Trivia

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).

Served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.

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).

He was a shrewd investor in real estate and owned many parcels in Southern California as well as a ranch near Billings, Montana.

Has stated that his favorite of all the films he has made is Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

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.

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".

Singer, mostly in 20th Century-Fox musicals.

John's daughter Julie Payne (aka Julie Anne Payne) is a legal researcher for book writers of both film and the City of Los Angeles.

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).

He moved to Paramount and made a series of melodramas and musicals, and then signed with Warner Bros. When Dick Powell turned down the Busby Berkeley musical Garden of the Moon (1938), Payne was given the role and thereafter appeared as singer and actor in some "memorable moving pictures".

He was one of many actors considered for the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).

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.

Daughter Julie Payne has stated that there is no validity to the story that her father pressured his studio (20th Century-Fox) into filming Miracle on 34th Street (1947) while putting up his own money. She said that the movie was a small black-and-white film with low expectations, and that had John indeed put money into it he would not have received any profit participation because that option did not even exist until 1950, three years after the film was made. Moreover, at the time of filming John did not have the money to put into any film because he was strapped not only paying child support but had a wife with a third child on the way.

Was romantically involved with Coleen Gray (his co-star in Kansas City Confidential (1952)) in the early 1950s.

Was in three Oscar Best Picture nominees: Dodsworth (1936), The Razor's Edge (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

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.

He was an understudy in the 1935 Broadway musical "At Home Abroad," which co-starred Reginald Gardiner and Beatrice Lillie. When Gardiner became ill, the 22-year-old Payne went on, replacing him until Gardiner's health improved enough to return to the role. In the best Hollywood tradition, the studio talent scout who placed him under contract to Samuel Goldwyn Pictures was Samuel Goldwyn's wife Frances Howard, who often traveled to Broadway from Hollywood looking for new talent for her husband's film projects (on a 1941 trip to Broadway to see Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin-Moss Hart musical "Lady in The Dark" she discovered Danny Kaye).

As early as 1953 he planned to produce a film of "The Puppet Masters, finally striking a deal with author Robert A. Heinlein in 1959. However, the story was plagiarized and spoiled by Roger Corman's The Brain Eaters (1958).

Attended Mercersburg Academy (preparatory school) in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1932.

According to his daughter Julie Payne, John was actually born on May 28, 1912, and not May 23. Somewhere along the line, she said, the "8" in "28" was accidentally transformed into a "3".

He and actress Lynn Bari both attended a private school, run by a Mrs. Vaughn, in their hometown of Roanoke, VA.

Daughter Julie Payne has stated that John's mother, Ida Hope Schaeffer, was never an opera singer, for the Metropolitan Opera or anywhere else. However, his father was heavily involved with the building of the city of Roanoke, Virginia.

A science fiction fan, he wanted to produce and star in an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's novel The Puppet Masters, but a lawsuit Heinlein brought forth against the makers of The Brain Eaters (1958) (1958) killed those ambitions. Ironically, despite his repeated efforts, he would never appear in a science fiction movie.

In the 1930s, before entering show business, he earned a living at one point as a professional wrestler known various as "Alexei Petroff, the Savage of the Steppes" and "Tiger Jack Payne".

He was a lifelong Republican and conservative.

Grandfather of Katharine Towne and Holly Payne.

Had appeared with Betty Grable in five films: College Swing (1938), Tin Pan Alley (1940), Footlight Serenade (1942), Springtime in the Rockies (1942) and The Dolly Sisters (1945).

He was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Television at 6687 Hollywood Boulevard.

Owned Window Glen Productions, the company that produced his series The Restless Gun (1957).

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).

Had appeared with Rhonda Fleming in five films: The Eagle and the Hawk (1950), Crosswinds (1951), Caribbean (1952), Tennessee's Partner (1955) and Slightly Scarlet (1956).

Ex-father-in-law of writer-director Robert Towne.

Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).

He appeared with Alice Faye in four films: Tin Pan Alley (1940), The Great American Broadcast (1941), Week-End in Havana (1941) and Hello Frisco, Hello (1943).

He was the celebrity spokesman for Blatz Beer.

He had three children. He and his wife Anne Shirley had a daughter, Julie Payne, born on July 10, 1940. With wife Gloria DeHaven, he had a daughter, Kathleen Hope Payne, born in 1945, and a son, Thomas John Payne, born in 1947.

He made nearly 80 pictures but said in a 1974 interview, in connection with his return to the stage in "Good News," that "I never could quite take it seriously".

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.").