![]() ![]() You have an engaging and smooth style! I had never heard of Barbara Payton until now, and you did a phenomenal job bringing her to life again! The charges were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The following year she was charged with possession of heroin and a hypodermic syringe. In 1964 she was arrested for shoplifting. In the Spring of 1963, she was knifed by a trick and received 38 stitches for the wound. In 1962 she was found, covered with bruises, sleeping on a Sunset Boulevard bus stop bench in a bathing suit and a coat, and was charged with public drunkenness. Her face was bloated and her hands dirty and her once beautifully manicured nails were cracked and broken. She began to haunt the seedy bars of Hollywood picking up tricks, getting money and then spending it on drink. Thereafter her life became a succession of arrests for drunkenness and prostitution. The business was a call-girl operation for which Lila was sent to jail. In 1957 she went into business in Chicago with an old actress friend called Lila Leeds. The marriage ended in divorce 3 years later. The following year she lost custody of her son to her ex-husband John Payton and she married again to a 23-year-old called Tony Provas. She was arrested in 1954 for passing bad checks in a supermarket. She couldn't or wouldn't stop her excessive drinking and after one party she collapsed in a pool of blood, apparently the result of an ectopic pregnancy. The loss of the Warners contract meant no income and Barbara's money started to run out. Tone was a chain smoker, and he died of lung cancer at the age of 63 in September, 1968. He could be seen, wheelchair bound, visiting his ex-wife Joan Crawford in her New York apartment. He died from heart failure in 1972, aged 58, shortly after his release from prison.Īfter his successful movie career, Franchot Tone co-starred in the "Ben Casey" TV series 1965-66 and he retired shortly after, as ill health overtook him. Although Neal maintained that the killing was an accident, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. In 1965 her ex-lover Tom Neal was sentenced to 6 years in jail for shooting his wife in the head, killing her instantly. ![]() Once-promising career was coming to an end. Gorilla,' and it was as low budget as its title suggests. Warners gave her one more chance in a movie called 'Bride of the She went back to Neal but he walkedĮven by her own standards Barbara had reached a new Overdose of sleeping pills by Barbara, another separation and finally The sorry, sordid saga contiued with a brief reconciliation, an The casting-couch system was in full swing in Hollywood whereby pretty starlets would sleep with producers and directors to get choice roles and Barbara almost certainly capitalised on her good looks in this way to get ahead. She was popular and she dated many men including Howard Hughes, gangster Micky Cohen and actor John Ireland. She was young, beautiful and vivacious and she revelled in the party and nightclub scene. She obtained a bit part as a nightclub photographer in a comedy, 'Once More, My Darling' in 1949, and walk-on roles in two Western musicals starring Tex Williams.īarbara found the nightlife of Hollywood intoxicating. She joined young future stars like Tony Curtis, Shelley Winters, Jeff Chandler and Rock Hudson at acting school and took lessons from the resident acting tutor, Sophie Rosenstein. In Hollywood Barbara earned a living from modelling assignments and her exceptional looks soon came to the attention of talent scouts at Universal International, who tested her and placed her under contract on their training program for young actors.
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