John Payne Net Worth

John Payne's Quotes

• Back in 1937 while I was under contract to Paramount, I sang on a five-minute radio program with another contract player from Paramount. A girl who's done rather well since -- Betty Grable. Betty and I didn't do so well then, though. We couldn't find a sponsor and finally gave up the program. I sang low tenor -- or, should I say, high baritone.

Interesting Facts about John Payne

1. Singer, mostly in 20th Century-Fox musicals.
2. Was the first person in Hollywood interested in making the James Bond novels into a film series. In 1955 he paid a $1,000-a-month option for nine months on the Bond novel "Moonraker" (he eventually gave up the option when he learned he could not retain the rights for the entire 007 series).
3. Direct descendant of John Howard Payne (1791-1852), composer of the classic song "Home, Sweet Home" ("Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.").
4. The gap in his career from 1962-68 was the result of a major automobile wreck in which he suffered extensive, life-threatening injuries. In his later roles facial scars can be detected in close-ups.
5. Grandfather of Katharine Towne and Holly Payne.
6. Ex-father-in-law of writer-director Robert Towne.
7. Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
8. In 1942, after separating from Anne Shirley, he had an affair with Jane Russell. The affair is detailed in her 1986 autobiography, "My Path and My Detours". The affair ended when she realized that she was still in love with her high school sweetheart, football player Robert Waterfield, whom she married in April 1943 (they divorced in 1967).
9. Following the style of the times, and in order to emphasize his boyish, clean-cut image, Payne's chest was shaved to smoothness in his "beefcake" scenes of the 1940s. However, in the 1950s, styles changed, Payne's image darkened, and his "beefcake" scenes now showed a chest with dark hair.
10. Was very good friends with his co-star Maureen O'Hara, with whom he starred in four films, To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), Sentimental Journey (1946), Tripoli (1950), and their most famous one, the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
11. Was romantically involved with Coleen Gray (his co-star in Kansas City Confidential (1952)) in the early 1950s.
12. Has stated that his favorite of all the films he has made is Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
13. Served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
14. Initially signed to a short-term contract to appear in Dodsworth (1936) for United Artists, he later worked under contract for 20th Century0Fox (1940-42; 1945-47) and RKO (1954-56).
15. Graduated from Roanoke College. Studied singing at the Juilliard School of Music and acting at Columbia University. Supplemented his studies by making money as a professional wrestler, before landing his first acting job as understudy to Beatrice Lillie in the 1935 revue "At Home Abroad".
16. Attended Mercersburg Academy (preparatory school) in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1932.
17. He was one of many actors considered for the role of Rhett Butler in Gejaagd door de wind (1939).
18. He was a lifelong Republican and conservative.
19. He was a shrewd investor in real estate and owned many parcels in Southern California as well as a ranch near Billings, Montana.
20. Writer France Ingram, in her article on John for "Classic Images", March 2011, states that his first acting break was while he was working as a radio singer in the mid-1930s. The Shubert Organization discovered him and offered him a part touring with one of their road companies at $40 a week.