeah, r81, it's not like Garland, Davis or Astaire had anything else going for them.

What they had going for them was a talent that made money for the studios. Money: That's all the studios cared about when it came to making stars. Talent was great if you had it, but if you couldn't sing or dance or even act that well but still put butts in seats (like Lana Turner), that was fine too. The studios were quite pragmatic. And no matter how talented you were, if you became a pain in the ass and cost them money--as Garland famously did late in her career at MGM--they put you down the road.

Payton's star was on the rise when she garnered raves for "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" (1950), but she essentially erased whatever goodwill the Hollywood community had for her by two-timing their golden boy Franchot Tone. By 1951, she was back to doing low budget b-pictures like "Bride of the Gorilla."

Her career was really brief--from next hot thing to b-pictures to Skid Row in just a few years. Plenty of starlets washed out that quickly, but few of them fell quite that far and were that candid about telling the public everything that happened to them.

I believe Grace Metallica used her for her book Payton Place.

*

Many years ago, I read a memoir by an actor who was good friends with James Dean. I'm embarrassed that I can't remember his name.

In addition to talking about all the agents/producers who sexually assaulted him and came in his ass or mouth, and how Dean's dick was too big for him, he talked about running into Barbara Bayton in a restaurant. She was in a booth in the back and offered to give him a blowjob for cash for drugs. It was really tawdry.

She had a really hard look, even in her glory days.

Was she the Tara Reid of her day?

Did she have a square boob?

That still at r90 brings to mind Chloe Grace Moretz.

[88] was it Dennis Hopper?

[R88] was it Dennis Hopper? Apologies ballsed it up the first time!

You think Dennis Hooper wrote about men cumming in his ass/mouth?

well, he was stoned a lot

I remember reading about the alleged Dennis hopper Barbara Payton encounter too.

In Laid Bare by John Gilmore i think he discusses Dennis Hopper getting a blow job from Barbara Payton but not that he enjoyed any male on male action!

Everybody seems to have crossed paths with James dean.

Love Stanwyck and Crawford, but they both were able to bury their shady pasts. For the most part anyway. Neither one of them were in a place to judge Barbara Payton.

I just bought the autobiography and can't wait to dive in. She was a hottie and caused fist fights between her two lovers - Franchot Tone and Tom Neal (Detour).

The article written by the author of her memoir at the time of her death is batshit crazy. She lived in squalor and had a nasty pimp. He took the money. She told the author to give the pimp the money and her the wine. She met the author with no underwear on and kept bending over showing her ass and beaver. The pimp would bring in a random guy and he’d fuck her for a few minutes and leave. This was done during the author’s first meeting with her. She saved all her scrap books. She charged $5 a fuck. And she would only screw the Negro race because they didn’t mind that she was fat.

One source says that her son was taken away after she let a boyfriend almost stab him. Apparently the son spoke of his mother in glowing terms to one author and wouldn’t speak to another. Just crazy. She would go from bar to bar with no shoes on drinking all day.

R101, please post your thoughts!

R103 Will do.

Junkie Whore!!!

She died in her parents' home. She was on the couch, not feeling well, got up and ran to the bathroom. She groaned and fell off of the toilet. Her mother ran into the bathroom and the parents called an ambulance but it was all for nought.

Sad.

[quote]r102 She would go from bar to bar with no shoes on, drinking all day.

A regular Tuesday for so many of us.

I had an aunt who was an alcoholic; in her later years she drank from morning until night. Rum and lots of it. She destroyed her pancreas and liver. She also had stomach ulcers. A piece of her intestine broke off and the contents somehow got into her bloodstream and she went septic. Her organs shut down and she died.

Has anyone read I Am Not Ashamed AND Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye? How do they compare?

The first is Barbara's "memoirs" as told to a tabloid journalist for money. Super tawdry but who knows what was exaggerated or not. Still a great read.

The latter is a serious biography that's warts-and-all but also assesses her talent, her relationships with family, etc.

Both are worth the read.

I wonder if our resident anti-AA troll would try to dissuade Payton from attending.

If you like Barb's book, you might like Liz Renay......everything Barbara's book has plus GANGSTERS!

My Face For The World To See.

Elisha Cuthbert could play her:

Cuthbert's career is too cold, no?

Is Liz Renault the woman who talked about Jerry Lewis jacking off in front of her onto a towel while she stood naked?

R115 Eeeew.

Liz Renay had a strip act with here DAUGHTER. Payton's son got off easy by comparison.

*her DAUGHTER

R115, Liz Renay, and yes. It was Jerry's way of staying faithful to his wife.

[quote]Is Liz Renault the woman who talked about Jerry Lewis jacking off in front of her onto a towel while she stood naked?

As r119 points out, it was Liz Renay, and it wasn't a towel — it was, for some odd reason, a square of white shag carpet that Jerry carried around to cum on.

I know far too much about Liz Renay.

Babs goes into how women go lez. It’s hilarious. She ate pussy non-stop for roles. One she talks about hasn’t done a woman before and Barbara wanted to be her co-star, so she fucked her and got the part and did her every day at lunch. She goes on to say, “They thought we were just friends. If they only knew what we had for lunch.”

Okay, now we HAVE to figure out who the actress in R121’s post is!

Ruth Roman.

Well, Ruth Roman could have gone down on the [italic]Andrea Doria[/italic] so Barbara going down on her sounds a lot more pleasant.

I knew Eddie Hand, the guy who gave her the clothes she was wearing when the [italic]Ile de France[/italic] - which had saved 700-plus passengers after the collision off Nantucket - pulled into New York Harbor the next day. She'd been separated from her 3 year-old son and was frantic to find him until she learned he was safely onboard the [italic]Stockholm[/italic], which limped back to New York.

Eddie dined out on that story for the rest of his long life.

[quote]...so Barbara going down on her sounds a lot more pleasant.

How do you know it was one sided? ; )

Barbara Payton’s autobiography is far from reliable.

Because, R125, she's quoted in the post saying that BP "did her every day at lunch."

No mention of reciprocity. Every actress has to watch her weight, so I'm guessing Ruth enjoyed Barbara's efforts more than, say, a salad.

Besides, having read the thread thus far, would you want to eat Barbara Payton's pussy?

John O’Dowd is working on a film about her. He published a book which weighs 6 pounds called “Barbara Payton: A Life in Pictures” a sort of coffee table book. I think he was the one who wrote a book, he says took years to write, that made a ton of excuses for her behavior. He seems to be obsessed with her.

I love Babs detailing how she would do detective work on other stars to get what she wanted in Hollywood.

Did anyone get to the part where she talks about hooking up with an artist who lost the use of his genitals in a car accident - she goes to his family’s house and gets raped by his brother and the brother thanks her for the lay in front of the entire family at the dinner table and the artist and his brother end up getting into a fight that almost kills them? lol. Babs calls it semi-rape as she found it erotic.

I’m up to the part where she talks about how she and Tom Neal loved cats and would even dress up as them and end up fucking. lol

Then she goes into the art of getting gifts from married men - taking a walk after dinner in Hollywood, happening to walk by a jewelry store (she writes, “I wonder how that happened!”) and then making a big deal about something in the store window and getting it the next day from him. She also mentions that if he hadn’t bitched and moaned about the walk, she would have taken him to the fashion district too. lol. He sends her the jewelry with a note saying that he hopes it’s the first of many trinkets she’ll accept from him. She says these days she has no use for jewels and money - she doesn’t have any.

Now I’m up to the part where she talks about getting marriage proposals by stars and an Earle, living in a castle and showing her beaver to destroy people. lol

I would get her book but it's $15 used so I dunno. Here's a page from it, it's a hoot.

I'd never heard of her before having read about her going to the Coach & Horses, a place that I went to a bit in the early aughts. It was a dive.

She really must have been a hardcore drinker/drugger to die like that at 39. Many go on for decades longer.

A young Lauren Lane would have been a good Payton.

Just finished the book (thanks, DL!).

MY God, that was depressing as fuck! Sad sad sad!

Franchot Tone had terrible taste in women.