“Good sex is all about how much is too much, how little is too little, about that thin dividing line between consistency and variety, between meeting the expected and surprising with the unexpected.”
Scotty Bowers
Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Live of the Stars is one of the most extraordinary Hollywood tell-alls ever released. Its publication was like a nuclear bomb detonation, but because every victim was already deceased, there were no fatalities (and not even that much attention from the tabloids). That is actually just as the author Scotty Bowers intended. By all accounts, he is a kind person and loyal friend. He steadfastly resisted all attempts to write about his four-decade career as an A-List hustler and sex-broker until those he would incriminate were long gone.
Bowers’ incredible story begins in 1946 when he pumped gas into an automobile driven by character actor Walter Pidgeon. Pidgeon propositioned him, paying Bowers twenty dollars for a sexual encounter. More such on-the-job shenanigans followed, and soon the Richfield gasoline station on Hollywood Boulevard where Bowers worked became the most unlikely of brothels. [Leave it to car-centric midcentury Los Angeles to combine the world's oldest profession with its newest mode of transportation.]
Scotty Bowers
Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Live of the Stars is one of the most extraordinary Hollywood tell-alls ever released. Its publication was like a nuclear bomb detonation, but because every victim was already deceased, there were no fatalities (and not even that much attention from the tabloids). That is actually just as the author Scotty Bowers intended. By all accounts, he is a kind person and loyal friend. He steadfastly resisted all attempts to write about his four-decade career as an A-List hustler and sex-broker until those he would incriminate were long gone.
Bowers’ incredible story begins in 1946 when he pumped gas into an automobile driven by character actor Walter Pidgeon. Pidgeon propositioned him, paying Bowers twenty dollars for a sexual encounter. More such on-the-job shenanigans followed, and soon the Richfield gasoline station on Hollywood Boulevard where Bowers worked became the most unlikely of brothels. [Leave it to car-centric midcentury Los Angeles to combine the world's oldest profession with its newest mode of transportation.]
Paul Cadmus, Costume Design, "The Filling Station"
Just about every personality in Hollywood except Shirley Temple and Lassie eventually found need of Bower’s services: either via an assignation with Bowers himself or a male or female companion arranged by him. His client list included Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Errol Flynn, Edith Piaf, Noel Coward, Tyrone Power, Anthony Perkins, George Cukor, and many, many others. One of those others was Charles Laughton, and the chapter concerning him is so disturbing that it is best to skip it altogether.
It is a truth-is-stranger than fiction book, and one cannot help but wonder if Bowers embellished his story. Did the Duke and Duchess of Windsor really participate in a tawdry Pacific Palisades sex party? Gore Vidal, a longtime close friend and client of Bowers, vouched for Scotty’s veracity. It was Vidal who publicly encouraged Bowers to break his code of silence and write his memoirs. Vidal lived to see that come to fruition, but just barely. In fact, the February 8, 2012 launch party for the book, held at the Chateau Marmont, was Vidal's last public appearance. He died later that year.
It is a truth-is-stranger than fiction book, and one cannot help but wonder if Bowers embellished his story. Did the Duke and Duchess of Windsor really participate in a tawdry Pacific Palisades sex party? Gore Vidal, a longtime close friend and client of Bowers, vouched for Scotty’s veracity. It was Vidal who publicly encouraged Bowers to break his code of silence and write his memoirs. Vidal lived to see that come to fruition, but just barely. In fact, the February 8, 2012 launch party for the book, held at the Chateau Marmont, was Vidal's last public appearance. He died later that year.
Paul Cadmus, Costume Design, "The Filling Station"
Another corroborating witness was Cecil Beaton. In the early 1960s, Beaton was billeted in Los Angeles for an extended period—a miserable one for him—working on the costumes and sets for My Fair Lady. During production, he famously fell out with his friend George Cukor, My Fair Lady’s director. As Bowers relates in his book, Beaton required much encouragement and compassion, which Bowers provided during paid sexual encounters at Beaton’s private bungalow on the grounds of the Hotel Bel-Air.
Beaton himself confirmed his association with Bowers in his diaries from the period, posthumously published as Beaton in the Sixties. Referring to an assignation several years after the wrap of My Fair Lady, Beaton wrote, “Scotty is a phenomenon. I heard several years ago that the police had caught up with him ... I only had a telephone number, now surely in disrepair. But no. Although I woke him early, his voice was as cheerful as ever. It is five years since I’ve seen him ... I asked him how much I owed him and he suggested a sum much smaller than I knew was customary.”
Beaton himself confirmed his association with Bowers in his diaries from the period, posthumously published as Beaton in the Sixties. Referring to an assignation several years after the wrap of My Fair Lady, Beaton wrote, “Scotty is a phenomenon. I heard several years ago that the police had caught up with him ... I only had a telephone number, now surely in disrepair. But no. Although I woke him early, his voice was as cheerful as ever. It is five years since I’ve seen him ... I asked him how much I owed him and he suggested a sum much smaller than I knew was customary.”
 Cecil Beaton in His Bungalow at the Hotel Bel-Air |  Full Service by Scotty Bowers |
The Paul Cadmus sketches for the ballet Filling Station are in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. The photo of Cecil Beaton was included in John Moran Auctioneer's sale of property belonging to Beaton's 1960s-era romantic interest Kin Hoitsma.
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