She was not on the list.
Beloved mother and wife, Julie Payne, passed away at 78 years old on June 7 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A lifelong Los Angeleno, Payne was born to actors John Payne and Anne Shirley and raised in Beverly Hills. After her parents divorced, she lived for a brief time in France with Shirley and her second husband, blacklisted screenwriter Adrian Scott, before returning to Beverly Hills to live with her mother at the home of Shirley's third husband, screenwriter Charles Lederer, where she came of age in the company of Lederer's friends and associates, Ben Hecht, Billy Wilder, Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Lew and Edie Wasserman and Doris Day.
Endowed with a photographic memory, a forensic mind and a passion for literature and history, Payne, as a girl, showed the precocious ability to read and retain most every work in Lederer's library, but loving above all else the books she read about Los Angeles's strangest murders. Though her interests were in legal research and interior design, it was as an actress that she first began to work, appearing in small parts in film and television, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," The Manchurian Candidate and The Best of Everything. She married actor Skip Ward in 1964; they divorced in 1965.
Starting an eight-year television and film career, she made her debut at the age of 18 as the sole female in "The Pawn", the April 6, 1959 installment of her father's 1957–59 NBC western series, The Restless Gun, and subsequently appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond ("Premonition", seen on March 10, 1959, one month before the broadcast of her Restless Gun performance), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Graduating Class", December 27, 1959), The Tab Hunter Show ("I Love a Marine", October 30, 1960) and Dobie Gillis ("Goodbye, Mr. Pomfritt, Hello, Mr. Chips", June 13, 1961).
Her final two television performances were broadcast two days apart in 1965. On October 6 she was seen in "The Young Marauders", the fourth episode of ABC's new color western series, The Big Valley, playing the Southern-accented companion of the handsome head marauder, and, on October 8, in "The Night of Sudden Death", the fourth episode of CBS' new black-and-white (in color, starting with the 1966–67 season) western/spy/fantasy series, The Wild Wild West. Playing a fiery and seductive member of a mysterious troupe of traveling circus performers, she was prominently featured amidst the supporting cast and left the small screen on a high note.
Following a two-year break from acting, her one remaining credit, Don't Make Waves, a comedic satire on southern California beach lifestyle, which starred Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, and Sharon Tate, spotlighted her in a brief bit as a beach beauty.
Payne met screenwriter Robert Towne in 1969, and they married in 1977. Their daughter, Katharine, was born in 1978. In 1999, Payne reconnected with her high school sweetheart, Steve Luckman, beginning again the love story that would last to the end of her life. Payne will be remembered for the vastness of her intellect and knowledge, her love of entertaining, and her uncompromising devotion to her friends and family.
Shortly after Julie Payne retired from her acting career, another actress named Julie Payne, born in 1946, who, in a 1976 interview, gave her birthplace as Sweet Home, Oregon, but has also been erroneously listed as being born in 1940 in Terre Haute, Indiana, began her own acting career, with an appearance in the 1970 film The Strawberry Statement. Subsequent references have frequently combined the credits of the two actresses.
Another Julie Payne (1951–2016) was a producer and miscellaneous crew, who often worked with director Ridley Scott. She died on 15 June 2016, and was mentioned in the ending credits of Scott's Alien: Covenant (2017)
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1962 The Manchurian Candidate Party Guest Uncredited
1964 Honeymoon Hotel Mrs. Harrison Uncredited
1964 Island of the Blue Dolphins Lurai
1965 Girl Happy Girl #1 Uncredited
1967 Don't Make Waves Helen (final film role)
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