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Barbara Payton
- Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye-
I ran across an interesting interview today with John O’Dowd, author of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story. It’s a biography of Barabara Payton, a 50’s A-movie starlet that at the top of her game plunged into alcoholic abyss from which she never returned. In little more than a decade she went from starring on the silver screen with the likes of Gregory Peck to the life of an alcoholic prostitute dead at the young age of 37.
While it may not make it to the top of my must-read list, I thought several of the statements in the interview were worth sharing. The first is by Barbara Payton’s son who spoke about his mother and the disease of alcoholism with such insight that it is clear he has both struggled and contemplated long over her plight.
"Alcoholism moves a person into another world, a place away from family, friends, lovers, and society. It's a place where an alcoholic becomes comfortable, and where others who are not alcoholics often are unwelcome. Over time, visitors stop coming by, you might say, not because they don't care, but because they know that they're no longer a part of what has become a new reality for the alcoholic. This is a place and time where it is difficult for any communication between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic, where love may be a memory but no longer a possibility, where words like ‘help’ become a threat. More could have been attempted to help my mother, absolutely. Whether it would have been accepted by her, however, one cannot know."
The author also offers an interesting view when he compares the lifestyle and opinions of both Hollywood and the general public in relation to alcoholism.
We are living in such a different world than the one Barbara lived in, where the very things she was persecuted for (her wild sexual antics, constant drinking and drugging, and endless troubles with the law) are routinely written about and almost glorified by today's media, that I'm not sure that what happened to her would even resonate with today's so-called "Hollywood elite." In fact, "young Hollywood," in particular, would probably be more surprised than anything else that Barbara's outrageous public behavior had caused such a widespread uproar in the first place.
It may not be on the top of my list but I do plan to read this one, please let me know if one of you gets to it first.
