"My
adventures in Hollywood and the secret sex lives of the stars" is how
Scotty Bowers explains his autobiography. The word he has left
out--though he 'outs' plenty of stars--is 'dead'. All the stars he
claims to have been to bed with and/or set up with 'tricks' are dead and
can't defend themselves. In all the pictures in the book not one is of
with him and any of the stars he claims to have been to bed, and/or
friends, with.

According
to his figures of setting up an average of 15-20 tricks a day for over
30-40 years plus the '...seeing two-three people a day that I performed
personally' he does not see himself as a pimp or prostitute, just a
friend wanting to see his friends be happy. Now I can understand the
figures he gives as being possible as I've been there, done that, but
when he says that he was never paid for his services except as a
bartender or server and yet mentions gifts not to forget that he was
left 2 prime properties in Hollywood by a guy he had fixed up with young
guys something doesn't read right or am I just cynical and jaded?

Possibly
all he wrote about is true but who is around to verify it? He claims
Tennessee Williams wrote all about him but that he made Williams  not
publish it. There is no index in the back of the book and I am not going
to wade through the book to find where he said exactly what but he
certainly is a name dropper. With all the names he mentions the 3-4
still living like Vanessa Redgrave and Carol Channing it seems he didn't
set them up with 'numbers' though he does dish their husbands.

To
all people interested in gossip or the gay life nothing Mr. Bowers
writes about is new except a twist here and there. He does 'out' people
dying of AIDS when their family didn't want the public to know plus he
outs stars as being gay which doesn't surprise anyone except for saying
something along the lines that Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were
never lovers that she was a 100% lesbian who had Bowers get her young
girls, never for money, of course.

Is
there a gay person who hasn't heard the stories of Randolph Scott &
Cary Grant? Who doesn't know Monty, James Dean, Charles Laughton,
George Cukor, Somerset Maughn and Rock Hudson were gay? That Laurence
Olivier, Ramon Novarro and Malcolm Forbes played with the boys?

Who
can prove, disprove, he went to bed with Edith Piaf every night the
month she worked in a club in Hollywood? And why tear down William
Holden unless you are a spurned lover? He talks about Jerry Herman but
the man is alive and could point out he was lying if Bowers said
anything except that he was gay.

He
stipulates what he did for 6 decades was keep people happy by arranging
sexual liasons. "I never made or wanted a dime out of the tricks that I
set up for others."  Here he is cashing in on names like Cole Porter,
Raymond Burr, Walter Pidgeon, dishing about the sex life of Prince
Edward and Wally Simpson, and claiming about all the information he got
for Alfred Kinsey's book on women and he would remain nameless, never
getting a bit of credit. Wonder if Kinsey and his partners Martin,
Pomeroy and Gebhard would back Bowers claims of how important he was to
their research? Oh wait--they are all dead.

Whether
what Bowers writes is true or not doesn't matter as at 89 years of age
he doesn't have to prove anything and he doesn't, including that this
book is anything but rehashed gossip of the golden age of Hollywood.

The
only bit of believability is  the blurb from Gore Vidal, assuming that
Vidal has been a friend of Bowers for the better part of a century and
not just 'knows' him as a bartender or in some other capacity.

The bottom line is uless you are naive, know nothing about old Hollywood or get it for free don't bother reading this book.