LEGENDARY HEROES #49

BRUCE GENTRY

Bruce Gentry was an aviation adventure comic strip created by Ray Bailey and was distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate.  The strip debuted on March 25, 1945 and by July it was being carried in 35 newspapers, which was quite respectable for a new comic.  Part of the success could be that Bailey's style was reminiscent of Milton Caniff of "Terry and the Pirates" fame, and for good reason.  Ray Bailey had been an assistant to Caniff.  In the comic strip Bruce Gentry is a former Air Force pilot who finds himself working for a small airline in South America.  There he finds enough subversive and criminal activity to keep followers of the comic strip enthralled.  But soon Gentry was flying all over the world to exotic locales and high adventure.  If the storyline sounds vaguely familiar it could be because Milton Caniff used the same plot when he launched "Steve Canyon" on January 13, 1947 after walking away from "Terry and the Pirates".  In the battle of competing comic strips "Steve Canyon" won and Bruce Gentry came to an end on January 6, 1951 with Gentry marrying his sweetheart Cleo Patric.  

Still, "Bruce Gentry" was well-liked and heralded by comic strip enthusiasts, and his reprinted comic adventures appeared in an 8 comic book run from January 1948 to July 1949 by Superior Comics.  And in 1949 Columbia Pictures released a 15-chapter serial with Tom Neal as Bruce Gentry.  The serial is probably better known for featuring the very first cinematic appearance of a flying saucer, which was the secret weapon of the villain in the serial movie.  The UFO was an embarrassingly bad animated image drawn over the action sequences.  In later years the serial would be remembered for it's star, Tom Neal, and not for good reasons.

Tom Neal was born in 1914 in Evanston, Illinois to a successful banker and his wife.  Tom Neal's great uncle was John Drew the famous stage actor and great-great grandfather of Drew Barrymore of today.  Neal attended Northwestern University for a year where he majored in mathematics before dropping out and pursuing an acting career.  He moved to NYC in 1933 and made his Broadway debut in 1935.  During this time period he also had an amateur boxing career with 33 wins and only 3 losses.  His film debut came in 1938 with Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy movie.  Tom Neal appeared in low-budget B-movies throughout his career with his most memorable role in the classic film noir "Detour" with Ann Savage.  His first marriage was to actress/singer Vicky Lane in 1944 but she divorced him in 1949 citing "mental and physical cruelty".  Then in the early 1950s Tom met actress Barbara Payton at a party and they began dating each other.  Payton, born in 1927 in Cloquet, Minnesota, was gaining notice for her acting.  She had appeared with Lloyd Bridges in the movie "Trapped" (1949) and with James Cagney in "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" (1950) which helped her land a contract with Warner Bros. that paid her a weekly salary of $5000.  By the time she met Tom Neal she had made "Dallas" (1950) with Gary Cooper and "Only the Valiant" (1951) with Gregory Peck.  Payton, unlike Tom Neal, was headed for stardom.  Or so she thought.

While Payton was dating Tom Neal she became engaged to actor Franchot Tone and tried to end her relationship with Neal, but kept going back to him.  On September 14, 1951 things came to a head when Tom Neal, an amateur boxer, beat Tone severely on the front lawn of Payton's home while she stood and watched.  Franchot Tone was hospitalized with a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose, and a brain concussion.  After he recovered he went ahead and married Barbara Payton on September 28, 1951.  After 53 days of marriage Payton left Tone and went back to Neal.  Tone filed for divorce citing her adultery and Payton and Neal were blacklisted in Hollywood.  People today may not remember, but Franchot Tone was Hollywood royalty back in the day.  He had been formerly married to Joan Crawford and had been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Mutiny On the Bounty" (1935).  You couldn't beat a man like Tone and openly cheat on him and expect to continue employment in Hollywood.

Tom Neal and Barbara Payton, two toxic individuals who were bad for each other, announced their engagement in May 1953.  In June they accepted an offer to star in a touring production of "The Postman Always Rings Twice", appropriately, in an attempt to capitalize on their tabloid relationship and try to revitalize their careers.  Their performances were largely panned and the tour ended in September 1953.  By November Barbara and Tom had called it quits and went their separate ways.  Neal soon married Patricia Fenton and they had a child, Patrick Thomas Neal, born in 1957.  The following year Patricia died of cancer.  Patrick would go onto recreate his father's most famous role in a 1992 remake of "Detour" in which he was billed as Tom Neal, Jr.  As for Neal, Sr., his acting career was over and he moved to Palm Springs, California where he became a gardener and started a landscaping business.  In 1961 he married his receptionist Gale Bennett.  On April 2, 1965, police were called to the couple's home by Neal's attorney.  They found Bennett's dead body lying on a couch, partially covered with a blanket, and a gunshot wound to the back of her head.  She'd been shot with a .45 the day before, and Tom Neal was nowhere to be found.  He was the primary suspect.

Tom Neal surrendered to police on April 3 and was indicted for murder on April 10.  Neal testified that the death was accidental.  The couple were separated and Tom returned home from Chicago to see if a reconciliation could be worked out.  They began arguing and he accused her of being unfaithful to him.  According to Neal, she then produced the gun and threatened him with it.  They began to struggle for the gun and it "accidentally" discharged - to the back of her head - and she was killed.  The DA sought the death penalty but the jury found Neal guilty of involuntary manslaughter.  He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, was paroled after six and got out on December 6, 1971.  He went back to landscaping.  On August 7, 1972, Tom Neal was dead of heart failure.  And what became of Barbara Payton?  She went to England and made a couple of low-budget Hammer films, ("Bad Blonde" was one of the titles), but her hard drinking and hard living ultimately destroyed her physically and emotionally.  From 1955-1963 her alcoholism and drug addiction led to multiple skirmishes with the law.  She had turned to prostitution to make a living in Hollywood, and was arrested for solicitation and passing bad checks.  She continued to get her name in the press for all the wrong reasons.  When she was placed in a detox ward to try and sober her up, she stated, "I'd rather drink and die".  By this point her face had gained a perpetual sunburn and her nose was a roadmap of veins.  In 1963 she was paid $1000 for her autobiography "I Am Not Ashamed" in which she admitted to sleeping on bus benches and suffering regular beatings as a prostitute.  On May 8, 1967, she died of heart and liver failure.  She was only 39.