John Payne is a British musician who was lead singer and bassist of Asia from 1992 to 2006 and from June 2007 with Asia Featuring John Payne. When asked to join Asia by Geoff Downes, he had to learn the bass guitar fast, including all of Asia's hits. While Payne was in the band, they released over 15 albums. He is also a guitarist, composer and record producer.

John Payne (May 28, 1912 - December 6, 1989) was an American movie actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century-Fox film musicals, as well as his leading role in Miracle on 34th Street.

Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia. His mother, Ida Hope Shaeffer, graduated from the Virginia Seminary in Roanoke and became the bride of George Washington Payne, a developer of Roanoke. They lived at Ft Lewis, an antbellum mansion that became a state historical property. It was destroyed by fire in the late 1950s. Payne went to Roanoke College then enrolled at Columbia University in the fall of 1930. He studied drama at Columbia and voice at Juilliard. To support himself, he took on a variety of odd jobs, including wrestling and singing in vaudeville. In 1934, he was spotted by a talent scout for the Shubert theaters and was given a job as a stock player.

Payne toured with several Shubert Brothers shows, and frequently sang on New York-based radio programs. In 1936, he was offered a contract by Samuel Goldwyn, and he left New York for Hollywood. He worked for various studios until 1940, when he signed with 20th-Century Fox. Fox made him a star, in 1940s musicals like Tin Pan Alley (1940), Sun Valley Serenade (1941}, and Weekend in Havana (also 1941). A highlight during this period was co-starring with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power in The Razor's Edge (1946).

Payne's most popular role may be in his final film for Fox, that of attorney Fred Gailey in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). It is almost certainly his most visible role, as it typically receives frequent airplay during the Christmas season.

Later in his career Payne changed his image and began playing tough-guy roles in Hollywood films noir and westerns including Kansas City Confidential (1952), 99 River Street (1953), Silver Lode (1954), Tennessee's Partner (1955) and Slightly Scarlet (1956). Payne was a contract star with Pine-Thomas Productions where he shrewedly insisted that the films he appeared in be filmed in colour and that the rights to the films reverted to him after several years that made him wealthy when he rented them to television.

Payne also starred in a television western series, The Restless Gun (1957-59). In 1955, he paid a $1,000-a-month option for nine months on the Ian Fleming James Bond novel Moonraker (he eventually gave up the option when he learned he could not retain the rights for the entire book series).

In May 1961, Payne suffered extensive, life-threatening injuries when struck by a car in New York City. His recovery took two years. In his later roles, facial scars from the accident can be detected in close-ups; he chose not to have them removed. One of Payne's first public appearances during this period was as a guest panelist on the popular CBS-TV game show What's My Line. Dorothy Kilgallen and the other panelists on the episode congratulated Payne on his recovery and wished him well. (Source: Game Show Network rebroadcast, February 8, 2006).

Payne directed one of his last films, They Ran for Their Lives (1968). His final role was in 1975 when he co-starred with Peter Falk and Janet Leigh in Columbo: Forgotten Lady. Later in life, Payne became wealthy through real estate investments in Southern California.

John Payne (1842 - 1916) was an English poet and translator, from Devon. Initially he pursued a legal career, and associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon Society.

He is now best known for his translation of Boccaccio's Decameron and The Arabian Nights.

Saint John Paine or Payne (1532 - 1582) was an English Catholic priest martyr, one of the Catholic Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

He was born at Peterborough in 1532 and was possibly a convert to Catholicism from a Protestant family. He was probably a mature man when he went to the English College at Douai in 1574, served there as bursar, and was ordained priest by the Archbishop of Cambrai on April 7 1576. Shortly afterwards, on April 24 1576, he left for the English mission in the company of another priest, Cuthbert Mayne. While Mayne headed for his native South West England, Paine resided for the most part with Anne, widow of Sir William Petre, and daughter of Sir William Browne, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, at Ingatestone, Essex, but also in London. Shortly after his arrival he converted (or re-converted) to Catholicism George Godsalve or Godsalf, of the diocese of Bath, a man who had gained the B.A. at Oxford and had been ordained a deacon in the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary, but who had then become a Protestant. Paine sent Godsalf to Douai, where he arrived on July 15 1576 to be prepared for the Catholic priesthood, which he was to receive at Cambrai on December 22. Paine himself was arrested at Ingatestone and imprisoned early in 1577, but was soon released and went back to Douai that November. From there he probably returned to Ingatestone before Christmas, 1579.

Early in July, 1581, he and Godsalf, who had come to England in June, 1577, were arrested in Warwickshire whilst staying on the estate of Lady Petre (widow of John Petre, 18th Baron Petre), through the efforts of the informer George "Judas" Eliot (a known criminal, murderer, rapist and thief, who made a career out of denouncing Catholics and priests for bounty). After being examined by Walsingham at Greenwich, they were committed to the Tower of London on July 14. Godsalf did not give in but spent several years in prison, after which he was released from the Marshalsea in September 1585 and banished, dying in Paris in 1592.

As to Paine, a more significant catch, he was racked on the Council's orders on August 14, and again on October 31. On March 20 1581/2 he was abruptly woken, taken from his cell half dressed and delivered by the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Owen Hopton (c. 1524-1591) of Cockfield Hall in Suffolk to officers waiting to take him to Chelmsford jail, not being allowed to return to the cell to get his purse (which was stolen by the Lieutenant's wife, Anne Echyngham).

Paine was indicted at Chelmsford on March 22 on a charge of treason for conspiring to murder the Queen and her leading officers and install Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. Paine denied the charges, and affirmed his loyalty to the Queen in all that was lawful (ie not contrary to his Catholicism or allegiance to the Pope), contesting the reliability of the murderer Eliot. No attempt was made to corroborate Eliot's story, which had already been rehearsed in large part at the trial of Edmund Campion on November 20 1581. The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion.

At his execution on the morning of the Monday April 2 (9 months after his imprisonment), he was dragged from prison on a hurdle to the place of execution and first prayed on his knees for almost half an hour and then kissed the scaffold, made a profession of faith and declared his innocence. Reinforcements had been sent from London to help the execution run smoothly. Lord Rich called upon him to repent of his treason, which Paine again denied. A Protestant minister then shouted a claim that years ago Paine's brother had admitted to him Paine's treason. Paine said that his brother was and always had been an earnest Protestant but that even so would never swear to such a thing. To bear this out, Paine asked that the brother, who was in the locality, be brought, but he was not found in time and the execution proceeded and Paine was at last turned off the ladder. The government's intentions for a smooth execution with minimal trouble and maximum propaganda value had failed - indeed, the crowd had become so sympathetic to Paine that they hung on his feet to speed his death and prevented the infliction of the quartering until he was dead. The executioner, the notoriously incompetent Simon Bull, was meanwhile rebuked for dithering over the quartering in case Paine revive and suffer further.

John Paine was one of the group of prominent Catholic martyrs of the persecution who were later designated as the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. He was beatified "equipollently" by Pope Leo XIII, by means of a decree of December 29 1886 and was canonized along with the other Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI on October 25, 1970.

A Roman Catholic secondary school in Chelmsford town centre (towards Broomfield) is now named after him.

John Payne (23 November 1871 - 27 January 1942) was a New Zealand politician.

Payne was born in Manchester, England. His father was clerk to a solicitor, and Payne himself initially took up office employment, but later migrated to New Zealand. There, he worked as a farmhand and a goldminer before turning to accountancy. He taught finance in Auckland for a time, and was also involved in the early film business in New Zealand.

In the 1911 general election, Payne stood for Parliament, contesting the seat of Grey Lynn on a left-wing platform. Among his proposals were free tertiary education, legislation to increase the power of workers, an expansion of social welfare, a state bank, and the abolition of the Legislative Council. He was elected, defeating George Fowlds of the Liberal Party in a run-off.

In Parliament, Payne supported the Liberals, despite apparently having agreed to support the Reform Party in exchange for their backing in the Grey Lynn run-off. Accusations were made that he had been bribed, and although these were later withdrawn, Payne's relationship with Reform was severely damaged. In 1913, when the Social Democratic Party was established, Payne unofficially allied himself with it, but did not join. In the 1914 election, Payne was re-elected with Social Democrat support — along with two Social Democrats and three members of the United Labour Party, Payne was part of the loose left-wing grouping in Parliament.

When World War I broke out, however, tensions later arose between Payne and his fellow leftists. Payne was a supporter of New Zealand's participation in the war, including the introduction of conscription, which other leftists fiercely opposed. Payne was also criticised for his strong anti-German sentiment. When the Social Democrats and the United Labour Party formed the modern Labour Party in 1916, Payne declined to join.

Payne did not seek re-election in the New Zealand general election 1919, partly for reasons of health. He lived in Australia until 1935, and served as private secretary to the Labor Party Premier of New South Wales for a time. After his return to New Zealand, he became a supporter of Labour dissident John A. Lee, and wrote articles for Lee's publication. He died in 1942 from heart failure.

John Payne is a Canadian voice actor who works for Ocean Studios in Vancouver, Canada. He has played several roles in anime, most notably Ramba Ral in Mobile Suit Gundam and Rasetsu in InuYasha.