Hollywood’s procurer of sex for stars, royals
Scotty Bowers, who 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 himself, died Oct. 13 in Los Angeles. He was 96.
The death was confirmed by filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer, whose 2017 documentary, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, was about Bowers. He did not specify a cause.
Bowers said his first encounter came when, fresh out of the Marine Corps in 1946, 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 … said, ‘Yes, I’m sure you can.’” The man paid for the gas, added a $20 tip and asked Bowers to climb into the car. “Name’s Walter,” he said, shaking hands.
Bowers said he spent the afternoon with Walter Pidgeon and his male lover, both of whom were married to women.
Bowers’ services were an open secret, but he said he never collected money. He set up 15 to 20 tricks a day (and two to three for himself), and remained discreet for decades.
Bowers said his sexual encounters included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor: “Like her husband, she definitely preferred homosexual sex.” He said he took part in threesomes with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner and, separately, with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.
He said had slept with Vincent Price, Vivien Leigh, Edith Piaf, Tyrone Power, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward and George Cukor.
Bowers said the romance of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy was a sham. He personally had sex with Tracy, he said, and set up Hepburn with at least 150 women over the decades. Columnist Liz Smith confirmed that Hepburn had an active lesbian love life.
Bowers arranged women for 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 understand the skepticism,” Tyrnauer said. He spent two years checking sources and added that “I found anecdotal confirmation for almost everything (Bowers) said.”
George Albert Bowers was born July 1, 1923. The nickname Scotty came because he walked a Scottish terrier.
In 1984, Bowers married singer Lois Broad, who died in 2018.