Hollywood Gossip | Cary Grant's favourite pump attendant | The secret life of Scotty Bowers

Big Issue Book column extract:

Former gas pump attendant Scotty Bowers has for decades kept his extraordinary career as the sexual aide de camp to many of Hollywood’s biggest names a secret. Finally, aged 89, he has decided to reveal all.

Lucky for him that every movie star he ever “tricked” is dead?

Which is a shame: I would have enjoyed hearing the response to Scotty’s suggestion that Cary Grant was madly in love with fellow screen legend Randolph Scott (not a new allegation, the claim these two actors shared a house together is relatively little known).

Also, I bet Oprah would have had a field day interviewing the Duke and Duchess of Windsor about the battalions of same sex lovers each took to pass the time of day while they weren’t ruling the British Empire. The Duke – aka the former King Edward VII -- was a “gentle lover” who, Scotty reports delicately, “sucked me off like a pro”.

Don’t get me wrong, there is little in this book that doesn’t ring true – from Tyrone Power’s peccadilloes to Charles Laughton’s eating habits. But at the same time, there isn’t a page of it which doesn’t sound completely made up.

With the exception of a waspish quote on the back cover from the writer Gore Vidal, a longstanding mischief maker himself, Scotty offers no corroboration for any of his stories.

We learn he was just seven years old when a neighbouring paedophile introduced him to sex, but Scotty presents himself not as a victim but as a bedroom adventurer, a generous soul who wanted to give folks a good time. A one man sexual revolution.

This appeared in the Feb 27 issue of The Big Issue. For more Big Issue content go here...