Payton-Tone: The Altercation

If you missed my first post on the Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone relationship, you may want to start here: The Beginning. This is a painful post to write and read if Franchot is dear to you. Although it reads like a soap opera, the whole thing is more like a scary movie to me. You want to scream,  "Franchot, don't go to the house!," "Franchot, don't do it! It's a trap!" Spoiler alert: He does go to the house and he does fall into a trap. Well, here we go...

Barbara and Tom in 1952. Source: UCLA Digital Collections.

When we left off, Barbara had met Tom Neal and thoughtlessly renounced Franchot while he was away on business. Throughout August 1951, Barbara would change her mind several times over which man she wanted and amazingly, the men seemed to comply. Finally, Barbara stated she would marry Tom and they spent nearly the first two weeks of September together. On September 13, Franchot came to town and Barbara spent the entire day with him at Beverly Hills Hotel and the evening at Ciro's. After 1 a.m., an inebriated Franchot and Barbara returned to her apartment to find an equally inebriated Tom and his friends.

Franchot and Tom confronted each other. In I Am Not Ashamed, Barbara relates that what set Franchot off was a pair of dumbbells on the patio—a painful reminder that Tom had been living with Barbara in the apartment Franchot paid for. According to author and Payton researcher John O'Dowd, as the argument became more heated, Barbara kissed Franchot and told him to "get rid of Tom." Throughout this entire affair, Franchot had seen the printed publicity in which Tom Neal had called him old and dull. Barbara would say that during this particular argument Tom would question Franchot's virility and ability to please Barbara. Now 46-years-old, Franchot's ego must have taken a hit at these comments. To prove himself to Barbara and regain control, Franchot (about 25 pounds thinner than his opponent) challenged Tom to a fight outside.

Tom threw the first punch and it was so powerful that it lifted Franchot up in the air and then forced him to the ground. Once Franchot was down, Tom jumped on top of him and beat him mercilessly. A next door neighbor would report that he saw Tom punch Franchot over 30 times in less than 10 minutes, but the uncouth Tom would later say that he only hit him a handful of times, else Franchot "wouldn't have any face or head left!"

Franchot lost consciousness several times and was unable to remember a lot of details of the fight. He would later tell District Attorney Roll:

Neal's first blow rendered me unconscious. I regained consciousness two or three seconds subsequently, to find Mr. Neal sitting on top of me, beating me about the head and face. I raised my hand to protect my face, but lost consciousness again immediately.

After one of Neal's friends tore Tom off Franchot, Franchot, in grave condition, was rushed to the nearby California Lutheran Hospital. Reporters who caught wind of the beating and hurried to the hospital waiting room were told that there was concern about blood clots and strokes and that this was essentially a “death watch.”

The beating left Franchot with a shattered cheekbone, fractured upper jaw, broken nose, and concussion. His face was so damaged that the doctors performed emergency plastic surgery and warned that his face might never look exactly the same as the public remembered. Immediately following the fight, Barbara stated to the press that she planned to marry Franchot and called Tom a “vicious man.” Although she snuck in martinis to a bandage-wrapped and pained Franchot, Barbara’s main focus seemed to be embracing the publicity that the ordeal had produced. She didn’t appear to understand why she was getting such negative press and offered no explanations. And she didn’t alter her behavior, either.

Barbara visiting Franchot in the hospital. Source: UCLA Digital Collections.

While Franchot was recuperating in the hospital, Barbara was photographed dancing with Tom in nightclubs. Reporters witnessed Tom enter Barbara’s apartment in the evenings and exit with her each morning before Barbara, alone, went to visit her badly beaten, on-again fiancée in the hospital. The fact that Barbara continued to go behind an ailing Franchot’s back to be with the man that beat him senselessly is something that I, personally, have a hard time understanding. It’s just such a cold, selfish way to behave and a horrible way to treat any person. Payton’s son John Lee thinks that Barbara behaved this way because she didn’t understand how to give or receive love. Barbara’s friend Tina Ballard commented that Barbara was one of those people who is so deeply self-destructive that they unintentionally wreck the lives of all in their path. In O’Dowd’s biography, Tina also described Barbara’s feelings for both men:

I think Barbara wished she could combine Franchot's qualities of wealth, intelligence and class with Tom's down-and-dirty, somewhat raw sexuality, and make a whole other person out of them! She loved and admired both men...the pull to Tom, though, was way stronger...

The fight placed negative publicity on all three principal players. Barbara walked away with a pretty horrible reputation in the public's opinion and was dropped from a leading role in Lady in the Iron Mask (I’ll get into her dreary post-Franchot years in a later blog post.) Franchot was able to redeem his reputation and career after some time, but it would take years of dedication to his craft and re-embracing the privately-lived life he’d known before Barbara.

In the year after the fight, however, Franchot was ridiculed by the press for his behavior with Barbara and publicly humiliated (even by some colleagues) for engaging in and losing a fight with a physically stronger man. But the embarrassment of the situation and stain against his character were nothing compared to the physical damages Franchot suffered. I think the plastic surgeons were extremely skilled, because they were able to maintain his recognizable facial features. Still, to me, he never looked quite the same after the fight. How could he after a shattered cheekbone, fractured upper jaw, and broken nose? Franchot looked like himself, just a slightly different version.

I do not have source info for this photo, but I think it's a good example of the
work done on Franchot's face. His nose looks differently here. Smoother, not with
the natural, imperfect slope of his nose prior to the incident.

Here's a good side-by-side comparison that shows
how Franchot's nose bump and nostrils looked in 1937 and
then after required plastic surgery in 1951.

His voice was affected, too. Don’t get me wrong. I realize that a lot of his vocal change in later years was due to cigarettes and scotch. Barbara herself said that Franchot never quite talked the same way and a few years later, in 1953, Franchot would unsuccessfully sue Lloyds of London for damages inflicted by Tom. Franchot stated that he had suffered “facial disfigurement and impairment of his voice.” (Resisting the suit, Lloyds argued that Franchot “was intoxicated, provoked a fight and exposed himself deliberately to danger.”)

Tom’s post-Franchot life will require a future post as well, but immediately following the assault, Tom was facing felony charges and possible prison time. Franchot was planning on pressing charges on Tom and following his hospital release, gave his version of the event to District Attorney S. Ernest Roll. During the meeting, a still-in-recovery Franchot, who was described as being very swollen, bloodshot, and pale, made it clear that Tom was the aggressor, but his fiancée backpedaled on it. Despite her earlier statements that Tom was a violent brute who nearly killed Franchot, Barbara was now obviously lessening those charges in order to protect Tom.

Franchot on September 25, 1951. This was the first photo of Franchot following the assault
and his hospital stay. It was taken at the DA's office. Source:UCLA Digital Collections.

Between that meeting and September 27^th, Barbara privately convinced her fiancée not to file charges on her lover (former lover, thought Franchot, but the world knew differently.) On September 26^th, Barbara flew with her son for a visit of her hometown in Minnesota. The next day, Franchot angered the district attorney when he withdrew charges on Neal and caught a flight to Minnesota.

Franchot waiving assault charges against Tom Neal. Source: UCLA Digital Collections.

By September 28^th, Franchot and Barbara were married.

Next week, I'll share the story of Franchot and Barbara's hasty marriage and, as most predicted, divorce less than 9 months later.

Sources:

• "Lloyd's Fights Tone's Suit." New York Times. May 10, 1953.
• O'Dowd, John. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story. Bear Manor Media, 2006.
• Payton, Barbara. I Am Not Ashamed. Holloway House, 1963.
• UCLA Digital Collections. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/

Payton-Tone: The Beginning

I've avoided posting about the tempestuous relationship and ensuing scandal of Franchot and Barbara Payton for a good 21 months. Not because I was trying to deny its existence, but because I didn't want to fall into the noticeable trend of recognizing him for this brief moment in his life over the years of accomplishments. When I first became interested in Franchot and started searching for information on him, I was discouraged to find that nearly every site, article, even his obituaries shouted out things like "Tone beaten to a pulp by boxer!" There's so much more to Franchot than this incident, this relationship, this two-year period—but there's also much insight to be gained from Franchot's participation in and response to it. I want to take a full look into the Tone-Payton relationship so I'm breaking this topic up into a series of posts. Naturally, we'll start at the beginning of their relationship.

Barbara Payton was born Barbara Lee Redfield in Minnesota in 1927. By the time she began her acting career, Barbara had married twice—the first marriage annulled and the second to John Payton ending in a 1948 separation and 1950 divorce—and had a young son. In 1949, Payton gained notice in several films which resulted in starring roles with top actors James Cagney, Gary Cooper, and Gregory Peck in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Dallas, and Only the Valiant, respectively. She would go onto to make a total of 15 films, but her popularity waned after a few short years of bad publicity. I've only watched one Payton film, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, but found her to be a talented actress and an especially good fit for film noirs.

When Franchot met Barbara, he had just ended his marriage to actress and model Jean Wallace. Married in 1941, Franchot and Jean appeared to have a happy marriage during the first half of the forties. They proudly talked about their two sons and each other's best traits in fan magazines and look relaxed and in love in photographs. In keeping with Franchot's attraction to strong, unflinching, outgoing women, I've read claims that Jean (who was half Franchot's age) could be as spirited and high-maintenance as Joan Crawford and Barbara Payton. Sometime before their divorce in 1948, things fell apart—although Franchot and Jean were professional enough to co-star in two films, Man on the Eiffel Tower and Jigsaw, during this time.

John O'Dowd's biography Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story was written with the cooperation of Payton's son John Lee Payton and is an excellent, well-researched book. It celebrates Barbara's accomplishments and good traits—her son praises her as a mother and her friends note her endless generosity—but doesn't shy away from the bad decisions she made and the people she wronged. It presents all the facts and goes in-depth at discovering who Barbara was and what helped to form her as a person. Parts of it are hard to read (because of her story, not the writing itself), but at the same time, it's impossible to put down. As much as I value and recommend the book, I was left confused about the exact details of Franchot and Barbara's first meeting (this may be due to reader error, so feel free to let me know if I misunderstood a passage.) O'Dowd tells us that Barbara first met Franchot at Ciro's in the early months of 1950. Yet in another passage, O'Dowd states that Franchot was "instantly hooked" when he judged a Charleston dance contest at the Mocambo and saw Barbara (who won first prize) for the first time. Whichever came first, Franchot and Barbara met in a popular nightclub in 1950 and embarked on a very public, whirlwind romance.

Over ten years later, a destitute Payton participated with tabloid journalist Leo Guild in an exploitative autobiography project entitled I Am Not Ashamed and described her attraction to Franchot. If you've not read I Am Not Ashamed yet, be warned that you probably will not like Barbara very much once you have. She unapologetically brags about using people (for example, Franchot) to move up in the world. (Note: Biographer John O'Dowd asserts that much of the book's content was fictitious and sensationalized due to Guild's involvement.)

Payton referred to Franchot as "the actor with the most class in Hollywood' and recalled:

I went out with every big male star in town. They wanted my body and I needed their name for success...Franchot Tone, suave, likeable, quiet, unexciting Franchot asked me to do a play with him in New York. He was hooked on me. He believed in me, too. That was the route I had to travel. He spelled it out for me and I read him...'Kiss me and your troubles are over.' Right? So I went East with Tone...

Despite warnings from friends that he may be entering into dangerous territory, 45-year-old Franchot fell hard and devoted himself to wooing 23-year-old Barbara. According to O'Dowd's book, Franchot took a Pygmalion interest in Barbara. He was drawn to her gutsiness and rough-around-the-edges persona. Franchot liked that Barbara wore temporary face tattoos and had pink dye in her hair, atypical of 1950's beauty norms. As much as he liked this side of Barbara, Franchot felt the need to guide her into his version of the perfect lady. He gifted her with jewelry and expensive furs and introduced her to the most well-respected people and establishments. Barbara was certainly unfair to Franchot in many ways, but it was also unrealistic and unfair of Franchot to expect Barbara to eventually change to suit him.

Franchot was only 6 years younger than Barbara's father Lee "Flip" Redfield, and Barbara seemed to view Franchot as a father-figure of sorts. Barbara had always desired more love and attention from her father (there's some speculation out there that abuse may have occurred between father and daughter which created Barbara's need to please men and eagerness for attention.) During their courtship, Barbara called Franchot "Doc," liked to cook for him, and embraced his guidance.

In the summer of 1950, Franchot traveled with Barbara to the Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye premiere and a key to the city presentation in Miami. A man who usually shielded himself from publicity of any kind, Franchot embraced public appearances with his new girlfriend. In September 1950, Franchot and Barbara costarred in a production of The Second Man. (Franchot would later reprise his role in the play with Margaret Lindsay as his costar.)

By October of 1950, Franchot and Barbara announced their engagement. That same month, Barbara garnered negative attention when she was a defense witness in the perjury trial of Stanley Adams, a friend of Barbara's who was suspected of murder.  December 1950 marked the second occasion of bad publicity for the couple. Before Franchot's custody battle with ex-wife Jean Wallace, the write-ups on Franchot and Barbara's association were pretty benign. Jean testified that she was concerned about her sons being near Barbara and didn't approve of Barbara's social activities. On the stand, Franchot had to publicly state that he'd seen Barbara nude on many occasions. Not scandalous by today's standards, but it made quite a headline in 1950.

In January 1951, the engaged couple hit the premiere of the film Operation Pacific looking glamorous and receiving big applause from the audience at the Pantage Theater. Barbara's career and her relationship with Franchot seemed to be going smoothly. She had met his friends and family and he, hers. Barbara's friend and sister-in-law, Jan Zollinger Redfield said:

Franchot Tone was a very nice and extremely generous person. We saw him several times at Barbara's apartment and he was a lovely man. Although I don't think I ever saw him without a drink in his hand, he was never out of line nor did I ever hear him raise his voice at Barbara—ever. His manners were always impeccable. Lee and Mabel [Barbara's parents] both liked him and were impressed with how cultured he was. I know they were hoping that he would get Barbara to finally settle down and start behaving herself...Franchot was a gentle human being, and Frank and I were always very comfortable around him. And he adored Barbara. He showered her with gifts and she loved it!

By the middle of 1951, Franchot had heard gossip that Barbara was fooling around with costars on her movie sets. Franchot hired a private detective to tale Barbara and caught her with actor Guy Madison. Despite this, Franchot remained dedicated to the couple's engagement. (I have no knowledge about the terms of Franchot's own physical fidelity during the Payton relationship, so I cannot vouch for his own innocence.)

In July, Franchot traveled to fulfill an obligation in New York and Barbara stayed behind to work in Bride of the Gorilla. Only a few days passed before Barbara set her eyes on a muscular, 37-year-old actor named Tom Neal. Several days later, and obviously without Franchot's knowledge, Barbara had moved Tom into her apartment (on which Franchot paid the rent) and began introducing him as her boyfriend to others. When a concerned friend asked her about Franchot, Barbara dismissed it with the explanation that she'd deal with Franchot later. Barbara publicly called off her engagement to Franchot by the end of July.

In I Am Not Ashamed, Barbara said of the situation:

I didn't want to get involved with him [Neal] on any permanent basis because he was just another bit player with a gorgeous physique. But he lusted for me and I lusted for him...Here a sociably acceptable Mr. Tone was begging to pay my bills legally and Mr. Have-Nothing was living in my house while I was in New York doing his exercises by the pool...Like all feminine romantics, I thought if I stayed long enough from Tom, he'd beg me to marry him. That's why I held off Franchot until we got back to Hollywood.

August saw Barbara back with Franchot then abruptly back with Tom. September found the entire screwed-up affair blowing up in everyone's faces and presenting lasting consequences for all involved. Stay tuned for details of the Neal-Tone altercation, my second post in the Payton-Tone series.

Sources:

• O'Dowd, John. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story. Bear Manor Media, 2006.
• Payton, Barbara. I Am Not Ashamed. Holloway House, 1963.