We agreed that I would start work just as soon as I got back from a planned visit to Illinois. I had managed to save up a few bucks for a down payment on a secondhand 1939 Plymouth, and Betty and I took off in it on a road trip across the country via New Orleans, to Chicago and Ottawa. We spent time with Momma, Phyllis, and my stepdad. I also visited Don’s grave and then slipped away to have some fun on my own with my old friends—both male and female—in Chicago. Then I went back for Betty and we drove all the way back to California. When we returned I started my new job as a pump jockey at the Hollywood Richfield gas station at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard, at the corner of Van Ness Boulevard. It was March 1946. I wasn’t quite twenty-three years old but I was raring to go. The hours were from five in the afternoon to midnight or later, depending on business and on whether I felt like staying open longer, seven days a week. I was kitted out with smart new blue trousers and a nice blue shirt that had “Scotty” stitched on it in yellow letters, as well as an eagle, the logo of the Richfield Gas Company. I looked and felt pretty dapper in that outfit, I have to admit.
10
Firmament of Stars
It always amazed me that Bill Booth, the proprietor of the gas station, never cottoned on to what I was doing. Even though tricks only got underway at night long after he and Mac had left the premises, he had no inkling about what was taking place in the trailer. Or in the washroom, for that matter. He was oblivious to everything. Not once did he think that all those young good-looking guys and pretty girls might be lounging around for reasons other than having nothing else to do. During the daytime when he and Mac manned the station he would receive dozens of telephone calls for me. He never asked why there were so many callers, or what any of them wanted. He simply wrote down their numbers on a notepad for me to call them back. Both Bill and Mac would go about their normal business routine until I arrived at five o’clock and would never question whether any of my buddies and their girlfriends had an ulterior motive for being there. As far as they were concerned I was just a very popular guy with lots of friends, and that was that. If they had suspected anything, I would not have been able to build up my wide circle of contacts and run things the way I did.
ONE NIGHT AROUND MIDNIGHT after I had locked up the gas station I drove a couple of my friends out to Westwood for a night of sexual fun and games at a private home. We all partook of the shenanigans and I collapsed into bed at home at around six the following morning. When I woke up at about noon I had lunch with Betty and Donna and then, at two or three in the afternoon, I decided to drive out to the station. Along the way I became aware of the fact that I had not had enough sleep. I was still exhausted. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and thought I needed to stop and rest somewhere. The trailer at the gas station would have been perfect but I didn’t want Bill Booth or Mac to know that I was using it. There was only one thing to do. Ferndale Park was a quiet, shaded oasis of lawns and trees out where Los Feliz Boulevard met Western Avenue. I decided to stop off there and take a nap in the grass. I parked the car at the side of the park, strode across the lawns, and found a quiet and secluded spot in the shade. I lay down and instantly fell fast asleep. It wasn’t long before I was having a highly erotic dream. In it, a long line of beautiful women were coming up to me and, one by one, they each performed exquisite oral sex on me. It felt so believable that I only slowly emerged from my slumber and opened my eyes. Squinting against beams of sunlight splaying through the branches of the tree above me I saw something. No, not something, but someone. This was no dream.
A figure was sitting beside me. The person was in silhouette and I couldn’t see who it was. As I traversed that magical realm from the dream world to full consciousness my vision cleared and I could see that the person was a guy. He was sitting on the grass next to me reading a novel. Without even looking at me as he continued to read, holding the book in one hand, he had slipped his other hand through the fly of my Levi denims and was playing with my cock. Though shocked at my discovery, the sensations were so good that I dared not move. As soon as he realized that my eyes were open he lowered the book, turned to me, and smiled.
“Good afternoon,” he said very politely, pretending that absolutely nothing was amiss or irregular.
“Hello,” I gurgled, not quite believing but thoroughly enjoying what was happening.
I wanted to ask him his name but before I could say anything he gently tightened his grip around my throbbing member and made me come. I lay there as he wiped his hand on a hankie and smiled again. I sat up, took the hankie from him, and, without saying a word, mopped myself up and buttoned my fly. I could still not fully comprehend what had just happened when he thrust out his hand and we shook.
“Name’s Alex Tiers,” he said.
“Bowers,” I replied groggily. “Scotty Bowers.”
“Good to meet you, Scotty,” he said. “Care to wash up? I don’t live too far away.”
And so began another friendship that would last for years.
Alex was a naughty devil. An aspiring actor, he lived in a very nice apartment on the corner of Tamarind and Franklin Avenues in Hollywood. He was very wealthy, having inherited a lot of “old money” from his father and family on the East Coast. As I dried off from the shower I had just taken in his bathroom he started telling me about himself and I was surprised to learn that we had a friend in common: George Cukor. It turned out that for a while Alex and George had shared a house in Malibu when George had first come out to California from his native New York. I realized then that even though this was Hollywood, life really revolved around small societal nodes.
One night I got a call from George Cukor inviting me to lunch the following Saturday. As I had seen quite a lot of him by now and was really very fond of him I gladly accepted. In fact, we spoke frequently because whenever I wasn’t able to see George for a quick trick myself I had sent other guys over to him.
When I arrived at his mansion at around noon on Saturday he was in a foul mood. I hadn’t seen him like that before. When I entered the living room I saw Katharine Hepburn and hairstylist Sydney Guilaroff. I had been tricking Syd regularly and he had become very fond of me. Once again Hepburn looked every bit a man, dressed in slacks with her hair fairly short though not parted. I seem to remember that George had given the maid the day off, because he busied himself with lunch preparations in the kitchen while Hepburn, Syd, and I chatted.
I can’t remember exactly what we talked about but I distinctly remember the conversation eventually shifting to the topic of Hepburn’s hairstyle on a new picture she was working on with Syd. It was called Adam’s Rib and was being shot on the MGM lot. George was the director. The movie was about two lawyers who were married to one another but on the opposing sides of the courtroom during the trial of a woman accused of trying to murder her philandering husband. It was being promoted in the trades with the catch line, “It’s the hilarious answer to who wears the pants.” It was an ironically appropriate proclamation because Hepburn was playing the lead opposite MGM superstar Spencer Tracy. According to the rumor mills Hepburn was said to be having an affair with Tracy. However, as I saw things, nothing could possibly be further from the truth. For one thing, Hepburn was a lesbian and I could not imagine this incontrovertibly butch lady having an affair with a man, any man.
I recall Hepburn being adamant about the way she wanted her hair to be styled in the movie, but Syd insisted that it be done differently. They got into an almighty row that only subsided when George himself joined in the fray. Eventually George announced lunch and we all took our places at the dining room table.
Hepburn was still smoldering. She looked at George, dropped her head coyly, and imploringly whined, “Please don’t be angry with me, George. I’ve got to fight for my independence in this town. You know that.”
“My dearest Kate,” George hissed back condescendingly, “the only thing you have to do in this town is to listen to the good advice of those who know what they’re talking about.”
“Oh, George, come on,” Hepburn retorted. “Be nice to me.”
“Why?” he replied.
“Aww,” Hepburn responded in a melancholic kind of way. “You know, I’ve been in this town all these years and other than you and Syd here I really don’t have many friends at all.”
George took little time in answering. He looked at her and said, “Yeah, that’s right, Kate, and you know why? Because you’re a real spoiled bitch.”
And with that the afternoon drew to an uncomfortable and premature close. Later on, after we had all said our good-byes, I walked Hepburn to her car. On the way she turned to me and asked whether I thought she seemed like a spoiled bitch. I remember laughing aloud when she asked that and said that, no, I really didn’t think she was anything like that at all. That seemed to make her feel a little more comfortable. She warmed to me and began to chat. I no longer recall what we talked about but just before we parted she insisted that I call her Kate. And then she asked me to do her a favor.
“I know about your reputation, Scotty. When you get a chance, do you think you can find a nice young dark-haired girl for me? Someone that’s not too heavily madeup.”
I said of course I would. I liked Kate. I couldn’t care less what people said about her. Admittedly, she did have notoriously bad skin, especially when seen up close. Fortunately, makeup and clever lighting took care of that in the movies. But in real life without makeup her complexion was really awful. Nevertheless, I found her captivating. She had an irresistible magnetism. Behind that blemished face lurked a great intelligence.
There were scenes in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 movie The Aviator that hinted at a love affair between Katharine Hepburn and movie producer, aviation pioneer, and one-time owner of RKO Radio Pictures studios Howard Hughes, but they are entirely implausible. It would have been out of the question, not only because dear old Kate was a lesbian but also because of her poor skin.
I arranged many ladies for Hughes. Any arrangement I made for him had to be treated with the utmost confidentiality. A date for a trick had to be executed in a clandestine, cloak-and-dagger manner, with no one ever knowing anything about it. Howard was as straight as an arrow and really liked women but, ironically, he hardly ever had sex with them. He was so fanatically fussy about his own health as well as the cleanliness and pristine beauty of the young lady that if she ever wore even the slightest hint of makeup that he did not like he would make her take a shower immediately and wash everything off. And if, heaven forbid, she had even the tiniest blemish or a pimple he simply would not touch her.
Over the next fifty years Katharine Hepburn and I would become the very best of friends. In the course of time I would fix her up with over 150 different women. Most of them she would only see once or twice, and then tire of them. But there was one exception. There was a very cute little seventeen-year-old trick that I set Kate up with early in our friendship. The girl’s name was Barbara. Kate became infatuated with her, not as a lover or a partner but purely as an occasional trick. Shortly after they started seeing one another Kate bought her a brand-new two-toned Ford Fairlane as a gift. Kate saw Barbara off and on for just over forty-nine years. Kate lived out East most of the time but Barbara remained here in California. Three months before dear Kate passed away in June 2003 Barbara—who had married no less than three times during that period—received a letter from Kate’s attorneys. With the letter was a check for $100,000. It was a birthday gift for her from Kate. Kate knew she was dying so it was probably also a parting or farewell present. Barbara and I had kept in touch with one another and when she received the check she told me that she really had me to thank for it. After all, she said, I was the one who introduced her to Kate. But, she added, she really didn’t have any need for the check at all. Her third husband had passed away and left her his fortune. Lucky girl.
As far as the media and the public were concerned there was really only one person in Kate Hepburn’s life, and that was Spencer Tracy. But as far as I could tell it was a nonexistent fairy-tale romance that the studio publicists and the spin doctors had concocted to conceal her lesbianism. Their fabrications were fed to the press, the gossip columnists, and the public, and everyone swallowed it. As people later knew, Kate romanticized her relationship with Spencer in order to confer with industry standards and ideals. In time, I would eventually get to know Spencer very well, too.
I REALLY DON’T RECALL the details anymore but long before I met Spencer Tracy I got a call one evening at the gas station from someone who said they were contacting me on behalf of a well-known Hollywood personality whose name they were reluctant to provide. I had received calls like that before and I had little patience with them. I preferred to know exactly who I was dealing with. If they wanted me to set up a trick for them I had to know who the person was. I tried to match people carefully. I wasn’t a pimp or a dating and escort service. Sex is a very personal thing and I wanted to make sure that I hooked the right kind of people up together, people with mutually attractive attributes, energy, and chemistry.
“Who are you calling for?” I asked.
There was silence on the line for a moment as the caller slapped a hand over the mouthpiece. I could hear muted mumbling in the background. Then there was the sound of the phone being handed from one person to another.
“Scotty Bowers?” I heard a new voice ask.
“That’s me,” I said. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Errol Flynn,” the voice said.
There was no doubt about it. It was definitely Flynn. I recognized that distinctive voice immediately.
“That gas station of yours has gained quite a reputation, you know,” he laughed.
I got a thrill whenever I heard a comment like that.
“How about lunch on Wednesday?” he asked. “We could talk then.”
For the life of me I cannot recall exactly where we arranged to meet but I think it was at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. When I arrived on the appointed day Flynn was already seated at a table. A pretty attendant was placing a fresh glass of vodka on the rocks beside one that was almost finished. He was a dashingly handsome man. Though only forty years of age, his best films were already behind him. These included Adventures of Don Juan; Objective, Burma!; They Died with Their Boots On; The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex; and the one for which he will perhaps always be best known, The Adventures of Robin Hood. He stood up as I reached his table, gave me the famous smile that set women’s hearts aflutter, and invited me to sit down.
Though born in Australia, Flynn had a beautifully cultivated British accent. He seemed like a very nice guy, a real gentleman. He told me that he was looking for some new talent. By that he meant women. I said that I would do what I could to help him out. I asked him, “What sort of lady are you looking for?”
“Well, let’s put it this way,” he said. “I like my booze old and my women young. Very young. That always makes for a pleasant combination, wouldn’t you say?”
He gave me a wickedly teasing smile. This was a man who was a connoisseur in all things delicate and fine, and that included women. He loved them young. In fact, the younger the better. I pointed out that there was a legal age restriction when it came to sex.
“Oh, tut, tut, dear boy,” he said, downing the glass of vodka. “I don’t care if she has to be eighteen, just as long as she looks and behaves like someone between, well, let’s say fourteen and sixteen. All right?”
He told me that he was working on That Forsyte Woman over at MGM. His costars were Greer Garson, Robert Young, Janet Leigh, and Walter Pidgeon. He was most intrigued to hear that I knew Pidgeon personally, as well as the gentlemen in charge of set decoration and hairstyles, Edwin B. Willis and Syd Guilaroff. Suddenly I wasn’t just a kid from a lowly gas station anymore. I really knew people. This impressed him no end. By the time we were on dessert I really liked him and I knew the feeling was mutual.
When I later gave up my job at the gas station and h
ad my evenings free, I would take many pretty and very obliging young ladies over to Errol Flynn’s place. He was especially pleased when I brought a girl over and then stayed to have dinner with the two of them. Although he was passionately fond of women, he enjoyed my company. I got the impression that it was a relief for him to be outside the orbit of the rich and famous. He used to cozy up to the woman I had brought over, talking pretty and smooching with her while I mixed drinks for him. He always thought I was crazy to be a teetotaler.
“Life without alcohol is like life without color, without music, without women, without sex,” he said to me once.
Unfortunately, Errol had a problem, a very big problem. He could not control his drinking habit. It always got the better of him. I remember a number of occasions when the evening would start out pleasant enough but then he would slowly sink into alcohol-soaked oblivion. It’s a shame that he was such a boozer. He drank all the time and ate very little. I always tried to persuade him to enjoy a good meal but the booze always won. By one o’clock in the morning he would have already consumed an entire bottle of vodka. Then he would stagger over to the girl and, slurring every word, he would sweetly whisper to her, “I’m going to fuck you now, baby. I’m going to make love to you like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”
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