From pumping gas to pimping for the closeted stars of old-school Hollywood
Scotty Bowers, who has died aged 96, claimed to have been one of Hollywood’s most infamous hustlers and procurers, arranging illicit liaisons with straight and gay film stars, often taking part in the sexual hijinks himself.
From the time he arrived in Hollywood in
1946, fresh out of the Marine Corps, Bowers became an active and, by his own account, eager participant in the film world’s underground sex life.
His first encounter, he said, came when he was pumping gas on Hollywood Boulevard, and a well-dressed man drove up in a Lincoln. ‘‘Can I help you, sir?’’ Bowers recalled asking in his 2012 memoir, Full
Service: My
Adventures in
Hollywood and the Secret Sex
Lives of the Stars.
‘‘The man smiled, looked me up and down, and said, ‘Yes, I’m sure you can.’ ’’
The man paid for the petrol, included a $20 tip, and asked Bowers to climb in. ‘‘Name’s Walter,’’ he said.
Bowers said he spent the afternoon with Walter Pidgeon and the Oscar-nominated actor’s male lover, both of whom were married to women. Bowers was soon launched on a career as a prostitute and purveyor of sexual favours.
His services were an open secret in Hollywood, particularly among closeted gay men and lesbians, who were compelled to keep their romantic lives under wraps. Using the gas station as a front for about five years – and later working as a handyman and bartender at private parties – Bowers coordinated countless trysts but said he never collected money for the arrangements.
Some called him a pimp, but Bowers chose the description ‘‘gentleman hustler’’. ‘‘I didn’t believe in being an outright pimp,’’ he said in
2012. ‘‘Sort of a pimp, but not an outright pimp. There’s a difference, you know.’’
His knowledge of Hollywood was far more intimate than most people’s, yet he remained discreetly in the shadows for decades. When he finally told his story, the revelations were shocking to a Hollywood that seemed to have no more secrets to tell. Sceptical critics questioned the veracity of his accounts.
Bowers said his adventures, which began long before Pidgeon picked him up in the Lincoln, included encounters with ‘‘Eddy and Wally,’’ the Duke and Duchess of Windsor: ‘‘Like her husband, she definitely preferred homosexual sex.’’
Although Bowers said he ‘‘preferred the sexual company of women’’, he was nothing if not open-minded. He claimed to have taken part in threesomes with actresses Lana Turner and Ava Gardner and, separately, with actors Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.
At various times, he said he was in bed with Vincent Price, Vivien Leigh, Edith Piaf, Tyrone Power, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward and George Cukor. He said Roy Scherer worked for him at the gas station before he became known as Rock Hudson.
‘‘I was setting up an average of 15-20 tricks a day,’’ Bowers noted in his book, written with Lionel Friedberg. ‘‘This was a 24/7 operation, extending over a period of, say, 30 to 40 years. As for tricks that I performed personally, I was often seeing two or three people a day.’’
One of his most startling but unverifiable claims was of meeting FBI director J Edgar Hoover at a party of men dressed in drag. Bowers said the long romance of actors Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy was a sham dreamed up by Hollywood mythmakers. He personally had sex with Tracy, he said, and set up Hepburn with at least 150 women over several decades.
He also arranged for female companions for actors Bob Hope, Desi Arnaz and William Holden, among others. Arnaz’s wife, Lucille Ball, once saw Bowers at a party and punched him in the face.
‘‘I didn’t believe in being an outright pimp. Sort of a pimp, but not an outright pimp. There’s a difference, you know.’’
Detractors charged Bowers with exaggeration or outright fabrication, noting that everyone named in his book was safely in the grave.
Filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer, who made a 2017 documentary about Bowers, said he spent two years checking sources and interviewing men who had worked with Bowers as gay prostitutes. ‘‘I understand the scepticism. I’m a journalist, and I approached the story journalistically. I found anecdotal confirmation for almost everything he said.’’
Descriptions of houses and backyard swimming pools were verified by photographs and satellite imagery. Bowers recalled, without prompting, the nickname of one of Grant’s male lovers.
‘‘While it is at times circumstantial evidence, some things were so particular, it was clear that they could not have been made up.’’
Years later, Bowers recalled long-gone phone numbers and addresses of customers, all of which he memorised. ‘‘Sometimes police would come around, sure,’’ he said. ‘‘But I think I never got caught partly because I kept everything in my head. There was no little black book.’’
George Albert Bowers was born in Illinois, and grew up on a family farm. During the Depression, his parents divorced, and he moved to Chicago with his mother and two siblings. He got the nickname Scotty because he and a neighbour girl walked a Scottish terrier together.
In World War II, he was a Marine paratrooper in the Pacific. He settled in California after the war.
During his most active years as a prostitute and as a procurer, he had a long relationship with Betty Keller. (It is unclear whether they were married.) In his book, he said their daughter, Donna, died in 1968 after a botched abortion.
In 1984, Bowers married singer Lois Broad, who died in 2018. Survivors include a sister.
Bowers’ life of arranging sexual referrals came to an end in the 1980s, when Aids became prevalent. For years, however, he continued to be privy to Hollywood gossip as a non-drinking bartender at parties and as a raconteur with an endless supply of stories.
‘‘There always will be secret life happening,’’ he told the Guardian in 2018. ‘‘People should do what pleases them and the other person – some people just please more than a few.’’ –