Hookers in History

This is Barbara Payton.





Babe-a-licious, right? The Minnesota-and-Texas native funneled her god-given assets into a contract with Universal in the 1940s. Fresh off her second divorce, she quickly gained a reputation as a casting couch cutie, due to her rumored affairs with players like Bob Hope, Howard Hughes, mobster Mickey Cohen, and practically every costar she ever worked with.

Whatever she was doing, it worked – she earned the nickname “Queen of the Nightlife” and starred with James Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. As her star rose, the lucky bitch had two Hollywood hunks competing for her, Franchot Tone and B-movie actor Tom Neal, who she publicly ping-ponged between to the point where Neal smashed Tone’s cheekbone, gave him a broken nose and a concussion, and put him in a coma for 18 hours. Apparently she had a thing for dudes punching each other – while promoting her film Bride of the Gorilla, she provoked six drunken cowboys into fist-fighting one another for her affections in their hotel suite.

Tone is on top:




She finally married Tone for 53 days only to split and return to Neal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to order pizza to realize I wanted Chinese, so I totally feel her on this one. For my money, I’d choose Neal- I like ‘em a little husky.

She didn’t have as hard a time deciding what she liked when it came to booze and pills – she’d take it all. The blonde bombshell and I may not have the same coloring, but we have the same true colors. By 1955, her compulsive nature began to take its toll when she was arrested for passing bad checks, and after the collapse of her marriage to Neal (she may have gotten out while the getting was good on that one – in ’65 my husky honey was accused of murdering his third wife) and a failed fourth marriage, she was arrested for prostitution in a bar on Sunset Boulevard in 1962.

She published the story of her life, entitled “I am Not Ashamed” in 1963 for $1,000 (roughly 100 cheap bottles of swill), with this fabulous intro:

“I went out with every big male star in town. They wanted my body and I needed their names for success. There was my picture on the front pages of every paper in the country... Today I live in a rat infested apartment with not a bean to my name and I drink too much Rose wine. I don't like what the scale tells me. The little money I do accumulate to pay the rent comes from old residuals, poetry and favors to men…Does it all sound depressing to you? Queasy? Well, I'm not ashamed."



Eventually reduced to sleeping on a bus-stop bench in a bathing suit and a coat (the best costume of the day, I assume), her run-ins with the law continued as she was arrested for public drunkeness, drunk and disorderly conduct for entertaining two men in a rowdy afternoon party (my favorite kind), and was knifed by a trick and required 38 stiches. Between ’63 and ’65, actor Dennis Hopper allegedly had a sexual encounter with her in the back booth of a Hill Street bar and promised to help her resume her acting career. I obviously find Barbara’s mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction very sad, but I kind of love that she’s such a hot mess she’s giving handjobs for roles in Easy Rider.

Sadly, hot messes rarely end life as entertainingly as they live it, and at age 39 she died of heart and liver failure, leaving a body so ravaged it takes two days for authorities to realize who she was.

My guess is she’d rather be remembered this way:



Remember, your vices are only as cute as you are.