The words "notorious," "infamous," and "flamboyant" have all been used to describe Hollywood beauty Barbara Payton. A Warner Bros. contract player of theearly 1950s, Miss Payton had a promising start in motion pictures before taking a free-fall dive into an abyss of degradation and obscurity.
Was Barbara Payton an actress with talent and potential, or just a beautiful, but inconsequential, "casting-couch cutie"? A few of her film appearances display a performer with real talent: Trapped (1949), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), and Murder is My Beat (1955), while others feature a distracted, ineffectual actress: Only the Valiant (1951), and Drums in the Deep South (1951). The quality of her acting seemed to vacillate according to what was going on in her personal life at the time. And there was aIways something going on in Barbara Payton's life during her movie star years.
Her acting career, begun in 1949, was over in
just seven years, and after only twelve films. It had, in effect, been crushed
by the less than favorable reputation she had cultivated as an inveterate,
loose-living "party girl." The tabloids and newspapers of the
day kept her name in the public eye, for awhile, in a series of embarrassing
headlines, until she finally faded out of view. She resurfaced in 1962,
accompanied by even worse headlines that exposed her hellish life on the
mean streets of L.A.
Barbara Payton's story is a fascinating, albeit sordid and sensational tale that reads like a Mickey Spillane paperback. It is a story of unrealized potential. It is an account of one woman's runaway excesses and tenacious bent for self-destruction that decimated her career, and left her dead before she was 40.
Barbara Lee Redfield was born on Nov.16, 1927 in Cloquet, Minnesota. Her parents, Erwin Lee "Flip" Redfield and the former Mabel Todahl operated a small restaurant on Chestnut Street, in the west end of town, and lived above it in a tiny apartment. Barbara was born there, as was her younger brother, Frank. A relative, Barbara Lee Luokkala, whose mother was a cousin of Barbara's, said that she heard Barbara was an extraordinarily beautiful baby, "...with hair so blonde it was almost snow-white, and the deepest, most beautiful blue eyes." Flip Redfield got into the construction business after awhile, attempting to follow in the footsteps of his father, who owned a successful lumber company in Cloquet. The beautiful town, which is located west of Duluth on the banks of the St. Louis River, is also known as Tree City, U.S.A., and is the birthplace of actress Jessica Lange.
It has been said that Minnesota's way of life seems permanently positioned in the middle of the American dream. If this is true, it has proved doubly so for the citizens of Cloquet. The dairy town, home of about 11,000 in 1990, was entirely destroyed by a forest fire in 1918. While a catastrophic event like this might have shaken a townspeople of less feisty mettle, Cloquet's residents, most of whom are of Norwegian and German descent, are a hearty stock, and banded together to rebuild their town, literally, from the ground up. This determined, blue-collar work ethic, forged by years of struggle and dreams, unified the people of Cloquet and remains a strong presence in a town of survivors.
By all accounts, Barbara Redfield had a happy, if nondescript early childhood. She was a true child of the north country, partaking in the state's winter activities, including ice skating and sledding. Barbara also took an interest in cooking and became quite adept at it by her pre-teen years. It was a skill that remained intact throughout her life, and Barbara would later relish the opportunity to whip up gourmet meals for her various boyfriends and husbands. Mildred Golden of Cloquet babysat Barbara and Frank Redfield when they were youngsters and told me, "Barbara's culinary specialty was a delicious casserole recipe she invented in which she used three different kinds of canned soup. She was a very pretty and bright young girl." Barbara's parents, it seems, were known as rather eccentric people. According to Barbara Lee Luokkala, Flip Redfield periodically made some bad business decisions and seemed to acquire and lose money very easily. Flip and Mabel "had a bit of an alcohol problem," as well. In 1938, when Barbara was 11, a forest fire swept through her grandfather's timberlands and the family's lumber and construction business hit hard times. Flip and Mabel Redfield decided to pull up stakes and try their luck in another part of the country. With their daughter and son in tow, they moved to the oil town of Odessa, Texas, where Flip continued his construction work.
Mabel became manager of a motel on 2nd Street, and the family moved into a house on 3rd Street, just behind the motel. Barbara attended Baylor Junior High in Odessa and did quite well in school. She was athletic and excelled in tennis, swimming, and water skiing. The girl's beauty bloomed early and, by the time she was in her teens, Barbara was a stunning sight to behold. She and Frank were rather restless adolescents and became known for their fearless, devil-may-care attitudes. Beverly Moore McCulloch of Odessa dated Frank Redfield in junior high and remembers him, in particular, as being "...a bit of a hell-raiser who smoked and drank a little, too." She recalls that he quit high school after the 10th grade to join the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Long Beach. He later moved to West Covina with his wife, Janice.