Barbara Payton: A Life in Pictures charts the rise and fall of a Hollywood star

 

The late actress Barbara Payton was beautiful, and she possessed screen presence. Her most notable film is "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," with James Cagney. 

Both Universal and particularly Warner Bros., prepped her with the anticipation for stardom. Ultimately, her story was tragic. She died mostly forgotten in the late 1960s, depressed; her body broken by alcoholism, and other abusive behaviors.

Her biographer, John O'Dowd, has published an amazing work. "Barbara Payton: A Life in Pictures," BearManor Media, 2018, Albany, Ga. (Amazon link is here). Through an introduction and afterword, with 34 chapters in between, it provides arcs of both her 39 years of life and her tenure as an entertainer. (Below, is a picture of Payton radiating girl-next-door beauty).

The book charts her biography, a girl from flyover country who attracted attention from the entertainment industry once she arrived in Hollywood with her husband. Universal soon beckoned and she starred in some now-forgotten shorts with a singing cowboy. She also made the publicity rounds.

The family photos from the '30s and '40s are extremely interesting and it's a credit to O'Dowd that he tracked them down. The author admits in the introduction that his goal is to convey that his subject Payton -- who was trashed repeatedly during her life and beyond -- was a "kind and empathetic" person. He notes that her decline and eventual fall into a personal hell was likely the result of a lack of awareness of the gravity of her situations. 

Universal dropped her, largely due to rumors of an affair with superstar Bob Hope. Reading the book, one can't ignore the irony of a woman (Payton) being harshly sanctioned for an affair, but the more powerful man involved, Hope, skating through it unscathed. 

Her end at Universal started a trajectory of a few years where Payton hopscotched between bigger studios (Warner Bros and semi-big RKO) to work, sometimes loaned out, at lower-tier studios (Eagle-Lion, Jack Broder, Lippert, Allied Artists). (Below is a scene of Barbara with Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" star Cagney).

Payton's co-stars in films included Cagney, Gregory Peck, Lloyd Bridges, Guy Madison, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Steve Cochran, and even Sonny Tufts! She starred in one film that has a small cult following, "Bride of the Gorilla," with Burr and Chaney Jr.

The photos in the book provide a glossy history of Hollywood in that era. The glamorous photos, the publicity campaigns, the stars gathering at the hot spots with photographers, the scandal sheets of that era, which Barbara was in a lot, unwillingly, and unfortunately, later more willingly. The courtroom shots, the pictures at Barbara's house when she was wealthy. Accounts of her relationships with actors Franchet Tone and Tom Neal are covered via photos, as well as the aftermath of Tone's savage beating by Neal.

With her career damaged in Hollywood, Payton went to England to star in a couple of Hammer films. The pictures are poignant, because they show a time and place where Payton was treated as a major star -- for the last time. I wondered while leafing through the London photos, the stills from films, publicity shots, Payton interacting with Londoners, if perhaps she should have stayed there to pursue more work. But she was in a bad relationship with the toxic, violent Neal, and he soon joined her across the Atlantic. They returned home.

By this time, the bad press, and cruel taunting from most Hollywood press icons, kept her away from the big studios. She was with the usually unemployed Neal in a couple of films. Also, the book highlights an unsuccessful stage tour with Neal of "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

(Below is a photo of Barbara, with actor Paul Langton, in the final film she made, "Murder is My Beat," directed by low-budget auteur Edgar Ulmer.)

Neal eventually left. That was no loss but by the latter '50s, Payton's personal and professional setbacks were heavy. She lost custody of her son, John Lee Payton. She lost her home. She entered the scandal sheets again due to a bad check charge. 

In the later '50s it might be charitable to call her life bohemian, but desperately trying to stay afloat is more apt. It's claimed she lived in the same poverty apartment as cult figure Vampira. She was married for a while to a much younger man and lived a rustic life with her spouse in Mexico.

There are candid photos in the book that, as O'Dowd notes, capture tension, weariness, disappointment, pain in Payton's face. You can see her shock in the late '50s, when she calls a news conference to announce a comeback, and is derided by press hounds who bothered to come.

It underscores what O'Dowd mentions about an over-optimism, a desire to believe good in others, that provided a lack of awareness to Barbara of how her own dysfunctional behavior damaged her. Also, recollections in the book (and there are many) hint of a deep pride, or even a desire to punish herself, that prevented her from accepting or taking advantage of the few offers of help she received late in life. She was exploited a lot, including in a dreadful, exploitative "autobiography" of her life in 1963. O'Dowd's book appropriately includes this event. Included is a haunting photo of a stoned, eyes wide and glazed Barbara, dressed scantily, looking about 50 years old. It is shocking, and heart-wrenching.

(Below is a photo that reminds how beautiful Payton was in her heyday. The photos other than the cover were provided by author O'Dowd).

O'Dowd's 560-page book takes the reader through the very rough 1960s' life she endured. She died in 1967, in her parents' home. Pictures cannot accurately describe the hell the subject endured. For more details, one can read O'Dowd's excellent biography of Payton, "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," (Bearmanor Media). (Amazon link here) My Plan9Crunch review of it is here. Two Plan9Crunch interviews with O'Dowd regarding "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" are here and here.

O'Dowd's strength as a writer and an art compiler is that he makes you care about the subject. He gets beyond the surface news reporting and uncovers the layers that makes a human being. He has spoken to so many family members, friends, lovers, acquaintances, colleagues, and media about Payton. It's a Herculean task and it provides readers the opportunity to care about the subject, to grieve for her failings and dysfunctional, dangerous life.

O'Dowd is currently working with a screenwriter to bring Payton's life story to the screen, in theaters, TV, streaming. My preference would be a Netflix-type streaming series but a two-hour movie would be a treat as well. Getting to a film takes a long time but I suspect Payton's compelling life eventually becomes one. 

-- Review by Doug Gibson

'Glamour Ghoul' is a biography that Maila Nurmi, Vampira, merits

Review by Doug Gibson

In January of 2008, Maila Nurmi, better known as Vampira, was found dead in her small Los Angeles home. She was 85. She died alone, on her couch with her feet propped, resting on a patio chair. The TV was running. Her cat, Violet, had died next to her. Her dog, Houdini, was alive but had to be put down. In her last days, she had felt exhausted, but thought it was due to her thyroid. It turned out to be her heart that was failing.

It's a death that arguably could be described as tragic. However, it's an example of Nurmi's survival instincts. She made the decisions in her life. Relying on chance, or others, had harmed her too much during 65-plus years since she stepped off a bus in Los Angeles in 1941.

 

Maila was also Vampira, a host whose weekly scream during the staid 1950s represented an orgasm. The censors, of course, never knew that.  Several dozen episodes hosting a horror movies show gained her short-term fame in the 1950s. Her brief appearance in Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space," a film she acted in for $200 and didn't see until 1980, 20-plus years after its small release, re-ignited interest in her dark beauty and gothic, sexual look.  Below is a picture with Bela Lugosi. Ironically, he didn't plan on being in "Plan 9 From Outer Space," either.

After the "Plan 9 From Outer Space"/Ed Wood cultural craze, we saw our share of Maila in a slew of documentaries, and interviews and writings in books and magazines. She teased those interested with tidbits of information about experiences with Orson Welles and Elvis Presley, jobs with Mae West and Liberace, meals with an Ed Wood crony, Criswell, and her friendship with James Dean. But there always seemed to be more to the story.

 

Four years after her death, friend and filmmaker R.H. Greene provided a deeply personal, fascinating documentary, "Vampira and Me," that filled gaps in the often-coy past reminisces from the late actress. Frankly, despite a couple of other books and an earlier film documentary, "Vampira: The Movie," I thought Greene's effort might be the best we'd get.

I was wrong. Sandra Niemi, the niece of Maili (who receives thanks in Greene's film), penned "Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maili Nurmi," (Feral House, 2021). It took Niemi a long time to get this to publication, but it's worth the wait. 

Maila Nurmi was born in Gloucester, Mass., not Finland. Her father, Onni, a Finnish immigrant, was a lifelong newspaper editor and a fierce advocate of Prohibition. Ironically, her mother, Sophie, a U.S. native, was an alcoholic. A spotty employment record caused the family to move often, to new newspaper jobs. She had a brother, Bobbie, author Sandra's father.

Nurmi graduated from high school in Astoria, Ore. For a while, after a brief stint in college, she tried to follow her parents' vision -- work in a fish cannery and get married. It was that manufactured future she rebelled from, and prompted her leaving for Los Angeles in 1941.

A theme to "Glamour Ghoul" is survival. Except for several years in a common-law marriage with screenwriter Dean Riesner (during the Vampira years), and some gigs in Las Vegas, including with Liberace, Maila Nurmi was poor. In her worst times, she cleaned houses, was discreetly half-starved, and lived in garages sans furniture. It's likely her highest income never put her ahead of the middle class.

At the same time, she was a success. In the mid 1940s, through sheer grit, she appeared on Broadway stages in New York City. She was part of a Mae West show. Her youth and beauty apparently made West jealous, who then fired her. A cool irony of her West experience is that in later years her friend Criswell, a friend of West, would bring Murmi meals cooked by West. 

"Glamour Ghoul," besides providing new information on Maila's life -- and I don't want to provide spoilers to readers -- offers more meat to her relationships with Orson Welles, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Anthony Perkins, and Elvis Presley. All these individuals, and many more, serve as players in Maila's real-life drama from naive, exploited, adult-child to hopeful, to star, to ex-star, to forgotten star, and to survivor. All of the players in Mails's life have flaws. Some are utterly despicable; some much better and kinder than others. 

Maila was impressive enough to get the notice of Hollywood mogul Howard Hawks, who brought her to Los Angeles and signed her to a contract. In a rash act, Maila, hurt by professional criticism, burned bridges with Hawks, tearing up her deal. Nevertheless, she survived in Hollywood, dancing, working clubs, bit roles in a couple of films, and getting notice as a model for magazines. In her 30s, "Vampira" achieved her fame, but very little money. The 1960s and '70s were a rough time for Nurmi, but her will to be independent, and abide with what life dealt out, kept her going.

Maila made a lot of mistakes, including turning down more work with Liberace. She suffered badly from deranged fans who hassled her. Through her life she was assaulted, physically and sexually. Emotional abuse hurt and affected her mental stability at times. Powerful people abused her. Although she retains her icon status, she lost any significant monetary reward for her creation with the emergence of Cassandra Peterson's "Elvira."

 

"Vampira" is a sophisticated, dark, alluring creature with devastating wit. "Elvira" is a cleavage-heavy ditz designed to appeal to the lusts of over-sexed teenage boys. I can state that with authority because I was one of those over-sexed teenage boys captivated for a time by Peterson's juvenile performance art and wisecracks.

It is endearing to read more about how the then-beginning punk rock movement enhanced Maila's later years. They embraced her; they appreciated her. That is so appropriate because Maila was a real bohemian, unforced, and no cliche. She was a kindred spirit, and they responded to her. I enjoy the anecdotes about Maila's success as a street merchant, as well as working the front-desk phone, very late in life, at a dominatrix escort center. God bless Sandra Niemi for the biography. It's appropriate that Feral House is the publisher, as they also published the gem "Nightmare of Ecstasy," the Ed Wood oral biography by Rudolph Grey.

A final note: One quibble: Please provide an index in a further printing. And, very important, the final epilogue will give you chills, and possibly tears. I've tried not to be too specific in this review. I don't want to spoil things for readers. I urge readers to always keep the epilogue a secret too. Don't spoil it. 

Looking back on Vampira, through the newspapers

Hello Plan9Crunch readers. This is Doug Gibson and I am starting a new, occasional series of looking at our cult icons, and how they were promoted, through media lens; in this case the newspapers of their heydays. Thanks to newspaper archive sites this is fairly easy to do, and I find these glimpses of history interesting.

For this post, we will focus on Vampira, and several media mentions of her in the 1950s in the LA press. I'm planning to focus on Criswell in the near future, and share some of his very early press columns. In this endeavor I wish to thank my near-lifelong friend, David Grudt, of Long Beach, Calif., who has sleuthed well to find these clips that we are sharing here. They are all from the Los Angeles Times. Unfortunately, I cannot locate archives from the LA Herald Examiner or Hollywood Citizen News. I sure would like to dip into those archives.

So, on to the media clips of Vampira.

1) The first (above at top) is from June 12, 1955, and details how an alleged masher was charged with harassing Vampira on the street.

2) The second, just above us, is from Sept. 11, 1954. It's a very clever ad from the Times, with a notice of Vampira's' TV show on at 11 p.m. The top ad, for a beauty contest, says, If YOU LIKE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS ... The smaller Vampira ad starts ... IF YOU LIKE BEAUTIFUL GHOULS ...

3) I love number 3 here, from the Times classifieds of Feb. 2, 1955. Notice that a Chevrolet dealership is pitching a "Vampira" Weekend sale. A plug by Vampira is signed "Repulsively yours, Vampira." It's an interesting look at offbeat advertising/public relations.

4) In Dick Kidson's Farmers Market Today column of June 14, 1954, Vampira is described as "the current sensation of the local airways." I love the final paragraph, where Kidson informs us that Vampira was at the farmer's market and ordered a "silver cigarette case made in the shape of a coffin."

That is so chillingly cool.

5) The above clip is from May 11, 1956, and the Times announces, with a photo, that Vampire is returning with a new show, on KHJ, Channel 9. Being rather tongue in cheek, she tells readers she plans a different look. She says she wants viewers to think of her as the "average friendly neighbor they would expect to find living halfway up the swamp." She concludes: '"I've undergone a grave change. ... My motto now is 'home sweet homicide.'"

6) Here is likely the first mention of Vampira in the LA Times -- May 1, 1954. Vampire is announced in the blurb as hostess for a new show, "Lady of Horrors," at midnight on KABC Channel 7. It is promised she will be wearing a "form-fitting shroud." And before the show, a party is planned at Ciro's.

7) This from, June 19, 1955 classifieds, is interesting. A home called Vampira's Hideout is for sale. I have no idea if Vampira was selling a home, or if the realtor, Marie F. Purcell, had contracted to use her name.

It's pretty clear from these clips that Vampira achieved some iconic status as early as the mid 1950s.

Next time we go clips hunting, it will be for Criswell. Again, thanks to my good friend David Grudt for his assistance locating these treasures we shared.