Saturdays with the Stars: John Payne

Each month of 2022 we will be taking a look at one-time film actors who became foundational figures in the early days of television, stretching from the early 1950's into the mid-1960's.  Last month we talked about Loretta Young, who spent most of the 1930's & 40's as a big deal (even winning an Oscar), but it was in television that she found most of her modern pop culture cache.  This month, we're going to talk about someone who led films throughout the 1940's, but unlike Young, never really got many accolades during his career.  Despite starring in one film that FAR exceeded the cultural cache of anything Young did her in lifetime, he was never a huge star in her mold...but did find success in the heyday of television westerns in the late 1950's.  This month's star is John Payne.

Born in Roanoke, Virginia, Payne had a posh upbringing as the son of a real estate developer, and attended prep school in Pennsylvania, followed by stints at Columbia & Juilliard.  Initially working in stock theater, he moved into film rather quickly in the 1930's, playing a small part in the now-classic Dodsworth before getting an unsuccessful star contract at Warner Brothers, and then a much longer contract with 20th Century Fox in the 1940's.  There he played opposite a host of different leading ladies, including Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Sonja Henie, Gene Tierney, and (most often) Maureen O'Hara.

It was opposite O'Hara that Payne found the role that he is most well-known for today (unlike many of the people we profile, Payne's most famous role was not in television): he was the romantic lead in Miracle on 34th Street opposite O'Hara.  Despite the success of this film, he dropped his contract with Fox, who didn't really know what to do with him.  Payne worked in a variety of films, including a lot of noir & westerns during the ensuing years, but it was in television where he regained his niche, playing for two years on NBC's The Restless Gun, one of many different westerns that became all the rage during that time frame (the biggest of the bunch being Gunsmoke).  This month, we're going to take a look at the career Payne had that led up to The Restless Gun, including his misdirected years at Fox, and talk about why, even with a modern classic on his resumé, Payne was never able to translate into the success that his peers like Tyrone Power were able to achieve (and why even television wasn't enough to make Payne a lasting entertainment figure).