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

NOTE TO READERS: Amazon Policy Guidelines rejected the initial version of this review because it contained “sexually explicit material” which of course is what the book is full of. I have revised and resubmitted the review to comply with these Guidelines. To protect the delicate sensibility of any readers I have routinely deleted sexually explicit terms and replaced them with [setd], i.e., sexually explicit term deleted or [sead], i.e. sexually explicit act deleted.

"This is not Churchill’s “Memoirs of the Second World War” or even Nabokov’s “Memory Speak,” but co-author Lionel Friedberg deserves a great deal of credit for transforming 150 taped hours of Scotty Bowers remembering his Hollywood sexcapades into a very readable, enjoyable, and informative book. From a sense of decency Bowers waited to write the book until almost everyone mentioned in the book besides himself was dead; Gore Vidal vouches for Scotty as the underground legend he claims to be, and for his truthfulness – he had no need to lie. So if you are interested in the sexual secrets of scores of the stars and the Hollywood set and want a ringside seat at some classy orgies, this is the book for you.

The book may not be easy going for all readers. One usually wants to be able to identify or sympathize with the memorialist, but Bowers is an especially well-endowed indefatigable sexual omnivore – men, women, boys (18+), girls (18+) – who took delight from doing any and everything and being done unto in kind, from the sweaty burly farm neighbor who pulled Bowers’ [setd] from his [setd] when he was a schoolboy to the homosexual priest who fed Bowers in his early teens and then shared him with his fellow prelates whom Scotty happily accommodated by rubbing [sead] to heighten their pleasures. In Scotty’s responsive body, molestations are transformed into celestial sexual awakenings that start him on a career as a male prostitute making money during the Great Depression, but that never grow dimmer with age and are guided by a heartfelt desire to make people as happy as he can as best he can through engaging in lust and – after he arrived in Hollywood – also providing them with sexual partners when he is not available, or they wish variety, or have specialized tastes.

The book tells a great deal about Hollywood mores from the 1940s to the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic lead Scotty to stop his procuring. Sex was a commodity governed by appetite and shaped and molded by individual tastes, preferences, and fetishes that Scotty indulged and about which he made and felt no judgments. It bares such secrets as the Hepburn-Tracy romance being a studio-generated cover for the two homosexual actors; so too was the “passionate romance” of Edward of Windsor for US socialite Wallace Simpson merely the Royal Family’s invention to hide from public eye Edward’s refusal to abandon his homosexual pursuits in order to occupy the throne with proper decorum. Sometimes it tells more than we wish to know. As an admirer of Charles Laughton’s performances in “Hobson’s Choice,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Mutiny on the Bounty,” I was disappointed to learn not only that Laughton declined to bathe and deliberately accumulated [setd] for the delectation of his partners, but also that he had the young man that Scotty provided him [setd] so he could use it as a condiment for the BLT sandwiches he ate as part of the consummation. Ditto Tyrone Power – a Marine buddy of Scotty’s – liked [sead] from his boy partners and [setd] from the gals. (Pp.200-205) The fact that Bowers makes no judgments and draws no inferences about their character or make-up does not mean that none are to be drawn.

Indeed, the life of this likeable ingratiating insatiable stud seems wanting in many of the ordinary human virtues and decencies such as compassion, insight, intimacy and the political or moral dimensions that mean a lot to most of us. Scotty boasts of [sead] Mildred Lloyd, wife one of the kings of comedy of the silent screen era “at the base of the tree, in the parlor, and in her bedroom” as though this were a celebratory event, but makes no connection to his having brought over a bevy of young beauties for Harold Lloyd that day, nor with the fact that Mildred was drunk by noon. (Pp.254-256) Pernicious alcoholism or drug abuse was at the core of so many of Scotty’s clients and associates from William Holden through Ramon Navarro to Spencer Tracy (who had to finish off two bottles before he had the courage to [setd] Scotty, himself a teetotaler) to James Dean and David Carradine.

Scotty describes the personal and professional fall and degeneration of William Holden who spent his last years in alcoholic stupor and wouldn’t wash for weeks at a time and often would be unable to make it to the bathroom before he relieved himself. It got so bad that Scotty had to stop sending him girls and Holden accused him of “emasculating me.” Scotty writes, “It was a terrible tragedy. He had no friends. Nobody called on him anymore.” Holden died November 1981 aged 63 when he fell down drunk, hit his head on a table, and bled to death. None of this miserable tragedy stops Scotty from opining cheerfully and without a trace of irony that “Bill’s death was a real loss not only to me as his friend but to the industry he loved, to his colleagues who had worked with him, and to the worldwide audiences who adored him.” (pp.275-277) Yes, to Scotty living in his imaginary world filtered through rose-colored glasses, there is a terrible loss to both the industry and to colleagues who no longer considered him a friend or even bothered to visit him. And that’s because Scotty was forever incapable of distinguishing between how he felt and was doing and how others felt and were doing, e.g., “Often just before I drifted off into sleep I would …simply count my blessings, feeling overwhelmingly grateful for my lot in life. There was no doubt about it, Hollywood was simply the most marvelous place in the world for anyone [sic] to be.” (p.172)

Scotty admires Elsa Lanchester for her devotion to a sexless marriage with her homosexual husband Charles Laughton and makes only a tenuous connection to her “quaint predilection” of seducing young homosexual men in the hopes on converting them. The tragedy of their marriage is lost on him. His identification is ever with the erect [setd], never the deceived or abused spouse. When he worked at a Richfield gas station in the 50s, Scotty used a large house trailer stored on the lot as his brothel and routinely set up a trick for a customer, Dale, who drove in with his wife. While Scotty kept her busy servicing the car, Dale would pretend to use the restroom and instead enter the trailer already “[setd]” and be welcomed by his trick who was – per Scotty’s imagination – “so worked up and excited that [sead] it was all over within ten minutes” and “his wife was none the wiser …” (p.57). This insensitivity is reflected in the way he chose his own spouse, and then spent his entire life using her as a doormat and neglecting her emotional needs and those of their daughter, Donna.

While on a weekend pass from the Marines, Scotty meets and beds Betty Keller (amongst many others) and even though the sex is mediocre he correctly assessed that she “could very well turn out to be a loyal, dependable, reliable, loving woman and certainly someone I wouldn’t mind having around and spending time with.” (Pp.88) And because she tolerated everything he did without his ever even knowing whether she knew what it was – Scotty was gone nights turning tricks for a living when not just for fun and she had to take down phone names and numbers of callers – “because of it I cared deeply for her. She just wasn’t able to provide the sexual excitement and variety that I craved. What else can I say?” (p.89). Expressing any complex emotion or thought is beyond Scotty and the book is littered with one or both of his pair of pragmatic coda’s when he encounters such a dilemma, “You know what I mean,” or “What else can I say?”

So, too, went Scotty’s family life. In one brief passage he describes flitting back to his house after another perennial night of philandering, proud that he makes sure that Donna has what she needs before she goes to school and he crashes to sleep, much as one might put out the water bowl and food for the dog. In another he reflects “Even though I did not see much of her due to my vagabond lifestyle, I adored her.” (p.151). It would be more accurate to say that Scotty adored his idealization of Donna, because in fact he did very little for her and failed her as a father. Despite his lifestyle, he never had a fatherly heart-to-heart and told her the facts of life, how to protect herself against pregnancy, and to come to him if she needed help with a pregnancy. So we may reasonably infer from the fact that Donna’s next appearance in the book over a hundred pages later has her sobbing “uncontrollably” following a “botched back-street job” that costs her life to terminate a pregnancy at age 23, so that “whatever remained of the relationship between Betty and me became even more strained, more distant, more detached” with separate bedrooms and the end of sex between them. (p.260).

Scotty reflects that “in an even harsher twist of fate, my brother Donald had been killed in battle on Iwo Jima when he was twenty-three. And Donna had been named after him.” Scotty and Donald both fought at Iwo Jima when a comrade approached him to relay that Donald had just been cut in half by shrapnel not a hundred yards away – and was himself cut in half by shrapnel while relaying the news to Scotty. None of his wartime activity against fascism was engaged by patriotism or ideological principle – Scotty joined the Marine Paratroopers because there was an extra $50/month in it. Scotty, whose sexual prowess gained international recognition, tells of how the Duke of Windsor “[sead] like a pro” and “we became friends and were very attached to each other.” Scotty describes how “Eddy” liked to [sead] it to a handsome young stud in the “[setd] … while slowly [sead]” until all three enjoyed coruscating simultaneous [setd], and praises Eddy as “considerate, very thoughtful of all his partners’ physical and emotional needs, and he was a damned good lover. He was a well-mannered, kind-hearted, and very decent man.” (Pp.135-136).

Scotty is probably oblivious of the fact that this kind-hearted decent man was an ardent supporter of fascism against which America (and he) fought. The Duke and Duchess were personal guests of Hitler in October 1937 during a tour of Germany; Hitler had hoped to restore Edward to the throne after conquering England and according to the BBC website, while Edward was governor of the Bahamas during WWII:

[BEGIN QUOTE] He reputedly told a journalist that "it would be a tragic thing for the world if Hitler was overthrown".

To an acquaintance on the island, the Duke reportedly said: "After the war is over and Hitler will crush the Americans...We'll take over...They (the British) don't want me as their King, but I'll be back as their leader." [END QUOTE]

Would any of this have mattered to Scotty had he known? Probably not. Even during the heat of battle Scotty knew what he was fighting for, what he hoped to return to after battle. “What I missed most during the war was a nice glass of ice-cold milk and what we Marines called ‘[setd]’ which was nothing more than military slang for [setd].” (p.83) The Duke was close enough to that goal.

Bowers often cuts a ludicrous figure when he shares his thoughts. He admires attorney Harry Weiss, who represented gays arrested for sexual activity, because “He often employed a brilliant gambit.” How brilliant? Harry would send a guy with $500 cash in an envelope and invite the cops not to show up for arraignment or trial (Scotty does not know the difference between the two) – but the note was typewritten “so that if the arresting officers ever thought of pressing charges against him…no one could ever prove that the money or the note came from him.” (pp.108-109). That’s how brilliant.

Perhaps the funniest and most tragic example of Scotty’s sensibility is his discovery, at the age of 42, of the difference between lust and love. “Oh, if only more people could realize the difference. If only more of us could discern the subtle [sic] dividing line between lust and love.” (p.242) Surely this discernment would make this a better world opines Scotty – but almost all of us can tell the not-so-subtle difference, and Scotty is still unable to tell the difference between love and adolescent erotic infatuation. Thus, of course, Scotty’s love is “love at first sight,” with 27-year-old Sheila Mack and has all the quality of a horny teenager falling in love with Playboy’s Miss June only to have the color and breadth of her specific erotic endowments be outdone by those of Miss July, in this case Judith Moore. This is no problem for Scotty as he loves them both infinitely deeply and well and simultaneously (don’t ask how, read it) until for reasons unknown these deep true loves “eventually drifted out of my life.” (p.249) Such is the emotional depth of our lead swinger.

Eventually Scotty will find some semblance of happiness living atop Kew Drive in the Hollywood Hills married (July 8, 1984) to a woman named Lois Broad. What kind of woman is Lois? Well, a speech therapist, and public school teacher who was “sweet, uncomplicated…real …genuine…undemanding and easy to be with.” (p.280) The best quality, which she shared with Betty, may be that “undemanding” one that allowed Scotty to continue to trick with unabated vigor throughout and beyond his 60’s. He and Lois still enjoy an active sex life.

And how can Scotty describe their relationship as he finishes this book, just shy of 89? He is still tending bar, and as he drives down Kew Drive to a client hosting a party, an attractive widow in her early eighties, he recalls the fragrance of her perfume and, being Scotty, becomes physically aroused just thinking of it. But how is tonight different from so many other nights? This night, Scotty knows that after the party closes down he will clean the glasses and pack up the paraphernalia and head home to Lois and his dog, Baby. “They are my family. That is where my life now lies. And I am content.” You know what he means. What more can he say?

I didn't like this. But not for the obvious reasons.

Graphic sex stories? OK, we can expect that, it's in the title. (Please note: if you do not already know what "golden showers are" this book is not for you.) "Outing" of people who can't "defend" themselves because they are dead? Uhm OK, again, to be expected.

What I was hoping for was a light-hearted sexual romp, kinda on the level that __Blazing Saddles__ (yes, I know that is fiction) took to racism or the Betty MacDonald approach to poverty. This was just kinda...icky.

Does Bowers really not recognize that his first sexual encounters were abuse? He normalizes the experience of adults males performing sex acts on him, romanticizes them to an extent. He grows up and has lots of gay sex, lots of sex with women, finds partners for other people according to their tastes, and repeatedly says he has no moral problem with whatever way one satisfies oneself. He cheats on his wife with an implausible number of partners, and has nothing but praise for her. No apologies, no remorse, just praise for her patience. OK.

Somewhere in the early-middle of the book I began to think he was lying. Now, why was that? I had to ask myself whether this was because I really didn't believe him, or did I not WANT to believe him? And I had to reread parts after realizing, no I don't actually care who sleeps with whom, it can be interesting when well-told but I don't have sense of horror that people in Hollywood sleep around. No, the BS meter went off because the bragging was so amateurish, and silly.

He claims that multiple times when Erroll Flynn was too polluted to perform, the women he'd been trying to seduce were so turned on that Bowers had no choice but to satisfy them himself. Snigger. RIIIIIIIIGHT.

He says again and again and again that so-and-so "had no idea" of the sex that was going on behind their backs, or the kind of sex, or the amount. And that he set up "tricks" for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor but the poor little plebians had no idea whom they were servicing. That, right there, there is BS-city. He cannot, can NOT know what is in other people's heads. If Bowers had said that these people "never let on if they knew" or "gave no indication" they knew, that would be far more believable. This is the silly bragging that a 10 year old does when every one around him KNOWS he is stealing cookies but makes a choice to look the other way. (He also tells several stories about recognizing famous people but not letting on that he knows who they are. We are supposed to believe he is the ONLY person in California who is capable of doing this.)

As someone once said about the Marquis de Sade, some of this is erotica, and some is just gross fantasy.

And how can someone who has so much gay sex be so homophobic? It's just mean how cruelly he "outs" people, winking at the reader that you had no idea, did you, that THIS guy, was gay--if it's no big deal, why would you expect to be shocking the reader? And he says again and again that he's actually not gay, he just has gay sex. His encounters with men generally are detailed: "He [verbed] my throbbing [noun] and I..." but his encounters with women skip right to, "We were having hot sex." Yep, you go ahead and pretend you're het, and we'll just nod. How Bowers expects us not to snigger when he takes issue with Tennessee Williams for writing a biography that portrays him as a "raging queen," I don't know.

He claims most of his "tricks" as dear friends and yet he never does any friend-type activity like playing cards or celebrating birthdays. Yes, he seems to believe that the way one treats "friends" is to have lots of physical enounters and write them down for publication.

Like any liar, some of his stories ring true or else we wouldn't believe at all. Bowers gets points, as another reviewer noted, for naming the lesser-known Walter Pidgeon as his first celebrity encounter and for not pretending to have bedded Marilyn Monroe.

While Bowers expends a great deal of energy telling us how tolerant he is, there are limits to what he will endure. He is affronted by the cheek of women (Lucille Ball among them) who dare to confront him for the niggling little insult of procuring for their husbands. He is furious at Rita Hayworth for not lending money to her deadbeat brother (he fails to make a point of how this is any of his business). Plain and simple, in addition to being a homophobe and a disloyal friend, he's a misogynist. With creepy efficiency, he tells when tragedy strikes his young adult daughter and moves right on to more debauchery.

I'm finding my favorite, most meaningful part of the book to be his war experiences. But they were not the point of the book, were they?

I was prepared for a light fluff piece. That's what this is, and that's O.K. What I wasn't prepared for was Mr. Bower's sunny disposition and cheery optimism. It rather put me in mind of Pamela Des Barres' groupie book. Same wake up every day lovin' life attitude. That's what hooked me and drew me in. Sure the gossip is good, but the "company" is better.

Scotty Bowers is probably "one of the most charming, amoral men" in Hollywood, and I say charming because you can't hate the man no matter what he did or how he lived his life. Obviously oversexed and bordering on the obsessive, he made sex his raison d'etre; he lived to indulge and found great joy in letting others indulge. He would have really tested the words of the great Michel de Montaigne, "nothing that is human is foreign to me." His book is a revelation in many levels and he was darn lucky he lived to a ripe old age and didn't end up with AIDS or murdered in an alley somewhere. But he had quite a story to tell and from a purient, voyeuristic sense, I'm very glad he did. His book was a delicious read.

I bought this book and then by chance I had the honor of meeting the author on a few occasions and when I say honor I mean that as he is charming and down to earth and even humble and yes he had many connections into what we would consider the most private area of peoples lives. I thought it was a great look into that private area and of some lives of the stars and to read about some of those stars that I grew up with watching on television and in the movies was interesting. Some exploits came as a surprise but then you know really that makes sense and you know its true and the way Scotty writes is so matter of fact straight forward and it feels like I'm sitting across from him and sharing a cup of coffee with him as hes sharing some of his life with you. You just know that life was not all that easy for him but he has such a positive outlook on life and his gentle and fun personality and charisma is what comes across he really is a kind and good man and has an Amazing smile! I happen to know that having talked with him and his wife Lois as she truly is the light of his life and "vice versa" . Scotty does not dwell and live in the sad parts of his life. He has a positive take on life. I enjoyed reading the book and finding out more of what made these stars click so to speak and even the way Scotty exposed some of the lies Hollywood tried to cover. The truths in the book ring true, as Scotty has not hidden the truth I think it if anything there's more he has yet that he could cover. Thank you Scotty for sharing a part of your life with us. Happy 90th Birthday coming up here in just a couple of days July 2013! Hes so young of spirit and young at heart and he still tends bar on occasion and still goes to the club with his lovely wife and she sings beautifully! They are loved by the many friends they have and I mean that in a non sexual way. What I might not know I hope Scotty could write another book on!

I don't expect much from trashy biographies. I don't buy them for artistic merit; I want dirt. I'm also not easily shocked. I have a filthy mouth (in appropriate circumstances, granted), I love John Waters movies, and in my college days I even tolerated a Borders coworker playing entire Frank Zappa albums overnight while we stocked shelves. I am certainly no prude. When I pick up a book like this, I want the sordid, salacious, shocking details.

This book delivers on the sordid and salacious front; the reader need only turn a half dozen pages before being greeted by sexual descriptions that make a Jackie Collins novel look like Jane Austen by comparison. However, there's nothing really shocking or new here. If you've ever picked up a Hollywood biography, watched E True Hollywood Story, read internet gossip, or engaged in any gossip yourself, this book hardly adds much to the rumor mills.

It's a lot of the same old, same old. Cary Grant and Rock Hudson were gay. Kate Hepburn was a dyke. Spencer Tracy and Errol Flynn were drunks. Stop the presses! I won't spend much time on spoilers, but I wasn't shocked by any of the gay revelations. And the average reader may be disappointed that a lot of the dirt is on executives and behind the scenes folk, and not on the big stars themselves.

There are tidbits on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor which did intrigue me, and bits on actors Tyrone Power and Charles Laughton I honestly wish I didn't know about. Other than that, not a lot is shocking or new, unless you're a sheltered, pearl-clutching schoolmarm.

I am suspicious that all of the subjects in Bowers stories are long dead. Give me a brave trashy biographer like Kitty Kelley (who isn't afraid of a lawsuit or the likes of Nancy Reagan) over Bowers. He doesn't seem to offer much motivation or explanation for why he is writing this book now, or indeed at all. I realize of course that he wrote it for the money, as do most trashy biographers. But usually there is at least some explanation behind it. I didn't see that here.

The most frustrating thing about the book is that Bowers is unable to decide if he wants it to be a tell-all biography on old Hollywood or a memoir about himself. There might have been a semi-interesting memoir here, had Bowers focused on his own life. He was sexually exploited as a child (though he doesn't really own up to this), his brother was blown to bits alongside him while fighting in WW2, he struggled to make ends meet by prostituting himself and acting as a pimp in the middle of Golden Age Hollywood, he balanced two mistresses on top of his wife, and his daughter died from a back alley abortion. Now there's some drama, folks!

I realize that the name Scotty Bowers is familiar to almost no one, so it is unlikely any book he'd written about himself would have seen the light of day without the name-dropping. But in an unexpected turn of events, the factor in this book used to attract the masses is the same factor that ruins it. He adds almost no new info about well-known celebrities, what he does add is not verifiable (and many have already dismissed the book as a pack of lies), and the celebrity dishing actually distracts from the truly fascinating part of the book: the author's own life.

So it wasn't a complete waste of time, but it could have been much much better.

I read this in one sitting. Plenty of shocking secrets of the stars and he doesn't leave out any details. I found it very disturbing that he reflects fondly on the many times he was molested as a child. Very sad and encourages child molesters.

I knew Scotty Bowers back in the 70s. I also knew that he was connected to many in the Hollywood crowd. He may have been a bit over the top when it came to his own sex life, but I believe every word in this fascinating book. Juicy reading!

It is probably kind of silly for me to write a review for a book that already has 823 Amazon reviews as I post this, but here goes. Most of the people writing reviews here are basing them on their own emotions and reactions, because in reality, it is impossible to really review a book like this. The reason is because this book lives or dies on whether it is true or not, and there is no way to really know.

The author was an elderly man who claims he operated Hollywood's largest prostitution ring back in the Golden Age of the film industry, that serviced both gay and straight Hollywood personalities. He claims many film personalities were homosexuals whom film historians had not previously identified as such. The allegations that Scotty Bowers makes are jaw-dropping, but are they true? Who knows? Among the many sordid claims he makes are:

*He got started as a pimp while working at a gas station, when customer Walter Pidgeon offered him money for sex. Pidgeon liked him so much he recommended him to his friends, and this is how it all got started.

*Bowers claims the legend of the great love affair between Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn was cooked up by Hollywood PR agents to cover up the fact that both were flaming gay.

*The author states that Vincent Price was completely gay, and that he had several pleasant "encounters" with him.

*Bowers states that John Carradine was a masochist who liked to be flogged, and that Charles Laughton was sexually turned on by eating human excrement.

*Bowers says that one night Lucille Ball walked into his bar and belted him, and ordered him to stop providing women for her philandering husband Desi Arnaz. He further states that Desi wanted women almost every day.

*Bowers claims he provided many of Noel Coward's consorts for him.

*Possibly Bowers' biggest whopper is that the history books are wrong, and the story that Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry the woman he loved is not true. Bowers says this story was concocted by the Royal Family, the Church of England, and an obliging media to cover up that Edward was removed from the throne for being a homosexual!

Of course, Scotty Bowers boasts about his own sexual prowess and anatomy, and states he regularly stepped in for his customers when all of his "employees" were booked. Bowers' writing is very explicit throughout, and this book comes across almost as softcore porn.

I cannot necessarily recommend this book to anyone who loves old movies and the stars of bygone eras. If you read it, you may well come away very disillusioned, and wondering if it could be true. So let the buyer beware: Be sure you are up for it. The book delivers on its salacious promises, but you may come away from it crestfallen.

I didn't know how much of it I could believe. Seems like there was an awful lot of name dropping and no way to prove any of it.
All the names dropped I think are dead.