Could you please give me some information on John Payne?
—Mrs. Harry S., Michigan
Entertainer John Payne died of congestive heart failure in Malibu, Calif., in 1989 at age 77. His career was extremely varied as he starred in musicals, comedies, dramas and action films. Born in Roanoke, Va., he sang professionally in the mid-1930s before his movie debut in 1936 in Dodsworth. That same year, he landed a lead in Hats Off, and he worked throughout the 1940s and mid-1950s in films such as Star Dust, Remember the Day, To the Shores of Tripoli, El Paso, The Blazing Forest, Santa Fe Passage, The Road to Denver and Hold Back the Night. He became a TV star with the series Restless Gun, which aired from 1957 until 1959. Payne was married three times, and his first marriage, to actress Gloria DeHaven, produced two children. He had another daughter with his second wife, Anne Shirley. His third marriage, to Sandy Crowell Curtis, lasted until his death.
