success in life, did not object to her leaving high school without a diploma. In 1944, Redfield met her second husband, decorated combat pilot John Payton, stationed at Midland Army Airfield. The couple were married on February 10, 1945, and moved to Los Angeles, where John Payton enrolled at University of Southern California under the G.I. Bill. Still early in their marriage, Barbara, restless and feeling confined by her life as a housewife, expressed a desire to pursue a modeling or acting career. Payton started a modeling career by hiring a photographer to take photos of her sporting fashionable outfits. This portfolio attracted the attention of Saba of California, a clothing designer, which signed her to a contract modeling junior fashions. In September 1947, the Rita La Roy Agency in Hollywood took her on and brought her work in print advertising, notably in catalogs for Studebaker cars and in clothing ads for magazines such as Charm and Junior Bazaar. The couple had a son, John Lee, on March 14, 1947. Payton managed to combine the responsibilities of wife, new mother, and professional model, yet the marriage was strained, and the couple separated in July 1948. Payton's drive, fueled by her high-energy personality, had become focused on promoting her career and showcasing her around the town's hot spots. Her notoriety as a luminous, fun-loving party girl in the Hollywood club scene caught the attention of William Goetz, an executive of Universal Studios. In January 1949, he signed her at age 21 to a contract with a starting salary of $100 per week. After her divorce from Payton in 1950, she lost custody of their son in March 1956, after her ex-husband charged that she exposed John Lee to "profane language, immoral conduct, notoriety, unwholesome activities" and failed to provide the boy with a "moral education". Career Payton first gained notice in the 1949 film noir Trapped co-starring Lloyd Bridges. In 1950, she was allowed to make a screen test for John Huston's production of the forthcoming MGM crime drama The Asphalt Jungle. The part of the sultry mistress of a mob-connected lawyer went to Marilyn Monroe. After being screen-tested by James Cagney and his producer brother, William, Payton starred with Cagney in the violent noir thriller Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in 1950. William Cagney was so smitten with Payton's sensual appeal and beauty that her contract was drawn as a joint agreement