Matthew Rettenmund of BoyCulture shared with us a post about veteran hustler Scotty Bowers, who was signing and discussing his new kiss-and-tell-all, Full Service, at Book Soup in Los Angeles. Still spry at 88, Bower recounts how, during Tinseltown’s golden age, he procured boys for—or offered himself to—Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, Spencer Tracy, The Duke of Windsor, Tennessee Williams, Marlon Brandon, Roddy McDowall, James Dean and dozens more.
And that’s not including the more than 100 girls he claims to have sent into the sapphic embrace of Kate Hepburn.
Rettenmund reviews Service in another post:
After defending his country in World War II and experiencing the trauma of surviving a battle in which his brother died, Bowers settled down with a woman and had a daughter, but it wasn’t long before his job at a gas station near
Tinseltown helped transform him into the go-to guy for getting off. His very first famous fuck was, of all people, Walter Pidgeon! I’d never read about him liking men and hadn’t expected to read so graphically that he loved to suck Scotty off while masturbating, but I definitely didn’t turn away in horror. Soon, many who worked behind the camera in the motion picture industry were coming to Scotty for sexual release, either with him or with one of his hard-up Marine buddies, and they were often using a trailer parked behind the station. To hear Scotty tell it, these liaisons were happening one after the other all day long, and involved every possible permutation.
But because homosexuality was such a taboo in the ’40s and ’50s, it was only natural that the handsome, well-built and apparently sexually insatiable Marine attracted many more gay clients than straight ones, including lesbians. (Lesbians became such a specialty he later allegedly provided many for Kinsey to watch and film in action.) Reading about the furtive actions of closeted creative types in the hair and makeup and scenery departments of the studios is one of the most interesting parts of the book.
Some of Bowers claims stretch credibility—Tyrone Power was a scat queen, J. Edgar Hoover banged his driver in front of Bowers, Ramon Navarro sucked off 15 guys at a time to “maintain his vigor”—and can’t really be verified because all the players are conveniently long dead.
But there’s enough proof—and supporting statements from the likes of Gore Vidal and George Cukor—to verify that Bowers was there, mixing it up and hopping into bed with the stars of a bygone era. Oh to be a fly on the wall during just one of those assignations. Well, maybe not the one with J. Edgar.
If you could spend a night with a hunk from Hollywood’s golden age, who would it be? Make your pick in the comments!
