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Synopsis

"Scotty Bowers’s memoir is a jaw-dropping firsthand account of closeted life in Hollywood during the ’40s and ’50s. The wholesome image of the postwar American family was acted, written, directed, and designed by people for whom such a life was never possible and Bowers writes about their pain and brilliance with the childlike wonder of Chauncey Gardiner. Turner Classic Movies will never quite look the same."

—Griffin Dunne, actor/director

Newly discharged from the marines after World War II, Scotty Bowers arrived in Hollywood in 1946. Young, charismatic, and strikingly handsome, he quickly caught the eye of many of the town’s stars and starlets. Scotty’s attitude to sex and sexuality were far ahead of his time; in a moralistic age, he was game for anything and equally happy to jump into bed with men or women. Scotty’s desire to see his new showbiz acquaintances sexually fulfilled led to his fixing them up with his coterie of young, attractive, and sexually free-spirited friends. Working out of a gas station centrally placed on Hollywood Boulevard, Scotty soon became the go-to guy for anyone looking for a bespoke sexual partner.

In his thirty years tricking and arranging tricks for LA’s rich and famous, Scotty went to bed with thousands of people and arranged sexual liaisons for countless more. His own sexual partners included Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant, and the abdicated King of England Edward VIII, and he arranged tricks or otherwise crossed paths with Tennessee Williams, Charles Laughton, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, Noël Coward, Mae West, James Dean, Rock Hudson, and J. Edgar Hoover, to name but a few.

Written with great flair, Full Service gives the reader a glimpse into an all-but-forgotten era before AIDS and before gay liberation, showing how the roots of the sexual revolution are to be found in the liberal LA of the swinging 40s and 50s. It is a compelling, fast-moving, and revelation-filled testament to a bygone era and to a man who provided sex, support, and affection to countless people.