George Payne (actor)

Payne was born on February 7, 1944, in Ohio and moved to Palm Springs, California, for schooling.[1][6] He grew up in a steel mill town in Ohio.[7] His family has roots in Yugoslavia and Croatia.[7] His father originally came from Tunisia prior to immigrating to the United States.[7] He served in the United States Air Force and subsequently studied in university after discharge from the U.S. military.[6]

Payne moved to New York to work on a career in male swimsuit modeling.[8] During the mid-1960s, Payne was featured as a male model in magazines including Physique Pictorial.[9] Payne entered the porn industry in 1973 with the gay movie The Back Row by Jerry Douglas.[10][11] He starred opposite Casey Donovan, as a newcomer to New York from Montana exploring the gay sexual society of the locale.[10][12] There was no spoken dialogue in the film; Payne and Donovan had to interact through gestures and choreographed interactions to display their emotions.[10] He initially marketed himself towards a gay audience.[5] He was featured on the cover of the LGBT magazine The Advocate in 1973.[13] Payne had an acting role in the 1974 film Death Wish starring Charles Bronson.[6] He starred in the 1976 film Kiss Today Goodbye directed by Francis Ellie alongside Peter Zass, as a blue-collar contractor who has a relationship with a staid man working in finance.[14][6] Payne starred opposite actor Jack Wrangler in the 1979 film Navy Blue.[15] He also starred in the infamous Centurians of Rome in 1981.[16][14] He played the character of Demetrius in the film, in a production compared to a photo shoot for Physique Pictorial.[17] Regarding his work on Centurians of Rome and during this period of his career, Metro Weekly called Payne, a "70s gay porn icon".[14] Payne's work in the 1982 film Corruption was selected as part of the Anthology Film Archive collection Porn Noir.[18] His acting work took place within the Golden Age of Porn.[11][14][19] Payne was interviewed by The Rialto Report as part of its documentation of the golden age of the adult film industry; Payne was regarded as among "some of the industry's biggest and most influential names of the era".[20]

He transitioned over to the straight side of the industry eventually, along with colleagues Casey Donovan and Jack Wranger.[21][11][9] Payne gained notoriety for his intense portrayal of psychopaths in several Avon BDSM "roughie" films.[11][9][14] Barbara Nitke recalled Payne was known in the industry for his skill at improvisation during filming, "George was famous for his ad-libbing."[22] He retired from hardcore porn in 1988, at which point he had starred in more than 180 films in the industry.[11] Writing in The Advocate in 1988, journalist Susie Bright placed Payne's work among the "megastars of gay erotica", including Casey Donovan and Scott Taylor.[23] He continued making appearances in non-sexual BDSM roles until 1997 before leaving the industry entirely.[11] Payne was inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame in 1999.[3] In 2019, he made his mainstream acting debut in director Nicolas Winding Refn's television series Too Old to Die Young.[24]

Payne dated actress Vanessa del Rio when they starred in films together briefly in 1976.[25] Payne became acquainted with a woman only known as “Diane” in the 1990s during a period where she was employed in mainstream cinema working as a casting agent.[11] They subsequently married and resided together in Queens, New York, before moving to Florida in 2015.[11]

• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of male performers in gay porn films
• List of members of the XRCO Hall of Fame
• The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue
• The Tale of Tiffany Lust

• Fairbanks, Harold (11 April 1973), "Ohio's George Payne on the road to stardom", The Advocate, no. 109, p. 25, ISSN 0001-8996

• George Payne at IMDb
• George Payne at AllMovie
• George Payne at the Internet Adult Film Database
• George Payne at the Adult Film Database