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Scotty Bowers

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Scotty Bowers
BornGeorge Albert Bowers
(1923-07-01) July 1, 1923 (age 101)
Ottawa, Illinois, U.S.
OccupationAuthor

George Albert "Scotty" Bowers (born July 1, 1923) is an American who was a Marine and, from the 1940s to the 1980s, a Hollywood pimp.[1][2][3][4][5] Stories of his exploits circulated for many years[6] and were alluded to in books such as Hollywood Babylon. Bowers finally decided to talk publicly about his life when most of the people involved were dead and, in his words, "The truth can’t hurt them anymore."[7][8] In 2012, the publication of his memoir Full Service, written by Lionel Friedberg from 150 hours of interviews,[9] drew publicity, including a profile in The New York Times,[10] and a feature on CBS News Sunday Morning.[11] One journalist has written, "He has a savant-like quality: a result of his refusal to be embarrassed by sex."[6]

Life and career

Bowers was born in Ottawa, Illinois. After working his way through the Depression in Chicago, he fought in the Pacific, including at the Battle of Iwo Jima, as a Paramarine in the Marine Corps during World War II, losing his brother and two close friends.[12] According to his memoir, his sexual career began in 1946 while he was working as an attendant at the Richfield Oil gas station located at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard, at the corner of Van Ness Avenue.[12]

In 1950 Bowers stopped working at the service station and began working as a party bartender, while continuing his sexual services. He also claims to have provided women—mostly prostitutes— to Alfred Kinsey as interview subjects for his famous study on human sexuality.[13] Bowers was never prosecuted by the authorities for his activities; he kept all his contact information in his head.[7] The actor Beach Dickerson willed three houses to Bowers[14] and cinematographer Néstor Almendros bequeathed him his Oscar.[14]

Support of claims

According to film critic Peter Debruge writing for Variety in 2006, "Everyone knows Scotty. After all, he’s been serving drinks to the Beverly Hills crowd for almost 60 years, working a different party almost every night of the week, sometimes two a day."[14] The veracity of Bowers' many claims was endorsed by Gore Vidal;[15] in his last public appearance Vidal spoke at the official launch of the memoir.[16] Robert Benevides, the partner of actor Raymond Burr, said to the LA Weekly: "Scotty just liked to make people happy."[17] Film director John Schlesinger and investigative reporter and novelist Dominick Dunne also attested to Bowers' honesty.[18]

Joan Allemand, a former arts director of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, who knew Bowers for more than 20 years and introduced him to his subsequent co-writer, Lionel Friedberg, said: "Scotty doesn't lie about anything. He's a poor kid from a farm in Illinois, and when he got here, his two assets were his big penis and charming personality. That's what he used to feed his family."[2] Cecil Beaton wrote of his sexual encounters with Bowers in his published diary of the 1960s,[19] while Debbie Reynolds wrote in her memoirs of Milton Berle employing him for a party prank.[20] A profile in the New York Social Diary attested to Bowers' connections, career of sexual support, and happy-go-lucky character: "Clients all agreed that he was 'very good' at what he did, and very agreeable... And very discreet. He did not discriminate. He even had one regular longtime client... who had no arms and no legs... The Scotty I knew was a guy who always seemed to be enjoying his life working morning, noon and night, with never a gripe; always with a smile to greet you, and never with an axe to grind. After a lifetime in Hollywood, that's a remarkable feat and its own kind of Zen."[21]

It has been suggested that Bowers' claims were dismissed by some not simply because "virtually everyone he talks about has died", but because "many in the industry still cling to a prudish, homophobic and manufactured version of the past."[22] According to Matt Tyrnauer, director of a documentary on Bowers, it is merely proof of "the enduring power of the (Hollywood) myth machine... created there—by outsiders, Jewish immigrants themselves who were furriers and glove manufacturers projecting a lie of a made-up image of white Americanism... I think there are a lot of people who want to cling to that."[22]

Author William J. Mann, who interviewed Bowers for a biography of Katharine Hepburn, said, "I found him forthright and honest and not interested in personal fame or gain." At that time he turned down Mann's offer to write about him or introduce him to a literary agent.[23] Author and journalist Tim Teeman, who also interviewed Bowers, wrote that "as candid as Bowers was, he was also respectful, and when it came to sex and sexuality utterly without shame and judgment."[23]

Other writings and appearances

Bowers authored the introduction to a collection of archival photographs of male affection in the military, My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare.[24][25] In March 2016 he wrote a profile of himself for the Guest of a Guest blog.[26] He also appears in Sir Cecil Beaton's published diary for the 1960s, Beaton terming him "a phenomenon",[27] and the biography In Bed With Gore Vidal.[28] Bowers has also assisted a number of authors, including Vincente Minnelli biographer Mark Griffin[29] and William J. Mann, author of Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood.[30]

Bowers is the subject of the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, directed by Matt Tyrnauer. In its review, The Hollywood Reporter commented: "At a certain point, anyone who reads Bowers’ book or sees this film has to decide whether to believe him or not. At this stage, there is no reason not to; Scotty does not seem remotely like a braggart or someone desperate for a sliver of late-in-life fame... When Scotty says he likes to make people happy, he clearly includes himself, and that he seems to have done in spades."[31]

See also

  • Hollywood Babylon
  • Smith, Tyler Stoddard, Whore Stories: A Revealing History Of The World's Oldest Profession, Adams Media, 2012 p116

References

  1. ^ Teeman, Tim In Bed With Gore Vidal, Riverdale Avenue Books, 2013, p38
  2. ^ a b Teetor, Paul (March 19, 2012). "The apparently true story of the man who secured gay lovers for Old Hollywood". The Hollywood Reporter.
  3. ^ "Interview: Women He's Undressed Director Gillian Armstrong". www.themarysue.com. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  4. ^ "A keeper of Hollywood's secrets now spills them". CBS News. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  5. ^ "Debbie Reynolds tells of Hollywood playboys in new tell-all". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  6. ^ a b Blakely, Rhys (February 11, 2012). "Mr Sex Scotty Bowers' memoirs to lift the lid on Hollywood's debauched underbelly". The Australian. Requires subscription
  7. ^ a b Barnes, Brooks (January 27, 2012). "Hollywood Fixer Opens His Little Black Book". The New York Times. p. ST1. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  8. ^ "Former Hollywood 'pimp' says he fixed up Katherine Hepburn with 150 women". Wisconsin Gazette. January 31, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  9. ^ Bowers, Scotty (2012). Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars. New York City: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-2007-6.
  10. ^ "Hollywood Fixer Opens His Little Black Book". The New York Times. January 27, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  11. ^ "A keeper of Hollywood's secrets now spills them". CBS News. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  12. ^ a b Tschorn, Adam (February 14, 2012). "Scotty Bowers' Full Service names names from Hollywood Golden Age". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  13. ^ Bowers, Scotty; Friedberg, Lionel Full Service, Grove Press 2012, pp173-178
  14. ^ a b c Debruge, Peter (June 22, 2006). "Bartender To Babyon". Variety.
  15. ^ Walters, Joanna (February 1, 2012). "Sex fixer to the stars lifts lid on scandal in Hollywood's golden age". The Guardian. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  16. ^ Bowers, Scotty (August 2, 2012). "Gore Vidal Remembered By His Closest Friend, Scotty Bowers". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
  17. ^ Teetor, Paul. "The Apparently True Story of the Man Who Secured Gay Lovers for Old Hollywood". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved April 3, 2016.
  18. ^ Teeman, Tim In Bed With Gore Vidal, Riverdale Avenue Books, 2013, p72
  19. ^ Beaton, Cecil (2003). Beaton in the Sixties: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1965-1969. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 291.
  20. ^ Reynolds, Debbie (2015). Make 'Em Laugh: Short-Term Memories of Longtime Friends. William Morrow. p. 89.
  21. ^ Columbia, David Patrick. "Its own kind of zen", New York Social Diary, January 30, 2012
  22. ^ a b Atkinson, Nathalie. "Scotty Bowers throws Hollywood’s closet wide open", The Globe And Mail, 14 September 2017
  23. ^ a b Teeman, Tim. "Why Gore Vidal Loved Scotty Bowers, Hollywood’s Best-Known Pimp Who Fixed Him Up With Rock Hudson", The Daily Beast, 11 November 2017
  24. ^ "WWII and the Buddy System". The Advocate. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
  25. ^ Bowers, Scotty (2015). "Introduction". In Hansen, Diane (ed.). My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare. Taschen.
  26. ^ http://guestofaguest.com/los-angeles/you-should-know/you-should-know-scotty-bowers
  27. ^ Beaton, Cecil "Beaton in the Sixties: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1965-1969" Alfred A. Knopf, 2004, pp355-6
  28. ^ Teeman, Tim "In Bed With Gore Vidal", Riverdale Avenue Books, 2013, passim.
  29. ^ Griffin, Mark (2010). A Hundred Or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli. DeCapo Press. p. 300.
  30. ^ Mann, William J. (2001). "Acknowledgements". Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood. Viking.
  31. ^ McCarthy, Todd (September 9, 2017). "Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood: Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
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