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

by Scotty Bowers, Lionel Friedberg

Newly discharged from the Marines after World War II, Scotty Bowers arrived in Hollywood in 1946. Young, charismatic, and strikingly handsome, he quickly caught the eye of many of the town’s stars and starlets. He began sleeping with some himself, and connecting others with his coterie of young, attractive, and sexually free-spirited friends. His own lovers included Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant, and the abdicated King of England Edward VIII, and he arranged tricks or otherwise crossed paths with Tennessee Williams, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, Gloria Swanson, Noël Coward, Mae West, James Dean, Rock Hudson and J. Edgar Hoover, to name but a few.

Full Service is not only a fascinating chronicle of Hollywood’s sexual underground, but also exposes the hypocrisy of the major studios, who used actors to propagate a myth of a conformist, sexually innocent America knowing full well that their stars’ personal lives differed dramatically from this family-friendly mold. As revelation-filled as Hollywood Babylon, Full Service provides a lost chapter in the history of the sexual revolution and is a testament to a man who provided sex, support, and affection to countless people.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, History, Biography Memoir, LGBT, Film

305 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Scotty Bowers was an American who was a United States Marine and, from the 1940s to the 1980s, a Hollywood pimp.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to imagine people who pick up such a memoir and then complain about the salacious details. The whole point is salacious details, people, and please don't bother pretending otherwise. Bowers presents himself as a sort of unpaid pimp, and it is perplexing why he bothered to do all that work for nothing. Perhaps he had legal advice concerning the need to gloss over certain details.

Having read an article about the death of old school Hollywood actor Ramon Novarro, and the lives of the hustlers (two brothers) who killed him, one finds some of the details in this volume to be not so improbable. The post-War years used to be very decadent, but no one talked about it and so most thought everything was very innocent. Now everything is talked about, and much less is swept under the carpet.

The strangest aspect here was the vitriol Bowers exhibited towards those few celebrities who somehow managed to not sleep with him. James Dean was a "prissy little queen" and so on.

All in all, I felt that there is still another stranger story which has not been told. I wished this had been a biography, with collaborating or contradictory views from other people, to flesh out the narrative.

This charmingly salacious memoir has been made into a movie, which I have not seen.

[Dy-an · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm calling bullsh*t, Mr. Bowers.

1. There is no way that everyone who met you, liked you and wanted to do nasty things with you.

2. I don't buy the line that you were never paid for setting up 'tricks'. No one does it for the love of the game. You's a pimp, sir!

3. J. Edgar Hoover? Really? That doesn't strike you as funny.

4. How convenient that everything was a BIG SECRET and all the corroborators are dead.

5. There must be a whole new brand of syphilis with your name on it - The Bowers strain would have raged through Hollywood had this book been true.

[Wendell · Rating 1 out of 5]

.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ick. Just ick. I suppose I deserved this. When I signed this out of the library I thought I was getting a general gossip account...you know, something along the line of "guess who's gay" or "guess which star had an affair with her butler". What I got instead is an all too graphic account of the sexual shenanigans of the author and people he has claimed to have whored or pimped for over the course of six or seven decades.

Bowers was molested by a friend's father at an early age. He enjoyed the experience so much he went back for more and eventually started whoring for pennies for clergy and other customers. I mean pennies literally because he remarked that it was a high point if he got as much as a dollar. Eventually he joined the Marines and after his discharge at the end of the war he got employment pumping gas at a Hollywood gas station. While thus employed he accepted an old queen's offer of twenty bucks for a bit of noggin and the die was cast. Bowers started tricking himself and other ex-Marines who were hanging around the gas station...made me look at Marines in a new way, I can tell you.

Because he was so good at providing specific "types" for his contacts, Bowers was able to befriend many of Hollywood's elite. Being bisexual, he bedded both males and females, and he doesn't mind telling you which ones. I'm not going to blindly accept everything he says as gospel, necessarily, because he didn't come out with his tell-all until almost everyone involved was dead. Additionally, much of what he says was common knowledge, or thought to be common knowledge. 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? Still, I have no reason to disbelieve any of it.

I found the book way too graphic for my taste. The only physical contact I want with another man doesn't extend past firm handshake, and Bowers goes way past that in his account. If you want to know which celebrity liked turd sandwiches or which one wanted an uncircumcised male who hadn't washed for a while, this book is for you.

Matters of delicacy aside, I was conflicted with Bowers. I think a person's sexuality is their own business....unless they are in a committed relationship. Bowers was married but was constantly unfaithful. He would even clamber aboard a friend's wife with no compunction whatsoever. Furthermore, I also feel that sexual encounters are a personal matter shared by two people, not something to be gloated about. On the other hand, Bowers is comfortable with his sexuality and probably doesn't even have the feeling that anything he has done is wrong. He even seems grateful for the sexual education he received at the hands of adults while still a boy.

We can take this as a warning to be careful of whom we choose to be intimate with, and a reminder that you can never really trust anyone.

I was so glad that John Wayne and Clint Eastwood did not appear in this book.

[Kendra Bean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a difficult time believing that Bowers was able to remember details of all of these supposed “tricks” without having kept note of them somewhere. I also have a very hard time believing he was “great friends” with all of these famous people. But regardless of whether the people he’s outed we’re actually gay/bi/liked hookups with a gas station attendant, the book is actually quite boring. A basic formula is used throughout:

1. Wikipediaesque potted biography of famous person
2. A couple of sentences about that person’s *shocking* sexual proclivities
3. A declaration that Bowers and said celebrity were “good friends” or “great pals”

I’ve read much better smut elsewhere.

[Brie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will not try and figure out if the author was exploited as a child. He seems to have made peace with his childhood so I will accept that even if it makes me sad to read about the adults using him like they did.

Now that I have that out of the way, I won't try and say I believe all he has talked about in the book. There is a lot that rings true...usually the stories that are more fleshed out and less "We did this and that and I don't remember when". Still it is an interesting book about a guy who made his own way in life and isn't ashamed to be frank about his sexual exploits. He is blunt in language and uses words to describe acts and people that were used at the period of time they happened. I actually grew to like him as a person because of this...this frankness and sense of fun he had...despite him being a paid sex object. I was very happy to hear that he was settled in life and enjoying his later years with a woman he loves, a house he adored, and a dog he loves. After the life he led...he really deserves some calm and happiness in his later years.

This is definitely not the book for people who don't like frankness about sex, sex when still considered a child, explicit descriptions of sex, or speculations about famous people. If that stuff turns your stomach avoid this book. If you like to listen to older people tell stories from their lives, real or made up, and are not squeamish about sex, then you may enjoy this book. I enjoyed it despite sections that made me sad for the boy he was and parts that made me side-eye what was written as truth but may not be. Everyone has a story and they all should be allowed to tell it.

[Sketchbook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pimp-hustler-party boy Bowers goes the full monty, minus pesky moral dilemmas, in
a giddy sex game.. Why are so many readers vexed? They read a tell-all and get pissed.. Many of the stories are familiar: Cary Grant, Kath Hepburn, Randolph Scott, Cole & Noel, the Duke and his Duckess embracing same sex, Desi Arnaz seeking gorgeous dames, and author Scotty screwing Edith Piaf til la vie en rose blooms anew, and so on. A lot is unintentionally funny or profoundly So What? (A lot is just boring, too).

Arranging "trysts," Scotty says, "I specialized in sex. What better way to calm the soul, heal the body, and make the spirit soar?" And the best line of all: "I just wanted to see folks happy." Isnt he a sweetie, or was (he died in 2019, age 96). How many readers just want to see folks happy? C'mon, confess...Would Terry Southern call him the magic Christian?

[Heather V ~The Other Heather~ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hated the experience of reading this book. That's surprising, given that 1) I am as far from being a prude as possible and 2) I found the documentary version intriguing enough to pick up this book in the first place. How could it all go so wrong? LET ME TELL YOU.


First, my apologies to Lionel Friedberg for the single star. I got the real sense while reading that he had a hell of a mess on his hands, and I could see he did the best he could with what Bowers dumped in his lap. There's only so much one can do with a steaming pile of gross-out anecdotes, repetitive passages and constant self one-upmanship. My review doesn't reflect on Friedberg at all. This is wholly on Bowers. And taking a page from his own playbook, I guess I can say anything I want about Bowers now that he's dead. That's how this works, right?



If you absolutely must, skip the book and see the doc.


There's not a whole lot to be said about the book's "plot." You basically know what you're getting: a salacious tell-all about how practically everyone in Hollywood from the post-WWII era onward was or is deeply closeted and/or dependent on myriad substances. Bowers positions himself as the central figure of dozens, maybe hundreds, of celebrities' lives, which is - to put it mildly - difficult to believe. That's one of the weirder parts of reading this book: the depraved sex acts aren't the most incredulous things in it. What strains credulity most is how absolutely everyone Bowers ever met immediately thought he was hot, and charming, and intelligent, and business-savvy, and spectacular both in and out of bed, and they all remained his besties until they died. Like, he talks about people he's never even seen before randomly approaching him to give him blowjobs. He gets offered jobs and invitations to places few of even the innermost circles would ever get, all within minutes of meeting him. I mean, there's living a charmed life, and then there's whatever Bowers is trying to sell here. Imagine simultaneously calling Katharine Hepburn, Tennessee Williams AND Gore Vidal your closest friends, or more to the point that you are THEIR closest friend. That sounds like a lot of work, man.

Tennessee Williams once wrote an account of my life and adventures in Hollywood, but I told him to burn it -- it was beautifully written, but made me sound like the mother of all queens!

Before long, the endless litany of "and then I fucked Celebrity XYZ" gets tedious. It's the same format every time: some famous person rolls up to the gas station where Bowers worked, or meets him while he's bartending some swanky party, and propositions him, which leads to them doing all manner of sex stuff. Even the people for whom Bowers played "matchmaker" with his young and unfailingly attractive friends eventually banged Bowers himself, to hear him tell it. George Cukor, Edith Piaf, Randolph Scott, Vincent Price, Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson, you name it, they're in here. He tries to up the ante by moving onto exceptionally lurid and very graphic scatalogical stuff involving Charles Laughton and Tyrone Power, but the effect isn't titillation, which is clearly what he's angling for; rather, it's disgust. The earlier stories about the famous people who just wanted to have free and easy sex with someone are positively quaint in comparison.





It's also difficult to like Bowers, even while he's describing himself and the services he provides in such affectionate terms. To wit:

-- Early on he describes running a racket where he charges people $5 to watch, through a hole he drilled in the wall, as unsuspecting couples have sex in the gas station bathroom or in a trailer parked around back. He justifies this by saying that indulging people's voyeurism is no different from any other kink he serviced, but the fact that the couples in question didn't consent to putting on this show and weren't being paid or even informed after the fact is gross.

-- He's an absolutely terrible partner to his wife Betty (who he eventually left, without telling her, to marry another woman...so add bigamy to the list, I guess?), and he's virtually absent from his daughter Donna's life, which he openly admits on several occasions. He says he went on to sire other children with other women, some deliberately, others not; he says he never accepted payment for offering up his end of conception for these infertile couples, and then talks about how he longs to know how those kids' lives turned out. He even talks about how sad he is that one actress terminated her pregnancy (they were both married to other people) and wonders what that baby would have been like had the actress kept it. This obviously doesn't sit well with the reader who has seen him neglect his actual kid.

-- He gushes over famous people endlessly...until he meets one who doesn't instantly adore him. Then the forked tongue appears. He throws in choice quotes about how rotten Rita Hayworth was, and snarks about James Dean and Montgomery Clift, phrasing things in a derogatory way:

James Dean was a prissy little queen, moody and unpredictable.

Montgomery Clift was a temperamental, moody queen with a surprisingly vicious tongue.

Roddy McDowall was another guy I came to know well and who, like Jimmy and Monty, usually went around with his nose up in the air. ...[upon encountering McDowell at a party] I couldn't believe it. After I bedded him at least a couple dozen times and spent long nights with him, he pretended that he didn't know me!

Sounds like some projection happening there, Scotty.




An important content note: There is shit in this book (not just figuratively; be prepared to have the aforementioned Laughton and Power ruined for you forever) that is not fun or frisky at all. Bowers relates multiple stories from his childhood and preteen years wherein he is used for sexual purposes by various men, including his best friend's dad at age 7, a cabal of priests around age 12, and a whole lot of adult poker-playing shoe-shine customers before his 17th birthday. It's not my place to characterize these events, obviously, but I found it really disturbing to read such a cavalier account of what was, legally, at bare minimum, repeated statutory rape. I gather I was supposed to come away from the stories about his friend's father literally leading him out to the woodshed after dinner every visit for sexual encounters...feeling fond of the man, somehow? Bowers writes about him in glowing terms, even while admitting he couldn't enjoy himself as much as possible because he wasn't yet "sexually mature enough." I had a lot of moments of cognitive dissonance reading that sort of thing. Were this a book that was interested in seriously exploring what impact childhood sexual abuse has on a person's life, I would have winced, no doubt, but I could have appreciated it for what it was. The hand-waving over it all, though, leaves me instead to feel just gross about it. It comes off as very nearly excusing pedophilia by saying that's just one more kink people have. According to Bowers it wasn't abuse in the slightest; it was affection, it was natural, it was sex ed, and it led him to have a wonderfully high libido for the rest of his days. Again, I don't know that we get to label other people's experiences, but what I can say is that reading about the ones Bowers describes was uncomfortable in the worst imaginable ways.


This is all assuming anything about Bowers's story is true, of course. Some of it seems possible, some even plausible. Other parts are really difficult to imagine. I don't doubt that countless celebrities were and are forced into studio-friendly relationships, and that Bowers and others like him had some crazy experiences with many of them. The self-aggrandizing, though, is on another level. And did he wait until all of his subjects were dead out of respect for them, or did he do so because there's nobody left to refute his tawdry stories about them? I lean towards the latter, considering many of the tales he tells were probably harmful to the partners and children of those he exploits in these pages, regardless of whether they're true or not.


If you want to get a sampling of the stuff in this book, but you don't want to wade through everything I've just outlined, stick to the documentary, SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD. You'll get the gist, although you may wonder as I did why a guy with such a high profile isn't remotely wealthy in his 90s, and seems to be a run-of-the-mill hoarder yet doesn't have dozens of photo albums featuring himself and his many celebrity conquests. Skip the book, replete with only stock photos of said famous people, altogether. The documentary is still crass, of course, but maybe spending less time soaking in the filth makes it easier to wash off afterwards.


I'm done here.

[Jim Morrissey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know how I made it through this. Well, I do. There was a lot of skimming. I don't buy half of it, not because I don't think Hollywood hired lots of call boys and girls, etc. but because his story seems strange and fabricated. I suppose it's possible, but even if it were I find it strange he never accepted money for hooking stars up with their little dalliances. I would venture this is the musings of an old man blowing his stories out of proportion; and it's HORRIBLY written at that. He tells us about 50 times how he was a great sexually liberated guy. Over and over. Also I don't buy he just helped priests out with sex because he thought it was natural and fine when he was under 12.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Full Service" indeed. Scotty Bowers memoir is the not-so-secret of the sexual lives of the cinema famous and the great. Gossip is an important social function in the world, and "Full Service" is not afraid to go into that territory. And being a visitor, by reading this book, I find it really interesting. I am always fascinated with the image more than the truth. One of the reasons why I like the cinema is the fact that dreams are being projected on a screen - and i never really was (or is) concerned what is real or not real.

So with that in mind I have no reason to doubt Bowers tales in this book. I am more interested in another shadow world where desire leads to adventures. 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. So one should dip into "Full Service" as not as if it was true or not (does that really matter) but the fact that one can go into Scotty Bowers world with a full appreciation of a life that was well-designed and in many ways beautiful.

[Polly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like books about people who take lemons and make lemonade, and this is one of them. Scotty grew up in some hard circumstances during the Depression, and he was subjected to sexual abuse at a young age. That's the outsider's take on it, not Scotty's. Maybe a self-protection mechanism kicked in, but he found his own way to deal with things and didn't let it get him down. At least, that's how he presents it in the book. Who knows what he really thought deep down inside.

I was definitely intrigued by all the celebrity sexcapades outlined in the book. There were a few surprises as to who was gay or bisexual, but not a lot. I do believe it all happened. To others who reviewed the book and questioned why sometimes Scotty has a lot of details and sometimes he doesn't - gee, I'm 51 and I can remember some things in my past really clearly and others not so clearly. Get over it!

I'm not going to say anything more - go read it for yourself. If you're open minded and are a fan of the glory days of Hollywood you'll love it!

[eely · Rating 2 out of 5]

sure grandpa, now let’s get you to bed.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

At age 90, Scotty Bowers is apparently still having a lot of sex - at least with his current wife. For almost his entire life - and for whatever reason - Bowers has been something of a sex machine and is almost completely unapologetic about it. (It isn't until near the end of the book that he actually refers to himself - once - as a 'hustler'.) As a young boy, it seems he could only marvel at the amount of sex the animals on his farm were having. Apparently he thought all of that was just terrific - and he quickly grew to understand that sex is one of the main things that makes like worth living...and that most people simply aren't having enough sex, especially without feeling guilty about it. (Although Bowers considers himself mainly heterosexual, he has never had any qualms about having an equal amount of sex with men.)

How was he able to accomplish most of this? Well, if you look at the cover of his memoir, you'll see a strikingly handsome man in his Marine uniform. Combine that with the fact that he was an accommodating, likable, preternaturally easy-going guy who never drank. That's most likely someone with magnetic appeal.

I don't feel the need to either endorse this book or judge it. Bowers has always maintained a very matter-of-fact attitude about the benefits of sex - and, apparently, for the most part that worked for him just fine. (It seems that, overall, he made sure to surround himself with those whose laissez-faire approach mirrored his own. As a result - and his book reflects this - people more or less just drifted in and out and sometimes back into his life. Bowers seems to have few regrets.)

There are people taking issue with this book (mainly) because Bowers knew and had sex with many, many famous people. (It doesn't seem that he had actual affairs with most of these people; it seems the ones he had the longest 'relationships' with were quite less famous.) He reveals a LOT about these famous people he knew (all of whom seem now to be gone); things which some feel would be better left unsaid (that is, if they're true). I suppose the bottom line is that the book was vetted before it was published - so what absolutely couldn't be said, hasn't been said. (A few people mentioned in the book, who are still alive, vouch for what's written.) This is Bowers' story. You can believe it or not. Personally, I don't see anything here that isn't at least plausible (if not always pleasant).

Although the book largely reflects the joyful feelings of a libertine, it is not without sadness - and some of that sadness comes from real tragedy. Bowers' general take on tragedy seems to be that, since tragedy and hardship are real drawbacks to life - life is to be enjoyed whenever and however possible.

The book is a quick read - I read it in 2 days. I guess what I mostly took from it is that Bowers - kind of like Auntie Mame - feels life should be lived as pleasurably as possible...with a reasonable amount of responsibility and awareness of others (so that you don't harm others) but with the conviction that sensual pleasure is good...and essential.

Would I embrace his general outlook myself? Probably not. But his very particular lifestyle, described without a trace of mean-spiritedness, has left Bowers at a place where he can say in the last line of his memoirs: "...I am content." (By the way, a good deal of the book is highly entertaining.)

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only learned that this book and its author existed when I saw a trailer for an upcoming documentary about Scotty Bowers career as pimp and prostitute for some of the leading movie stars, directors, musicians, studio executives, etc. of the 1940’s and 1950’s and later. This is salacious, graphic material, but I read reviews beforehand and was aware of and prepared for its type of content. I recommend it to those who enjoy perusing the headlines in the most scandalous tabloids while in the supermarket lineup.

I am not sure whether to classify the book as non-fiction or fiction. A lot about the secret lives of these celebrities came out after their death, but not in such lurid and graphic detail. Much of it has the ring of truth. Names are freely given along with sexual acts and perversions in which Bowers claims to have observed or acts in which he participated. What I found most unbelievable was by the end of the book he was 88 and still active, happily married and working as a bartender, handyman and landscaper. He shows no regrets and rationalizes that his life was dedicated to bringing ‘joy’ to a multitude of people.

The book describes his life as a child and later as a Marine in the Pacific during WW2. It is not pleasant reading. Why did he wait until all the subjects had died to publish the book? Fear of lawsuits? He explains that all these celebrities were dear friends and he did not want to embarrass them or ruin their careers. During the time the studios held their stars to a strict moral code and had family friendly images built around their personal lives. They would lose their contract, their reputations and even some would end up in jail, Scotty believes, if he hadn’t been such a ‘good guy’ by catering to their every desire or perversion.

He quit procuring for acquaintances during the AIDS scare in the 1980’s. He is aged 95 at time of the documentary film. We will never know how much of his reminiscing is true, or if it is the exaggerated ramblings of an old man recalling his ‘glory days’.
.

[Tinamarie Hunter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book so much. I was only able to force myself through half of it. I felt like I was reading the trashiest, cattiest tabloid out there, only it was about stars of the 1950's.

Scotty Bowers goes on and on about how awful someone was but then ends it with "but we were very good friends and remained so for years." Uh, Scotty, every Southern girl knows that passive agressive trick for insulting someone.

The worst part however, was that is justified, even promoted child prostition.

This book deeply offended and disgusted me. Awful. Awful. Awful. I cannot say it enough.

Save the money and buy a Star or some other trash like that. Or read it for free while getting your hair done.

[V. Briceland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to confess that at several points during Scotty Bowers' sin-sational Hollywood tell-all, Full Service, I would forget that I was reading something allegedly from the non-fiction shelves. Instead I would flip the pages with wide eyes and think, "This satire on Tinseltown memoirs is hi-LAR-ious!" I can't quite think of another autobiography featuring such purple prose and such an unreliable narrator—or in which I've had to suspend, from front to back cover, such a great amount of disbelief. That is, at least, not since Patrick Dennis' devastating fictional parody on the same territory of the glamorous film world, Little Me.

According to Full Service the studios would all but empty of their big-name talent whenever Scotty Bowers' evening shift began at a little gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. That's where he would pimp out (but not for money!) handsome young men and women to some of the hugest stars of Hollywood's golden age. "Oh, Kate, Spence, Judy, Tyrone, George, Cary, Rita," writes the author, mourning the past. One might think he was done, but no. ". . . Charles, Randolph, Edith, Vivien . . . where are you now?" These are but a few of the powerful for whom Bowers arranged sexual trysts with rent-boys and good-time girls (but for which he never received a nickel!), and for whom the well-endowed Bowers performed his 'swizzle-stick trick' when he bartended private sex parties (at which, both he and no doubt his legal team are intent upon reminding you every fourth paragraph, he never ever EVER received any compensation. He did it out of the goodness of his heart! Honest! Swear to god!).

There's a certain breathless naiveté in Bowers' revelations. Of the French chanteuse Edith Piaf, for example, he sums up the icon in these riveting words: "She was a sad person who seemed to be on the verge of tears all the time. During sex she would say sing-songy things in French!" (The sex was unpaid, of course.) Of the love of his life, Vivien Leigh, he plumbs into the depths of his soul to fish up this poetic apothegm: "She was a hot, hot lady. She was very sexual!" Second only to his affection for Leigh was Eddy. You know. Eddy. Eddy Windsor. His Royal Highness the Royal Duke of Windsor and former King of England, Edward VIII. Well. the gas station restrooms must've been sanitized to an inch of their lives when Eddy and Wallis Simpson showed up to avail themselves of Bowers' (free! donated!) pimping services. Bowers was so generous of the former monarch that he became Eddy's lover out of the goodness of his heart. For free. ("Eddy was good. Really good. He sucked me off like a pro!")

And pity those whom Bowers dislikes—though he really never disliked anyone, he's careful to emphasize, and/or wished to libel any of the hundred and hundreds of celebrities within his pages . . . all of whom are somewhat coincidentally dead and therefore unable to sue. Katharine Hepburn comes in for some of the worst treatment. 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. He liked her! Cross his heart! It was everyone else who hated that lousy bull dyke. And yeesh. That crocodile skin!

There are certain chapters in this gloriously naive autobiography that I would be happy never to read or think of again, such as the very long passages devoted to Charles Laughton's disinclination to good sexual hygiene, or to his fondness for a sandwich spread that resembles—yet definitely is not—Nutella. I also did not need to know that the designer of the original Barbie was into surprising young women while fondling himself in a casket. And I am afraid that the phrase 'doo-doo queens' is now permanently etched in my sorry memory.

I'll be honest. I really only believe about twenty percent of Full Service, and that portion consists of verifiable universals such as the notions that cars need gas and it can be found at filling stations, or that there is a state named California and Hollywood is a city within its borders. The details of Bowers thirty-year career as Hollywood's most notorious (unpaid!) pimp, who cannot even fall asleep on a park bench without a movie star waking him up and employing him (as a volunteer!) for sex . . . well, like any unreliable narrator, I'm not sure I trust a word.

But I certainly had a good time reading about it, with my jaw dropped for the duration.

[David Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bisexual representation matters. Bisexual visibility matters. Scotty Bowers is a bisexual. He has sex with both men and women. Sometimes for money. But mostly because he enjoys sex. Most people will probably read this book for the Hollywood gossip about who was really Bi or Gay in Hollywood. And Scotty tells the dirt about many celebrities. And still I think he held back. I think there was plenty more he could have shared, but our current culture is still too puritan to accept what people do sexually. Just as Katharine Hepburn was in the closet until she died, there are so many more current celebrities who are in the closet about their bisexuality. We live in a monogamous heteronormative culture. But so many of us are not heteronormative and are not monogamous. Scotty Bowers wasn't. And the celebrities he wrote about weren't. We need to normalize sexuality. It is not a sin. No one is going to Hell. People should be free to explore their sexuality without fear or shame. Scotty Bowers is pro-sexuality. This book is pro-sexuality. Without labels. Without fear. Without shame. It's all a good time, making people happy.

[Matthew Dinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to rate this book, considering so much of it relys on the veracity of Bowers' memories. Scotty Bowers is clearly a narcissist and a bit concerned with the "legend" of his own virility, so much that it seems the memories themselves are more fictional than fact. Perhaps he did have sexual liaisons or provide them for all of these Old Hollywood celebrities, but in the wise words of Whitney Houston: "show me the receipts!" There is no proof beyond his own musings that any of this is true, and all of the photos in the book are stock photos of the stars. Where are his photos with these stars if they were such good friends? Where are even his photos with some of the people he was tricking out? There is zero proof in this book that it's real, and that's why I cannot possibly rate it high. Especially since Bowers is not the deftest of writers and often stories come across as locker-room tales of high school bravado more than fun sexual romps through the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Bowers is so committed to star-fucking (both literal and figurative), and name-dropping, and building up his own legend that none of this reaches fun or factual. Where is the knowing wink, Bowers?

[Christopher Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book because it promised to be possibly the most over-the-top sleazy Hollywood memoir ever, and it did not fail to deliver. Scotty Bowers is a Midwestern World War II vet who, after the war, settled in Los Angeles and took a job at a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. 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. Gradually, Scotty began hooking up Hollywood's rich and famous, among many others, with his fellow Marines who hung around the gas station anyway looking for ways to earn quick money. Eventually, a trailer was set up in the gas-station parking lot where gay, lesbian, and straight trysts were arranged discreetly by Scotty--not, he insists, for money but because he enjoyed helping people find sexual gratification (though he is careful to point out that the participants were free to exchange money among themselves; one wonders why he is so eager not to define himself as a pimp). Along the way, he "tricked" (i.e., had sex with) many of these men and women himself. 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. etc. (definitely more men than women, though he calls himself closer to the straight end of bi by far). Eventually, he established himself as a bartender and event-arranger/caterer and became a Hollywood fixture as the go-to guy for quick sleazy sex, the most well-esteemed person in Hollywood that no one outside Hollywood ever heard of. Along the way, we get great insights into the Tracy-Hepburn relationship, Rock Hudson's promiscuity and decline, the history of L.A.'s vice squad, and lots of other Hollywood tales.

He strains credulity when he relates having sex with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, both together and separately. He calls Edward a world-class fellator. He claims that theirs was a marriage of convenience, that their supposed romance was a cover story for Edward's homosexuality, the real reason he abdicated. Edward and Wally sometimes had sex with each other but mostly preferred same-sex relationships. I am not sure whether this is the version given in authoritative biographies, but it has the ring of truth.

Most earth-shakingly, perhaps, he relates how he was invited to a four-dude weekend where one of the men was J. Edgar Hoover. Surprisingly, since Scotty does not stint on details for the most part in this book, he doesn't get around, in the whole chapter devoted to this event, to telling us whether he himself did Hoover. Hoover at least initially was paired up with one of the other men and Scotty with the fourth, but it's hard to imagine that in a weekend set aside for this purpose other permutations were not indulged in. Nonetheless, the author merely pans to the fireplace, as it were, on this one. Is it because Hoover, from the grave, still manages to exert some sort of attenuated ability to blackmail people into silence? It seems unlikely; life after death issue aside, Scotty's life is an open book.

Or is it? One of the nagging thoughts I had reading it was an uncertainty about whether--and here's one way to put it--Errol Flynn's standing order with Scotty of "the younger the better" was ever fulfilled more satisfyingly than the one "trick" for Flynn that Scotty tells us about specifically, which he takes pains to tell us was a female over 18. 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. But, if so, we will never know the full story: he is smart enough to know that that is not something to put in a memoir in the year 2012.

There is more salacious Hollywood gossip in this book than in anything since "Hollywood Babylon." Some of the anecdotes create ineradicable memories: it will now be impossible for me ever to watch a Charles Laughton film without recalling Scotty's description of him as pathologically unhygienic and malodorous (Scotty slept with him anyway, mind you) and his detailed description of Laughton's extremely unusual fetish (putting him in the company of greats such as Danny Thomas and Chuck Berry). Let's just say that it involves a baffled young male trick telling Scotty afterwards that he STILL doesn't understand why Mr. Laughton felt that he had to rinse off the lettuce so thoroughly first. See? Now you'll have to buy it and read it yourself.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skimmed my way through it, dipping in now and then. He seems like a Will Rogers-type sweetheart who never met a person he couldn’t befriend... or get it up for. Everything in his story rings true, in part because he doesn't seem like the kind of person who truly cares about celebrity, fame or money. (He certainly could have had a lot more of all three if he did.) He's telling his story in the way older people are often moved to - as a record of the past.

I suppose people who grew up after the AIDs era (so they don't recall a historic past with tons of gay men if you knew where to look; and/or, they think the world only invented LGBTQ, polyamory etc after the millennium) may be surprised by it. People who tend to believe propaganda, such as those manufactured Tracy/Hepburn romance stories, may be surprised. And people who don't know there's a vast world of gay/bi women hidden in plain sight, may be shocked.

The thing I most enjoyed was his take on romantic love.

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. He is careful to delineate the three times he fell in love, and how they were *different* than what he felt the thousands of times he was happily with other people.

He didn't fall in love because of looks (in fact he describes one of his loves as being slightly mousy) or because of sex (he has wilder times with other people, and continues to have sex with lots of people at the same time as being in a committed relationship.) And, he already had close friendships, a child and a home. So, love wasn't about his eyes or his cock or a need for family or loneliness.

It was... love.

That's something I think SO MANY romance fiction writers get wrong. Well, ok, and so many people in general get wrong as well.

You don't need to hollow out a character's life to give them a reason to fall in love. You don't have to make a character physically beautiful to give them a reason to be loved. You also don't have to inevitably indicate love by talking about swelling cocks or fizzing crotches (trying to avoid the word moist;-)). It's not about that. It's love.

I also like the fact that he identifies the fact that love doesn't require an HEA or monogamy. Love is an HFN. In the book he is absolutely respectful of the people he fell in love with - he continues to visit and support one of them financially for nearly her entire adult life; he has nothing but good things to say about another one despite their 'drifting apart' after a number of years. He was married to and happily living with the third at the time of publication.

He also writes about the difference between making love and sex. It's hard to get explicit because we as a culture don't have much language for this. But he does his best and I appreciated it and the fact that for him love came first and then the sex was affected by its presence. So, love didn't grow from sex, and you can't 'make love' if you don't feel love already. And, he has zero shame about sex itself outside of love. Which again, I suspect some readers are shocked by because they think that concept was invented only in their generation -lol.

Lastly, it's awfully nice to see bisexual representation all over the place.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who reads biographies of famous people should not feel embarrassed by reading this. I admit that I follow popular culture in magazines and on-line "news" organizations etc., Yet I found myself being endlessly surprised. Some might wonder if any of this (or all) could possibly be correct, but the well respected author, Gore Vidal, validates this information by admitting that "Scotty" does not lie. You WILL be shocked. I would have bet that this book would have been filled with rehashed information and the names of celebrities disguised, but you will be surprised to know that the author names, names. The information regarding the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Eddy and Wally) will finish with a better understanding of why the Duke abdicated the throne of England. I was flabbergasted!
So, this is a great book for biography, history, and closet National Enquirer readers. Five stars for naming names and another five to the publisher for printing it.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was to be the inaugural book in the Tinseltrash Book Club, a sleazy cabal of ne’er do wells dedicated to the pursuit of arcane knowledge, namely who in old Hollywood was schtupping who, and how. At this point, the foundations of the club are looking shaky, but I was still happy to read the inaugural tome, an explicit, dishy, and decidedly good-natured romp through the sexual peccadillos of the rich and famous.

Scotty Bowers was a handsome young man. To hear him tell it, he’d been chased after sexually from a young age by all sorts of people – men, women, priests, people on his paper route. Scotty blossomed early and gave off a certain something throughout his life that made people want to confide in him. Take comfort in him. And, most importantly, fuck him and be fucked by him.

Scotty enlisted in the Marine Corps at the start of World War II. He survived, but his brother, fighting at the same battle, did not. Even the person on the field who told him the news that his brother had died soon died himself in the same way (cut in half by flying shrapnel). Like so many young men of the time, the experience gave Scotty the realization that life is too short and cruel not to spend it in the pursuit of pleasure, both giving and receiving.

Fast forward to 1945. Scotty starts hanging around a local gas station, a Union Oil station on Wilshire Blvd. An older, handsome man asks him if he’d like to make a few bucks, and if so, to get in his car. Scotty’s narrative voice is such that all of these encounters seem so innocent. The man is character actor Walter Pigeon (you’re going to want to leave the IMDB app open on your phone while reading – you know more of these actors and actresses than you think), and what he wants is to give ol’ Scotty a hummer. Scotty obliges, and Scotty makes $20. Not long after, other people from the film lot are looking for ol’ Scotty. Soon, more people show up, and Scotty starts to get an idea. He rounds up some of his prettiest friends, male and female, people who are looking to make a few extra bucks to hang around the gas station. Soon, Scotty is making matches left and right (he takes no fee for his services, so he’s not technically a pimp), setting up tricks with willing payers. And thus, the legend of the sexiest Union Oil station ever is born. (Get it? It’s called FULL SERVICE.)

It should be noted that Scotty is up for whatever, whenever. He doesn’t identify as gay, maybe bi, but says though he significantly prefers women, he’s been born with an enormous sexual appetite, a good body, endless charm and compassion, and a wide open set of interests. Thus, his frolics take him from young to old, man to woman, threesome, foursome, and moresome. Scotty got around!

The book was narrated by Scotty to author Lionel Friedberg. One of the things I like most about the narrative is Scotty’s voice. When he’s relaying the events, he sounds young and randy, full of joy and energy in his own body. When he reflects back on past mores or his reason for doing what he did, he suddenly sounds like the 86 year old Scotty Bowers narrating the story. “They had a term for lesbians back then, and I just hated it. They called them dykes, and I thought it was so disrespectful. Then again, many of the lesbians eventually claimed the word for themselves, so I guess it was all right. Still, I didn’t like to hear it, and I didn’t think my lesbian friends should be disrespected this way.” He tells us that immediately after several long paragraphs about nearly 40 years of setting up Katharine Hepburn with female companions (mostly young-ish looking women with dark hair).

If you know your Old Hollywood lore and are really familiar with the stars and second-tiers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, you’re going to have your mind blown with some of these stories. (You’ll sure as hell never look at Charles Laughton the same way after this!) If you’re the type of person who listens to Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast, you’re going to feel right at home in Scotty’s abode. As a character study, Scotty is a special character. Sexually promiscuous yet able to compartmentalize his life, Scotty has a wife and child at home, but spends days, even weeks away from home, working as a bartender for friends’ parties, setting up tricks, and tricking himself. He bluntly says that his wife probably knew about his other life, but never said anything. Scotty provided them with a house and an education for his daughter, and feels that “if the romance went out of our relationship, well, that just happens with people sometimes.” (Especially after you’ve been letting Spencer Tracy suck you off for days at a time.) His amorality in his life’s choices is both refreshing and aggravating – he suffers very little repercussions for his life of sexual freedom, and we sort of cheer along, but we also wonder what some other folks around him would say about the no-strings-attached nature of some of his stories.

Do I believe every story he tells? I don’t know. Some are almost mind-blowingly unlikely (again, Charles Laughton…oof), and yet, the only ones that really feel off are the times when he claims things about activities with civilians, not people in Hollywood. I’m more than willing to believe that he had threesomes with Noel Coward, or that Somerset Maugham would stage elaborate tableaus in which multiple couples (man/woman, man/man, woman/woman, group) would all perform in front him while he simply watched and sipped a drink. I was more incredulous when he would tell me that he had an early sexual encounter with a Catholic priest, and it was so mutually agreeable for both that he soon had 20 priests visiting him regularly. The number just seems off, too many loose lips (so to speak) for that to work.

The book progresses to the present day, through tragic deaths, a second love (ol’ Scotty’s a bigamist), the arrival of AIDS and the end of the promiscuous years. There’s a lot of darkness in the stories (like many non-famous folks, the sex of the stars is influenced as much by pain and past humiliations as pleasure), but the overall tone is a kind of bemused enjoyment. The theme of the whole thing is, “well, that’s sex for ya…intense, a bit sad, but, y’gotta admit, it’s a real hoot!” Scotty fucks and fucks until that lifestyle’s no longer feasible. Then he moves over to bartending (he’s a lifelong teetotaler, by the way) and general hobnobbing, which is where he’s still at today, dedicated in his vocation of bringing pleasure to all those around him.

It’s tinsel, it’s trash, but it’s also kind of sweet, a little gnarly, and awfully damn randy. As much sex as you assumed the famous, influential and powerful in Hollywood were having, quadruple that number. And feel free to believe as much of Scotty’s story as you like.

Recommended for unapologetic pervs.

[Brian Bixler · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot of people might admit one of their guilty pleasures is reading a magazine or book that dishes the dirt on Hollywood stars. In his new book, Scotty Bowers (with Lionel Friedberg) doesn't just dish the dirt; he gets down on all fours and rolls around in it, dragging the reputations of many beloved stars through the mud -- or in the case of Charles Laughton and Tyrone Power, through something even filthier.

In "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars" Bowers paints a portrait of himself as the uber gigolo of Tinseltown during its Golden Age. It's a book full of salacious stories, scurrilous at best and scatological at worst, about some of biggest icons of the silver screen. Sadly, none of his subjects (or victims, if you will) is still alive to refute or confirm his outlandish tales. That alone makes his accounts suspect.

One lifelong friend, author Gore Vidal, states on the book jacket that "Scotty doesn't lie," but any discerning reader will find this memoir to be literally incredible. A farm-raised Midwesterner and ex-Marine who landed in Hollywood after WWII, Bower claims to have rubbed more than elbows with some of the greatest artistic, scientific, literary and political minds of the 20th century. His recollections in the book come off as distasteful if not borderline delusional. Even if they are true, they are moments that were certainly meant to remain private, but Bowers unapologetically recounts them in disgusting detail.

One of his claims is that playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote a book about Bowers' life, but he asked the author to burn it because it made him "sound like the mother of all queens." It would seem Bowers, now nearing 90, has chosen to set the record "straight" by telling his own story. Indeed, he reiterates throughout the book that he has been married, had a daughter and prefers sex with women; yet, most of his sexcapades in the book are with men. He puts on parade the usual suspects that any book dealing with gay Hollywood usually mentions -- Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Tony Perkins, Tab Hunter, Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Cary Grant -- but he throws in some surprises like Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn and even the heterosexual misadventures of stars like Desi Arnez, Bob Hope, Vivien Leigh and Elsa Lanchester as well as plenty of producers, directors and B-listers whose names few people will remember. He drops so many names it's a wonder he didn't have a menage a trois with JFK and Marilyn Monroe. When he starts emptying his memory banks for something scandalous to write about Mae West and Gloria Swanson, the result is more pathetic than interesting.

And it isn't just Hollywood royalty who receives his tarnishing treatment. He claims to have bedded the Duke of Windsor going so far as to say that his marriage to Wallis Simpson was a sham; that what is regarded as the love affair of the century was all a ruse because both of them were gay and the royal family colluded to create the myth to prevent a homosexual from ascending to the throne of England.

Even more far-fetched is a chapter that involves him meeting with former King Farouk of Egypt and persuading the monarch to share some of his massive collection pornography with Dr. Alfred Kinsey when the famed scholar was continuing his studies on human sexuality during the 1950s. Bowers recalls working closely with Kinsey to supply female interview subjects for the research with a convenient disclaimer that the two had an agreement that Bowers would never receive credit for his assistance in the landmark study.

While asserting his preference for intercourse with women, he is fast and loose with labels, declaring some of the rich and famous to be gay, then describing them as bisexual a few paragraphs later; and his stories are told with more than a hint of schoolboy braggadocio.

Learning the sex trade on the streets of Chicago, where he began hustling priests and married men, his Hollywood story begins, he says, when he was picked up by Walter Pidgeon for a sexual liaison while working at a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. Before long the filling station became a reputed spot where stars and others could fulfill their every fetish, proclivity and depravity, thus giving Bowers the title for his book.

Dressing it up as some noble gesture, when he couldn't do the job himself, Bowers says he never accepted "tips" for arranging sexual favors for the stars with others from his cadre of two-bit hustlers, whores and "straight" boys who were financially hard up. Perhaps this book is his way of cashing in to make up for the money he voluntarily missed out on back in the day.

Readers will be drawn to the title of this book out of prurient interest, but after turning the last page, they will feel like a participant in something so sleazy, they might feel the need for a shower. This book is a lot to swallow and should be read with a healthy dose of skepticism.

[Adam Tschorn]

The street date of Scotty Bowers' "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars," written with Lionel Friedberg, is Valentine's Day, but the eagerly anticipated memoir has been generating buzz for several weeks, and will most likely encounter a firestorm of criticism from some segments of the Hollywood set.

It offers the former Marine paratrooper, pump jockey and bartender's accounts of three decades of having sex with — or arranging others to have sex with — some of the biggest names of Hollywood's Golden Age — Cary Grant, Vincent Price, Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy and the Duke of Windsor.

The title is a not-so-subtle reference to the job that was Bowers' entree into his career as a sexual "fixer," pumping gas at the Richfield station at 5777 Hollywood Blvd., where he began to connect former Marine Corps pals and other acquaintances with Hollywood elite looking for secretive sexual encounters — gay and straight — in an era where the studio system and the mores of the day kept a lid on sexual activity and orientation.

He says his first "trick" came in 1946, with actor Walter Pidgeon and milliner-to-the stars Jacques Potts, and other bold-faced names Bowers mentions along the way include composer Cole Porter, director George Cukor, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, Katharine Hepburn and Vivien Leigh.

The initial impulse, of course, is to compare Bowers' allegations about his career with that of Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam, and though both pandered to the prurient interests of the entertainment industry, Bowers' fantastical story goes further.

When he wasn't crossing paths with the likes of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and porn star John Holmes, Bowers writes, he acted as stud service for infertile couples in Colorado, assisted .at least one Hollywood star in a custody battle and helped Alfred Kinsey research his book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female," as well as connect Kinsey with former Egyptian ruler Farouk I and his legendary stash of pornography.

By the time Bowers has finished sharing anecdotes about fighting on the island of Iwo Jima in World War II and once assisting Beatles manager Brian Epstein (one of his tricks) in whisking the Fab Four out of the hands of groupies during an August 1964 visit to Los Angeles, he's been less than one degree away from so many people and events in popular culture one starts to wonder if "Forrest Hump" might have been a more appropriate title.

This doesn't mean that "Full Service" is an easy book to read. It isn't — for several reasons. Chief among them is the gnawing question about the book's veracity — especially given the fact that virtually all of the people he mentions in the book are long gone and unable to refute his account. (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.")

The pacing of the book is a bit uneven in places, choppy in others, and full of purple prose throughout (it's unclear, for example, why an account of his childhood on the farm needed to include a sentence like: "As my fingers tugged on the cow's soft teats, her warm milk squirted into the pail.") and occasionally punctuated by a rhetorical elbow to the ribs. While it's easy to marvel at his sexual escapades, it's hard to forge any kind of emotional connection with Bowers, who comes across as well-endowed in the ego department as he suggests he is below the belt and who rattles off the names of his sexual partners with all the emotion of making a shopping list. He even refuses to label his own sexual orientation as straight, gay or bisexual.

And even those who consider themselves open-minded and not the least but prudish — gay or straight — may find some of the specific details are too much of an over share (such as some of British actor Charles Laughton's alleged peccadilloes). Even more troubling — especially in light of the current allegations about teachers at the Miramonte Elementary School — is Bowers matter-of-fact account of his childhood activities, which included his introduction to sex by his adult male neighbor, having sex with not one but several Roman Catholic priests, and arranging a lesbian tryst between a 13-year-old classmate and his own grade school teacher.

If you're looking for a morality tale — a neat and tidy story arc in which Bowers reaches an epiphany or realizes the error of his ways — you'll be sorely disappointed. 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.

[Verity · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hardly know what to write about this book. On the one hand it's a scandalous summer beach read, packing with filthy juice Hollywood gossip that you may or may not believe. I'm not quite as quick to dispel what Bowers claims, especially seeing that some of his stories have been confirmed by others.



On the other it's a story of a boy who was sexually assaulted at the age of 7(though in his 80s he still thinks very warmly about that particular pedo), went on to turn trick a few years later and was a full blown prostitute in his early teens and onwards till AIDS ended the party in the 80s. No matter how much Bowers proclaims to feeling happy to bring other men joy through sexual activities, he was still a child and that just felt so very wrong to me.
This book was for me, first and foremost, a tale of a male who was overly sexual his entire life due to abuse in his childhood and yet still felt like the luckiest man alive to have shared intimacy (not love though) with hundreds if not thousands of partners.
I think it's one of those books you need to read in order to form your own opinion. I really couldn't rate it higher than 2 stars but I was glued to the text until I finished.

[Melanie Baker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't entirely pin down whether it was the tone/style, all the people name-dropped, or the salaciousness of it all, but the book leaves you inclined not to believe a word of it. And there are just too many things that make no sense in the grand scale of culture, society, and class. So that either means that it's complete bullshit, or that the truth is even crazier than he tells it.

Has Hollywood zealously guarded secrets over the years? Of course. Has it been taboo to be openly gay, particularly as public icon? (Oddly, in a creative industry that attracts arguably more gay people than others.) Sure. But even with those foundational truths, the book didn't work for me.

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.

Anyway, the book got a fair bit of buzz when it came out, unsurprisingly. There're a lot of pretty big claims in it. Bowers isn't dead (yet), but all but one of the people mentioned in the book are, so not like anyone featured is going to comment.

[Erika · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reads like an overlong, grandiose letter to Penthouse, up to and including the ubiquitous "I never thought this would happen to me, but..."

Bowers flashes back and forth between his days as a gas station attendant/procurer for Hollywood's A-listers in the Post-war 40's, then further back to his days of being molested by/prostituting himself to the Catholic priests of his boyhood diocese. I'm well aware of the difference between molestation and prostitution, but Bowers apparently is not. His "do what you feel" attitude is fine until it includes children.

If you're looking for any kind of real insight about the people Bowers claims to have interacted with, you won't find it. He makes unsubstantiated claims with nonsensical rationale, presents them as fact, then backpedals with "that's just how I saw it."

As a memoir it might be entertaining if it weren't so completely unbelievable.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ewwwww.....

[Jim Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have delayed several days in reviewing this book because I wanted to get it right, and it is somewhat of a challenge. I knocked it down to four stars because the writing is pedestrian. In the first third of it he tried to write "writing", which is always a bit annoying, and the last half is full of unnecessary cliche's. Nonetheless, the reader can tell exactly what he means by what he says, which is enough to put this book in the upper fifty percent of published works.
The WWII military was officially homophobic to an obsessive degree, and yet Scotty Bowers was a paramarine, a member of an elite within an elite. He participated in the battles of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, and my hat is off to any veteran of those campaigns. At Iwo his brother was killed a kilometer up the beach from where he was, and the guy who brought him that word was killed doing it.
But aside from the Marines he was a lifelong gay prostitute. That started when he was about nine and his neighbor on the farm where he grew up first befriended him and then, as they say, "took liberties". When his parents divorced he and his mother, brother, and sister moved to Chicago. Money was tight and he started hustling, first running errands and shining shoes. But soon he was tricking half the young priests in Chicago, and making pretty good money doing it. Before puberty he was doing this. He says he never felt like he was doing anything wrong and he never held it against the young priests. He understood that they had made a deal they couldn't keep.
During WWII he put all that aside, except for leaves, where he picked up a few extra bucks.
He left the service from San Diego, moved to LA, got a job running a gasoline filling station and garage at night, was picked up by movie star Walter Pidgeon and very soon was setting up both homosexual and heterosexual liaisons out of the station, which became a popular gathering spot. There were a lot of movie stars who used his services, both male and lesbian women. This went on for five years. Then he left the gas station and started freelance bartending at parties, while he continued to set up tricks and to do tricks. He did this into his eighties.
This book contains a lot of weird background. If you want a review of either the Duke of Windsor or J. Edgar Hoover's skills as a fellator this is the place to look.
To learn that he exceeded the normal fifteen percent allowance for b.s. would not surprise me, but he knew and wrote way to much for this to be anything like a complete fabrication.
Even though his life had the normal quota of family tragedy -- he lost both his brother and his daughter when they were 23 -- he considers that he led a happy life and considers himself "blessed".
The bottom line on this book is that it is a wild ride indeed.

[Jack Mercer · Rating 1 out of 5]

They say in life you have only a handful of really good pals... not Scotty Bowers - he was good pals with absolutely everyone and all famous too! Fucked most of them as well... well not John Wayne or Mickey Mouse, though I kept waiting for them to turn up.

Let's see: He not only helped Kinsey, by supplying a few young hookers for his sex research, he filmed the porn and arranged development of the film, whilst spending weeks providing valuable support to the research; he even procured crates of priceless erotic antiquities, through his good pals, Egyptian royalty, for that research; he had a whale of time with both Edward and Mrs. Simpson; Brian Epstein, another very good buddy, although he'd never been in LA before, called him to arrange digs for the Fab Four there; Nestor Almendros dedicated and left him his Oscar as well, because Scotty got him to the gig on time. And all the while pulling gas, bartending just about every night, whilst rent boy by appointment to the stars.

Every single 'anecdote' was and is common apocryphal currency at the time of publication. There is nothing in this book, secret or otherwise, that couldn't have been written by anyone else. Anger had already trawled through most of those sad sorry rumours, but at least he didn't claim to know them personally. Bowers only added the Wikipedia bits with less original starch than Angers.

It's not the point that you can't accept and believe Bowers was turning tricks in Hollywood for some well known celebs or bartending the same, that much I could believe. The point is it's almost impossible he was so intimate with all the same key players that rumour has turned up time and time again. There is not one single photo or supporting evidence of him with any of these people. There isn't even a photo of the gas station where much of it began from, just a "it looked something like this" stock shot. The fact that Tennessee Williams supposedly wrote a prose piece just for Bowers and then burnt it upon request, seems entirely on form within that framework - you'll just have to take my word for it.