Scotty Bowers finally gets his close-up in Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
A compelling look at a man whose Hollywood role as "pimp to the stars" was known only to an in**mate circle until the publication of his book Full Service: My Hollywood Adventures and the Secret S-x Lives of Stars, five years ago. What could have been a merely sensationalized exposure of the private lives of screen astronomers then emerges, in the hands of documentary filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City), as a well-rounded look. filled at different times, one secret and dedicated to the preservation of illusion, the other open and blasé about personal predilections. Gay movie fans may be first in line, but the movie succeeds on enough levels that a broader audience is a distinct possibility.
It's fair to say that Bowers, now 94 and sporting a mop of white hair and a generally cool attitude, has led a life like no other. After returning from Marine Corps combat in the Pacific during World War II, this handsome Midwesterner with a broad smile arrived in Los Angeles and began pumping gas at 5777 Hollywood Blvd. The unlikely, tweedy gentleman actor Walter Pidgeon, led to more Hollywood connections, some of Scotty's friends joined the law and pretty soon Richfield station was inundated with customers looking for a quick trick.
For his part, the always affable Bowers quickly became known for fulfilling any wish, male or female, solo or in a group, that his clients might request. The sensational revelations in his book, of which there were many, involved clandestine links that Bowers facilitated (usually beginning with his own involvement) involving Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Cole Porter, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and perhaps most surprisingly, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, whom he insists weren't physical with each other.
"What exactly are you?" Bowers wonders at one point. "I am everything," he replies, and it seems his eager-to-please permeability allowed him to be what his clients wanted. On the one hand, in 1947 he had met George ("The Salivator") Cukor and was sending new talent to the director's famous Sunday pool parties, while on the other he was involved in a threesome with two of the most seductive actresses. of Hollywood, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. "I was 100 percent trustworthy," he allows, adding that he was bi--xual but preferred women. "I made so many people happy." Agent Stephen Fry wittily observes that, "Scotty himself was pre-gay."
At a certain point, anyone who reads Bowers' book or sees this movie has to decide whether or not to believe him. At this stage, there is no reason not to; Scotty doesn't seem remotely like a braggart or someone desperate for a sliver of late-life fame. He was always ultra-discreet and, unbelievably, he says he was never paid for the s-x by the stars he attended; he made money from it as a waiter at private parties where he would then arrange liaisons. As he politely puts it, he conducted "an introductory service."
One particularly fascinating section has Scotty reminiscing about how times got especially tough during the '50s, when the vice squad got busy and muckraking confidential magazine made a specialty of sprinkling innuendo about certain career-ruining Hollywood bachelors. Remarkably, Scotty navigated through this period unscathed and continued until the 1980s, when AIDS effectively shut down the sort of casual "delusion" that he was master.
Tyrnauer spends considerable time showing Bowers puttering around his imposing main house in the Hollywood Hills that he shares with his wife Lois, who seems disgusted by the mess but powerless to do anything about it. The film also follows him to signing passwords, lectures with Taschen's books, and meetings with his few surviving pals who deliver their own admiring testimonials to how Scotty enhanced life for him, as well as to the hospital for some treatment.
There have been some moments in Scotty's life, most notably the death of his only child, a daughter, after a botched abortion when she was in her 20s. The movie doesn't go into detail about revelations the book contains about his childhood s-xual abuse, which clearly influenced his attitude toward s-x, but Scotty doesn't like to dwell on such things.
