The Freaky Fetishes of Golden Age Hollywood
In the grand, effluvia-soaked tradition
of Hollywood Babylon, a new memoir from sexual
networker Scotty Bowers lets it all hang out when it comes to
exposing screen giants’ erotic excesses. Like MGM in its heyday,
Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex
Lives of the Stars (Grove) has more stars than there are
in heaven. From silent-screen royalty such as Gloria Swanson and
Ramon Novarro to classy Brits such as Cary Grant and Elsa
Lanchester to American legends such as Mae West and Rock Hudson,
Bowers dishes long and hard on just who preferred what kind of sex,
how often, and with what sort of partner(s).
What elevates Full Service from a simple, if
riveting, catalog of the ultra-decadent lifestyles of the rich and
famous to something more interesting is Bowers’ bracingly
nonjudgmental view of human sexuality. As long as sex is
consensual, he says, let it rip. As he told The New York
Times in December, “So they like sex how they liked it.
Who cares?”
A World War II vet who fought with distinction in the Pacific
(his memories of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima are terrifying), Bowers
was born on a Midwestern farm and ended up pumping gas in Hollywood
in 1946. Working at a service station on Van Ness Boulevard, he was
picked up one day by Canadian actor Walter Pidgeon, an Oscar
nominee known for star turns in films such as How Green
Was My Valley and Mrs. Miniver. Bowers reports
that they drove back to Pidgeon’s house, and the two of them,
joined by a male friend of the actor, engaged in “some really hot
sex.”
Thus began Bowers’ decades-long role as Hollywood’s leading boy
toy and procurer of sexual favors for the stars. Although he
accepted “tips” for his amorous romps, he never engaged in
prostitution per se. And as he became the go-to guy to set up all
manner of trysts for publicity-shy celebrities (many of whom were
closeted gays and lesbians), he never became a pimp either. Rather,
he was a fixer who delighted in bringing together stars and people
Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=12222
Posted by rbutler
on Jul 1 2012. Filed under Libertarian News.
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