Barbara Lee Payton (born Barbara Lee Redfield; November 16, 1927 – May 8, 1967) was an American film actress best known for her stormy social life and battles with alcoholism and drug addiction. Her life has been the subject of several books, including Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story (2007) by John O'Dowd, L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes and Bad Times (2005) by John Gilmore and B Movie: A Play in Two Acts (2014) by Michael B. Druxman. In her brief life, she married four times.
Born in Cloquet, Minnesota, Payton was the daughter of Erwin Lee ("Flip") and Mabel Irene (Todahl) Redfield, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. A son, Frank Leslie III, was born in 1931.
In 1938, the family moved to Odessa, Texas. With financial assistance from his sister, Payton's father started his own business, a court of tourist cabins named Antlers Court, hoping for a profitable enterprise in a city like Odessa, whose population was booming because of the oil business.