Barbara Payton continued page 2
The 5'4" blonde and blue-eyed Barbara Redfield developed a shapely, eye-catching figure and entered Odessa High School as the object of many of her male classmates' fantasies, something of a small-town goddess, if you will. She had also acquired a brazen, but eager-to-please personality, and was easily seduced by all the male attention she received. (She would later write that, at age 15, she lost her virginity to a schoolmate's 45 year-old father, who made love to her in a dry bathtub while the unknowing guests at a surprise birthday party held in his honor, celebrated downstairs). Racing headlong into her adulthood, Barbara eloped with her high school sweetheart, William Hodge, at 16, but the marriage was soon after annulled by her parents.
In 1945, 17-year-old Barbara married Air Force pilot John Payton in Monroe, Louisiana. A movie fan since her childhood, she pushed her husband to agree to a Hollywood honeymoon, and he acquiesced. Before her wedding, Barbara had written to various casting agents and producers, letting them know of her imminent arrival in town, but neglected to tell her husband this. Therefore, John Payton was somewhat surprised, after they arrived in Hollywood, to be told by his wife that she had met an agent and talent scout for RKO Studios, at the motel pool, who offered her a screen test. Indeed, due to her prior correspondence, Barbara had somehow managed to wrangle a screen test for herself with RKO. However, the test was canceled when Barbara fainted on the set and later discovered she was pregnant. The teenager was convinced by Charles Koerner, head of production at RKO, to return home to have her baby. An intrigued Koerner promised her a meeting for the following year. Back home, Barbara miscarried, and her high-flying Hollywood aspirations took hold once again.
In mid 1946, Barbara was pregnant for the second time. Her angry response was atypical of a young woman of that era: ("Pregnancy! I was so damn mad at John that I ordered him out of the house. He had to go back to camp anyway.") Surely Barbara saw her condition as a major obstacle to her breaking into the movies, evidently the thing that mattered to her the most.
After the birth of a son, John, Jr., on March 28, 1947, Barbara deserted her husband and returned to Hollywood, taking her mother and baby with her (Barbara's father would later follow, rejoining his wife in San Diego). At this time, RKO Studios, once interested in the striking young woman, decided to pass on signing her to a contract. Barbara modeled for awhile before Universal International snatched her up and placed her under contract at $100 a week. Barbara Payton had a bit part, as a nightclub photographer, in a Robert Montgomery/Ann Blyth comedy, Once More, My Darling (1949), and appeared in two Tex Williams western musical shorts. She was placed in U-I's "stable" of studio contract players, which included Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Shelley Winters, Jeff Chandler, Peggy Dow, Donna Martell and many others. The young starlet posed for countless publicity photos and studied with U-I's acting coach, Sophie Rosenstein.
Barbara wasted no time in making herself known in Hollywood. Night clubs such as Ciro's, Mo-Mocambo, and the Trocadero became her playground, and she reveled in the drinking and partying scene. She had an outgoing and bold personality coupled with devastatingly good looks. Consequently, Barbara met and dated a lot of men those first few years in town. She had brief, whirlwind affairs with Howard Hughes and actor John Ireland, and was engaged, for a short time, to entertainment lawyer Greg Bautzer.
In March of 1949, while visiting
a friend of hers back in Texas, oilman Bob Neal, Barbara allegedly began
a six-month affair with Bob Hope. They met at a reception given by Neal
at the Baker Hotel in Dallas. In Arthur Marx's unauthorized biography of
Hope, The Secret Life of Bob Hope, he writes," ...at their first meeting,
there was immediate chemistry between Hope and Barbara." (Years later,
in a Confidential Magazine article, Barbara brashly declared, "As a
result, we only knew each other a few hours before we knew each other as
well as a boy and girl ever can!")
Barbara reportedly commenced to follow the comedian/actor, a married man, around the country as he made personal appear- ances; so much, that Universal dropped her contract. Barbara was unfazed by her studio's rejection, and continued to "live it up." She would regularly attempt to get money from Bob Hope to help cover her living (and travel!) expenses, but was more often rebuffed. Barbara would later complain, "I never got more than a hundred dollars out of him at a time." Needless to say, their torrid bedroom affair was quickly ended.
Somehow, Barbara found time to continue to pursue an acting career, and she was cast as the female lead in a crime drama, Trapped (1949), directed by the skilled Richard Fleischer (The Narrow Margin). Her leading man was Lloyd Bridges in this tough, well-done, documentary-style film. It offered a gritty glimpse into the world of counterfeiters, and Barbara performed well as "Laurie," the girlfriend of Bridges's character. Barbara has a death scene in the film where she is gunned-down by the head counterfeiter.
As a result of the favorable notices she received for her performance in Trapped , Barbara was offered an interview with Warner Bros. Studios. Casting was taking place for the female lead in James Cagney's latest crime caper, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), and she was screen-tested along with several WB starlets. When William Cagney, the brother of the star, (and producer of the film), viewed her screen test, he was struck by Barbara's beauty and talent. He signed her to a personal contract, and gave her the part. Warner Bros. and Cagney Productions started Barbara at $5,000 a week. The many portrait stills of Barbara, from this time, show her vibrant beauty at its absolute peak.
Through the years, there has
been speculation that Barbara Payton slept with William Cagney in order
to get her WB film contract; however, it's not known if this is true. One
story that has circulated for years is that Barbara arrived at her audition
for Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye hot and disheveled, and once, behind producer
Cagney's closed office door, proceeded to lift her skirt and proclaim, "Sh#t!
It's a hot f#@%ing day." What happened after her impromptu "flashing"
episode is anybody's guess, however the end result was a contract with WB/Cagney
Productions.
It's fairly certain that, by this time, Barbara had discovered the merits of the casting-couch system for getting ahead in Hollywood, and was using it to her advantage. She was certainly proving she was not above sleeping with the men she felt could assist her climb to the top of the heap. Whatever midwestern morals and values were taught to Barbara, during her formative years in Minnesota, had seemingly been left by the way-side...forever lost back in Cloquet.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a cynical, violent film in which Barbara renders what is inarguably her best performance. She plays Cagney's moll, "Holiday Carleton", basically, a good girl gone bad through her association with sadistic gangster "Ralph Cotter" (Cagney). She ends up killing him, but not before he beats her with a rolled-up towel, and she's flung a coffee pot at him! This was a very high-profile part, and brought Barbara a lot of attention. She looked great, was more than adequate in the acting department, and garnered some good reviews.
Barbara watched her "stock go up" in the WB company, and her pay gradually increased to $10,000 per week. As her star rose, she found herself mingling with Hollywood's elite, and soon numbered Lana Turner, Frank Sinatra, and Ava Gardner among her friends. Barbara loved to gamble on the horse races and was often seen blowing huge amounts of cash at Hollywood Park. Swimming in money, youth, and beauty, it's very likely Barbara felt she had the world by the tail and Hollywood "by the balls."
Barbara's next film appearance was in a very average Gary Cooper western, Dallas (1950). Fifth-billed this time, Barbara's role was little more than a glorified bit part, as co-star Steve Cochran's sexy and duplicitous girlfriend, a shanty tramp named "Flo." She and Cochran reportedly enjoyed each other's company off-the-set as well, as both seemed to share an affection for the same extracurricular activities: Drinking and Sex. (It has been implied that Barbara also had an affair with Gary Cooper during the making of Dallas-referred to, in one source, as " dressing room visits"-but this claim has never been fully substantiated.) Dallas was incidental entertainment at best, and its influence on elevating Barbara's professional stature in Hollywood was negligible.