Good news DR DRUXY. I have been looking at old newspaper clippings about the Tone/Payton/Neal fracas. That was BIG news!
I was a kid, visiting Los Angeles from Seattle when it happened. I remember seeing the headlines and my parents telling me what terrible people these actors were. I also recall the stories that came out in
CONFIDENTIAL the next few years.
I think I've told you (and it's in one of my memoirs) that, when I first moved to Los Angeles, I lived in the same apartment building on Normandie Avenue as Barbara Payton. This was shortly after Tom Neal had been arrested for killing his wife. She had a poolside apartment and there were always guys in there. (I was too shy back then. I never actually met her.)
When I was researching the story that would, ultimately become my play,
B MOVIE, I visited the apartment building where the fight took place; spoke to somebody who witnessed it. I even got to go into Payton's old apartment, which was vacant at the time. It was decades ago, but as I recall, there was a mirror on the bedroom ceiling.
