Barbara Payton - Personal Life

Personal Life

In addition to affairs with Howard Hughes, Bob Hope, Woody Strode, Guy Madison, George Raft, John Ireland, Steve Cochran, and Texas oilman Bob Neal, Payton was married four times as follows:

1. William Hodge: married 1943; marriage annulled
2. John Payton, Jr. (United States Air Force pilot): married 1945; divorced 1950; one child, John Lee Payton, born 1947
3. Franchot Tone (actor): married 1951; divorced 1952
4. George A. Provas (a.k.a. Tony Provas): married 1957; divorced 1958

In 1950, Franchot Tone met Payton at Ciro’s nightclub, where she grabbed center stage dancing in a Charleston contest and won first prize. For Tone, the sparks flew immediately and Payton was able to captivate Tone with their first introduction to each other.

In 1951 while engaged to actor Franchot Tone, Payton began having an affair with B-movie actor Tom Neal. She soon went back and forth publicly between Neal and Tone. Eventually Neal, a former college boxer, physically attacked Tone at Payton's apartment leaving him in an 18-hour coma with a smashed cheekbone, broken nose and concussion. The incident garnered huge publicity and Payton decided to honor her engagement to Tone.

After being married to Tone for 53 days, she walked out on Tone and returned to Neal. The Payton/Neal relationship, essentially ending their Hollywood film careers, lasted four years. During that time the couple capitalized on the notorious press coverage by touring in plays such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, based on the popular 1946 film of the same name. They would star together in The Great Jesse James Raid, a B-movie western barely released to theaters in 1953.

Offered the choice of being admitted to the detox unit, Barbara said, “I'd rather drink and die.” Following her brief hospitalization, she was driven by a county social worker to her parents’ home in San Diego. She told her family's neighbor, “I never wanted to be with them, I never wanted to see them again. But here I am, and I got all the booze I want.” Her father, Flip Redfield, and her mother, Mabel, were both heavy drinkers, and engaged with Barbara in unabated drinking binges.