Stunning Barbara Payton

I can’t confess to generally have a weakness for 1950s blond glamourpusses, but I make an exception for one now only slightly remembered, Barbara Payton. Probably only one movie she starred in is much remembered: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950), in which she played opposite James Cagney.

But her career went down rather than up from there. By the next year she would be starring in movies like Bride of the Gorilla and from there she would spiral into scandal and alcoholism, and she would be dead at 39. She tugs at my heartstrings, though, perhaps in part because I have a weakness for tragedy and also perhaps in part because before she flamed out she also starred in an obscure British science fiction movie called The Four-Sided Triangle of which I might be one of very few fans, possibly because to me it is a stunning example of mad science personal identity porn, a micro-genre of which I am also probably one of very few fans, but a very devoted one for all that.

But for more general appeal, we can note that even as her career was in decline, Barbara also posed for some stunning photographs taken on Malibu beach in 1952 by Andre de Dienes. John O’Dowd, in his biography Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story, reproduces a few.

She might have been Marilyn…

Similar Sex Blogging:

• Before The Fall
• Marilyn Monroe Blowjob Film
• Patting Down Barbara Eden
• Marilyn Monroe Talks About Enjoying An Enema

Before The Fall

I got and read a copy of John Gilmore’s L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times in the course of trying to learn more about the tragic story of actress Barbara Payton, one of whose characters is prominent in a post over at my other blog home. I was a little surprised when I found the first plate was one of porn actor John Holmes, in a scene of almost primal innocence. It’s a striking image — I’m sorry I don’t know the name of the actress.

After innocence, the fall. It’s well known that the lives of porn actors sometimes do not end well.

Also the lives of bus drivers, tax accountants, and housewives. Remember that.