Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars

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And what I got from this book is not the actual sex acts - plenty of that - but the fact that it was a world that was full of secrets - and secrets are very very seductive. Directed by Matt Tyrnauer and released in 2017, the documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood recounts the book's themes, expanded by additional recollections from Bowers and those in his life. After reading what he witnessed on that beach, I would understand living a life without a shred of shame (especially about sex, which people should not feel ashamed about, anyway). Although Bowers considers himself mainly heterosexual, he has never had any qualms about having an equal amount of sex with men. But if you're looking for an unvarnished account of the closeted sexual shenanigans of Hollywood's Golden Age — and a good trashy read at the same time — then "Full Service" is the full enchilada.

The list of whom he did is almost dizzying: Vivien Leigh, George Cukor, Cole Porter (after he got his wooden leg, no less), Tab Hunter, Edith Piaf, Cecil Beaton, Spencer Tracy, Raymond Burr, Noel Coward, etc. A World War II veteran and Hollywood gas-station attendant describes how his good looks and open bisexuality culminated in liaisons with numerous celebrities from Spencer Tracy and Vivien Leigh to Cary Grant and the abdicated Edward VIII, describing how the lifestyle he embraced was part of a growing movement that contributed to the sexual revolution. This is salacious, graphic material, but I read reviews beforehand and was aware of and prepared for its type of content.If you ever suspected that Spencer Tracy was bisexual and Tyrone Power a coprophiliac, and if you happen to believe everything you read, here is all the testimony you require. He began sleeping with some himself, and connecting others with his coterie of young, attractive, and sexually free-spirited friends. We all knew Rock Hudson was gay, and suspected Cary Grant and Randolph Scott of being involved, and who didn't suspect Hoover of being a cross-dresser?

Given the fact that Scotty has nothing but fond memories of his own sexual awakening--which included a prepubescent seduction by a hired hand on his family farm and a clique of Catholic priests who passed him around like a sex doll (Scotty had more partners before the age of 16 than most people have in their whole lives)--it is hard to imagine, in the climate of the 1940s and '50s, that he would have any qualms about hooking up Flynn, others, perhaps even himself with minors.

I found the faux coyness the most irritating, where he'd dance around what he claimed two people (or more) did together, then in the next paragraph come out with thoroughly explicit language. We haven’t heard anyone else come forward about him and he’s been very vocal about his life so I’m assuming he was a nice pimp as it were. Combine that with the fact that he was an accommodating, likable, preternaturally easy-going guy who never drank. Here's a genuinely affectionate guy with a ginormous sex drive who befriended and slept with tons of people, including incredibly beautiful and sexy ones. But then again the well oiled publicity machines that operated to maintain a stars light shinning in the eyes of the American public would never have allowed their cash machine actors and actresses from being exposed, unless they were really stupid or stubbornly hedonistic, or both?

Asked about this in a recent phone interview, Bowers' response was: "Not only did I do all the things I said I did in the book, I did even more.There's only one test case that still stirs up controversy, and it concerns the legend of Kate and Spence. He was already something of a bisexual sex-addict (a term I dislike; let's just say he needed it, and got it, every day from anyone he could) when the actor Walter Pidgeon pulled in for gas; Scotty tripped his gaydar, Pidgeon propositioned him, and they went off to Pidgeon's house for a poolside MMM three-way. After I bedded him at least a couple dozen times and spent long nights with him, he pretended that he didn't know me! A frequent consumer of Bowers' (free) services for female prostitutes, Bowers feels compelled, whenever her name is mentioned, to repeat that no one in Hollywood liked working with her, and that she had a bad skin problem. That may not be the kind of style everyone can read in one sitting because it could infuriate those looking for a through-line plot, but it's quite enjoyable.