Customer Reviews

I Am Not Ashamed

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Born in 1927, Barbara Payton arrived in Hollywood in the late 1940s and copped a contract with Universal, where a small role in the 1949 film TRAPPED drew good press--but even so she proved extremely hard to handle, and Universal was not sorry when Warner Brothers beckoned. It proved a good move for Payton as well, who delivered a memorable performance as James Cagney's vicious babe in the 1950 film KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE. The film put Payton on the Film Noir map in a big way, and at the time many thought she was poised for major stardom.

They reckoned without the lady herself. Payton was an extremely unstable woman who proved considerably less interested in her career than in sex, booze, and drugs--and her shot at stardom came and went with amazing speed as she indulged in one unsavory escapade after another. Her last film was the 1955 MURDER IS MY BEAT, and she thereafter quickly drifted into prostitution. By the early 1960s her going rate was five dollars per trick.

In 1962 Payton was in the headlines again--this time because a knife wielding john had slashed her stomach open. It was just enough publicity to tempt the publishing industry, which paid Payton one thousand dollars to make tape recordings about her life. Heavily edited and significantly rewritten, the resulting "autobiography" I AM NOT ASHAMED was published in 1963. It was not a success, and Payton herself, now largely forgotten, died in 1967 of heart and liver failure.

These are the basic facts of Payton's short life and shorter career, but you won't find many of them in I AM NOT ASHAMED, which is both very spotty and very sloppy--and that's throwing roses at it. Although Payton was said to have had affairs with everyone from Bob Hope to Gary Cooper, you won't find a mention of such, nor will it tell you anything believable about the night her boyfriend Tom Neal beat the blazes out of her fiance Franchot Tone, an incident that pretty much finished Payton in Hollywood for once and all. This may be because Payton was too far gone by 1962 to give any realistic account of her life; at the same time, the possibility of lawsuit was very likely a factor. Whatever the case, the result is considerable innuendo and little more.

That said, however, the whole book is so completely prurient in an early 1960s-pulp way that it is actually quite interesting to read. It may not give you the facts, but it does seem to distill Payton to the page; you can't help being shocked and often disgusted by her various stories, no matter how vague the details often are. And ultimately, you cannot help but feel sorry for the pretty blonde girl who self-destructed in the garden of earthly delights all those years ago.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

...for the time that I wasted in reading this book. Barbara Payton was a Hollywood bad girl during the very conservative nineteen fifties, who managed to derail her career in short order. As a starlet who streaked across the Hollywood skyline, she had her fifteen minutes of fame and then hit terra firma hard. She went from earning ten thousand dollars a week to turning five-dollar a night tricks in a relatively short period of time. By the time she "wrote" this book, she was little more than a wino whore, living in a rat and roach infested, flea bag apartment.

Repetitious and poorly written, this autobiography, first published in 1963, is limited in many ways. Barbara Payton spends a great deal of time talking about booze, men, and sex, and little else. Other that her affairs with and marriages to actors Franchot Tone and Tom Neal, no other names are mentioned. Innuendo and fake names are the rule for this supposed "tell all" book. Other than her actual film roles, it is difficult to ascertain just what is fact and what is fantasy in this book. Appealing solely to one's prurient interest, as it offers little insight into her life and its decline, this autobiography simply reads as if it were pulp fiction.

First read Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (excellent book). Then read this one by the actress herself. Reading her drunk ravings gives you the entire pathetic picture... Very sad. She was a mess at this point. You'll find yourself shaking your head and wondering how any publisher could exploit her when she was so far gone. It's terrible to call a mentally ill, drug addicted, alcoholic such bad names as some reviewers have. I hope she's resting in peace now.

There are a few surprises to be found in this lurid tell-all autobiography by B-movie starlet-cum-prostitute Barbara Payton. Originally published by Holloway House in 1963, the book tells the story of a plucky girl's rise to stardom in Hollywood's studio system--and her eventual downfall thanks to sundry forms of "deviltry."

Payton writes in an entertaining, anecdote-driven style, not unlike that of the glib, gossipy tabloids of Hollywood past and present. And there is some pleasure to be had in reading this "behind the scenes" account of Hollywood stardom during the Golden Age of the studio system. But the narrative itself leaves much to be desired, as Payton's self-reflective rambling often leaves readers confused between past events and an overbearingly presentist voice. More often than not we want Payton to flesh out the past in more detail and with more precision rather than comment on it from a position of ironic self-detachment. Beyond the preface, Payton even neglects to flesh out the supposedly climactic encounter between then-husband Franchot Tone and bad boy lover Tom Neal.

Still, this is a fine, quick read for its ribald humor and Hollywood insiderism--no doubt a pulpy gem from the legendary Holloway House. Look for the several pages of photographs in the middle of the book, which trace Payton's rise and fall in visual detail. Also, try to find the 2004 reprint of this book, which includes a helpful introduction by Holloway House editor Neal Colgrass.

...for the time that I wasted in reading this book. Barbara Payton was a Hollywood bad girl during the very conservative nineteen fifties, who managed to derail her career in short order. As a starlet who streaked across the Hollywood skyline, she had her fifteen minutes of fame and then hit terra firma hard. She went from earning ten thousand dollars a week to turning five-dollar a night tricks in a relatively short period of time. By the time she "wrote" this book, she was little more than a wino whore, living in a rat and roach infested, flea bag apartment.

Repetitious and poorly written, this autobiography, first published in 1963, is limited in many ways. Barbara Payton spends a great deal of time talking about booze, men, and sex, and little else. Other that her affairs with and marriages to actors Franchot Tone and Tom Neal, no other names are mentioned. Innuendo and fake names are the rule for this supposed "tell all" book. Other than her actual film roles, it is difficult to ascertain just what is fact and what is fantasy in this book. Appealing solely to one's prurient interest, as it offers little insight into her life and its decline, this autobiography simply reads as if it were pulp fiction.

You should read this so-called memoir only after reading John O'Dowd's brilliant biography, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE: THE BARBARA PAYTON STORY. By the time Payton penned this little memoir, she was a $5-a-trick prostitute, living in a skidrow flea bag hotel with her black pimp. Her fall from being a $10,000 rising starlet to a wino prostitute all happened within three to four years. No one but Payton was responsible for her plight since O'Dowd chronicles her life so thoroughly and the damning choices she made. She wrote I AM NOT ASHAMED for $2,000 and spent it all on cheap wine. While she was meeting with her co-writer to tape her memoirs in her filfthy apartment and with her pimp looking on, the taping was continuously interrupted by black johns trying to get into the apartment for a sex session with Payton. The resulting memoir is almost totally bogus in reality. Rarely does she mention any real names, probably because of lawsuits. She does mention the love of her life, Tom Neal, who is remembered by many as a great looking hunk but who some thought was a destructive force on Payton. He was later imprisoned for murdering his wife. Payton doesn't list any reasons for her downfall, from near stardom to skidrow harlot. O'Dowd said she was soused throughout the taping of her memoirs and in her bizarre reasoning, thought that the resulting book would put her back in Hollywood's mainstream. The book proved just another grotesque mistake made by a woman who still remains an enigma. You keep wondering why did she stay in Hollywood--when some of her few remaining friends begged her to let them help her find another life and a more respectable profession. Her answer: one day soon I'll become a star again. Just wait and see! Sadly, she died at 39--a beautiful, charismatic blonde woman who seemed hellbent on doing everything she could to enter the all-American nightmare.

So it was for beautiful Barbara Payton, a lusty young starlet of the 1950's. This pulpy-tale rambles with the incoherent musings of a young woman who through her sexual arrogance wrecked a promising career. At one time she earned ten-thousand dollars a week in a time when the average per-capita income was considerly less. Yet her self-destuctive behavoir damned her to follow the tabloid scripting of a "bad girl". Her conspicous consumption took its inevitable toll and left her penniless, broken, forgotten, and without shame. In short, who cares. I grant one star for effort and one for comedic value; no more no less.

This book is awful, and not even good trash. Instead, read John Gilmore's new book about LA Despair,. which has a more colorful account of the life and times of Payton