Full Service (27 page)

T
HE AUTHOR HECTOR ARCE
used to cover the Hollywood celebrity scene for various magazines and also wrote rather good biographies of Groucho Marx and Gary Cooper. In the late seventies he wrote a very revealing biography of Tyrone Power. Ty died in 1958, so Hector never met him personally. He had interviewed many who did know him and was relying on hearsay and other source material for his book. He knew that Ty and I had been close pals so he asked me to look over the manuscript when it was finished. In it were references to Ty’s passion for piss and poop. When I came across those paragraphs I immediately flagged them and discussed them with Hector.

“Where’d you get that information, Hector?” I asked.

“Aw, c’mon, Scotty,” he said. “It’s common knowledge. Everyone knows about the weird stuff Power was into.”

“Who told you about it?” I wanted to know.

“Oh, jeez,” he said. “I know at least fifteen guys who’ve told me everything. They all did that to him.”

“Well,” I said adamantly, “it’s lies. All lies. They’re just feeding you that nonsense for its sensational value. I can’t believe you’re accepting it like it was all true.”

This put Hector’s fenders up. No author wants to provoke arguments that may lead to accusations of inaccuracy, libel, or character defamation. He wasn’t sure what to do so he asked me what I thought. I told him to take all those sections out.

Reluctantly, Hector rethought the matter and finally deleted all the potentially contentious passages. Although he exercised caution about what he had said about the people who knew Ty personally he included a couple of paragraphs in the book about me. But he had cunningly changed my name from Scotty to Smitty, just in case. I laughed out loud when I read those sections. When
The Secret Life of Tyrone Power
was published by William Morrow in May 1979 it got good reviews and almost instantly became a coast-to-coast best seller. Needless to say, people who knew me well enough instantly recognized me as the “Smitty” character in the book. But I didn’t mind. I had nothing to hide, nor anything to feel ashamed about. To celebrate its publication I went over to Hector’s place one evening.

As we toasted the book—he with champagne, me with soda water—I said to him, “You remember those parts you took out about Ty, the ones about the pee and the poop?”

“Yes,” he said. “What about them?”

“Well,” I said, clinking my glass against his, “they were absolutely true.”

At first he was so angry that I thought he was going to tear me apart, limb from limb. Eventually he simmered down and agreed that I had made him do the right thing. It was still too soon after Ty’s death to be shattering the myth of one of Hollywood’s golden boys. Twenty years after his death Ty was still looked upon as an idol. It was right for us to protect his fans from any disappointment or disgust they may have felt after reading about his odd sexual habits. Today I have no compunction about exposing them. Much time has passed and, as we know, time heals everything. Perhaps Ty’s followers are more ready for the truth now than they were thirty years ago when the book was first published. Hector Arce himself is also long dead. The truth is that I never cared one iota about how people got their rocks off in private, just as long as they weren’t hurting anybody. We all have our secret preferences and weaknesses, call them whatever you will. So, bless Ty, my old friend. What he did cannot and will not diminish my fondness for him, his greatness as an actor, or his reputation as one of the nicest people who ever inhabited this crazy place called Hollywood.

A
s the fifties drew to a close I decided it was time that Betty and Donna should have a nice, comfortable, quiet house to live in. Up until then we had been moving around town from one rented property to the next, mainly shoebox-size apartments. Betty deserved better than that. The fire may have gone out of our relationship but I still cared for her. I wanted her to be happy. Also, I figured that my beautiful little daughter Donna had a right to a nice room of her own and a garden in which to play. It was time for me to invest what little I had saved up in a property of my own. I told Betty to keep a lookout for something affordable.

One day she excitedly told me that she had found out about a little property from a local realtor that sounded perfect. It was a charming little three-bedroom place with a small garden, on a side street called North St. Andrews Place, surprisingly just up the road from the gas station where I used to work. It sounded ideal. We went over to look at it and fell in love with it right away. According to the realtor the owner had died without leaving a will and there were no known survivors or descendants. As a result, the place was in probate. If I wanted it I would have to go down to city hall and discuss it with someone in the judiciary service.

I was informed that the asking price would be in the region of $20,000. I dug into my savings and stuffed everything I had, $22,000, into a large manila envelope. With this in my jacket pocket I marched into the judge’s office. To my dismay I was told that another buyer was also after the property. He was called into the room with me so that the judge could decide who to favor.

Shuffling in his chair the judge put his elbows on his desk, gently tapped his fingers together, looked at both of us, and said, “Well, gentleman, if you want to purchase the property the price is $22,000.”

My heart leaped within my breast. It was exactly how much I had on me!

“That’s too much,” the other buyer objected. “I just can’t afford that.”

The judge looked at him and then turned to me.

“And you, Mr. Bowers,” he said, “what about you?”

I felt my pulse racing as I pulled out the envelope with the money and handed it over to the judge.

“I’ll take it, Your Honor,” I panted.

The judge took the envelope, tore it open, pulled out the cash, counted it, and smiled. “Sold, to Mr. Bowers,” he said. “Congratulations.”

He handed me a receipt, a deed of sale, and all the necessary legal papers and I walked out of his office into a clear California day, now a man of property and substance. It sure felt good to be alive. That evening Betty and I had dinner together and then made love for the first time in more than a year. It was wonderful. I knew she was happy and I knew Donna was going to like it in her new home. A couple of weeks later we moved in.

Fortunately, my bartending talents were as much in demand as ever. And I was still Hollywood’s go-to guy for setting up tricks. Some folks around town even began calling me “Mr. Sex.”

“Whatever you need,” they would say, “just call up Mr. Sex, Scotty Bowers. He has whatever you want.”

And that was true. If I couldn’t satisfy the request personally, I had access to literally scores of men and women of all types, persuasions, ages, and talents who could. Unless I was performing the sex myself—be it straight, gay, or bi—I still was not making any money off arrangements I made for other people. All financial transactions between them were strictly their own affair. I just wanted to see folks happy. I was simply reacting to the ancient ritual of supply and demand. The only difference between me and, say, a farmer, a carpenter, or a storekeeper, was that I specialized in sex. Sex was what I offered, pure and simple. And what better way to calm the soul, heal the body, and make the spirit soar than sex?

As time went by I met a lot of people who dabbled in offbeat, unusual practices in their search for physical gratification. I learned not to question them, especially those who were into the bondage, domination, and sadomasochism or BDSM scene. What people did in private was entirely their own affair, not mine. As long as nobody was getting hurt I had no objection to what folks did. If it helped them get their rocks off, cemented a relationship more closely, offered them some fun, or just made them feel good why not do it? Of course, whenever people called me up to arrange unusual tricks for them I had to make sure that whoever I sent over was also happy to engage in any planned bondage and domination activities. I didn’t want to get any of the young people in my little black book hurt.

The baritone-voiced actor John Carradine, who appeared in almost 350 movies, including John Ford’s original 1939-version of
Stagecoach,
was another person who asked me to arrange tricks for him. John also liked it rough. In fact, the rougher the better. Unlike a lot of my friends and acquaintances, John was one hundred percent straight. He loved women. He adored them. Actually, he just about worshipped them. He occasionally invited me over to his place “for some fun” and when I arrived he was always with some young lady or other. The kinky stuff was usually well under way by the time I got there. John was invariably tied up, bound hand and foot, sometimes gagged and submitting himself totally to the lady’s whims and will.

“Join in, Scotty!” he would yell as the girl—usually wearing high-heeled patent leather boots and a studded leather belt—pulled roughly on the ropes with which John was tied up, or flogged him with a stick or a fly whisk. John had an immeasurable capacity for having a good time and always leaned toward something in the S&M field. His son David had similar tastes. I knew him well, too. Like his father, David Carradine was a very accomplished and busy actor. David indulged in many different sexual practices, some of which were downright dangerous. One of his favorites is clinically referred to as autoerotic asphyxia. It entails inducing borderline unconsciousness to increase excitement and heighten the effect of the sex act. But games like that can be deadly. On June 3, 2009, David’s naked body was discovered in the closet of a Bangkok hotel room. He had been bound with a rope slung around the clothes rail in the closet, with one end tied around his neck and the other around his genitals. To this day it is not clear whether he committed suicide or suffered the consequences of extremely unsafe sexual activities. Whatever the case, something horrible had occurred. Dave’s death was a sad and tragic loss. He was a fine actor and a good friend of mine.

BDSM always makes me think of my old buddy Jack Ryan. In 1975, Jack became the sixth of Hungarian celebrity and movie star Zsa Zsa Gabor’s nine husbands. I had known Zsa Zsa for years, witnessing her weave her way in and out of countless relationships and marriages. Jack was one of her more interesting catches. It was sex that brought him and me together in the late fifties. Jack was totally addicted to carnal pleasures with women. I had arranged innumerable tricks with young ladies for him. When we first met he struck me as being the sort of guy who really wasn’t wired for sex, but I was dead wrong about that. Jack, a graduate of Yale University, held over a thousand engineering and design patents around the world. As an engineer with the Raytheon Corporation he worked on the design of missile defense systems, including the Hawk and Sparrow programs. He was brilliant at coming up with new ideas and was eventually recruited as head of research and development with the Mattel toy company in Los Angeles. There he designed over thirty best-selling toys, including perennial favorites like the Chatty Cathy talking doll, Hot Wheels, and the ever-popular and beloved toy of all toys, the Barbie doll.

Shattering my original perception of Jack as a sexual wimp, Barbie was the product of Jack’s rich and fertile mind, a mind that was often preoccupied with sex and the mystique of the female form. As time went by I learned that Jack was addicted to women. He loved to tease them, surprise them, excite them, get them all aquiver. And then he would strike. Once the actual sexual activity began Jack would treat his ladies to an experience unlike anything they had ever known. He knew how to pamper and please in ways that most men cannot even imagine.

Jack had a magnificent home in Bel Air. He liked his ladies young, slim, and attractive, and he preferred them to be endowed with really big boobs. He often called me up to arrange a hot date for him, usually at his home. I used to send a young lady over to him by cab or take her to his mansion myself. One evening I took an absolutely gorgeous young large-bosomed brunette over to his place for dinner. I can no longer recall her name but I think it was either Faye or Felicité or something like that. She was a very sweet, good-natured young thing. We pulled into the courtyard outside his property and I waited in the car while she sexily swayed her behind as she walked up to the front door. Without ringing the bell she just stood there, staring at something attached to the door. About thirty seconds later she turned around and gazed at me. What was amiss? I immediately got out of the car and joined her on the porch.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This,” she said, pointing to a little handwritten note taped to the door.

“Come right in,” it said. “Follow the candles.”

We looked at each other. I motioned to her to open the door and go inside but she shook her head. She was nervous, so I turned the door handle myself. The door immediately swung open while somewhere overhead a speaker relayed, “Come right in.”

It was John’s recorded voice. He delivered the message in a deep, sexy, singsong manner. As an inventor John was always rigging up things like that. He was a wizard when it came to electronics and gadgets.

The young lady and I entered the hallway. Immediately we were overcome by the overwhelming aroma of burning incense. As we rounded the corner from the dimly lit hallway into a long passage that led to the far side of the house we were greeted by a strange sight. Dozens of little votive glass jars with candles burning inside them were set along the floor on either side of the passageway. It was like a fairyland. We quizzically looked at each other, shrugged, and continued down the passage. Whatever was going on, someone had to be here. We slowly walked all the way down toward the first bedroom, from which emanated soft, romantic music.
Okay,
I thought. This is where I leave. Obviously, Jack has planned all this and is waiting for his date in the bedroom, possibly even in his large, king-sized bed. I motioned to my young charge that I was going to leave but she shook her head. She was adamant that I stay with her.