Last night I ran into Scotty Bowers, the 92 year-old co-author of “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” which popped in early 2012. (Here’s my review.) It happened at a nearby Whole Foods (Fairfax & Santa Monica Blvd.), and for a guy who will turn 93 in less than two weeks he’s very charming, alert and well-spoken. The only other over-90 fellow I’ve spoken to who has the same classy manner and mental acuity is Norman Lloyd, whom I first interviewed in ’05 and who’s now 101.
Scotty said the book has sold quite well. He mentioned $400K, but with the clatter of the market and having only just met the guy I didn’t press him on whether that was his cut or if worldwide book sales have grossed that amount.
I asked him about Matt Tyrnauer‘s Scotty, a long-in-the-works documentary based on “Full Service” that was reportedly screened for buyers at least year’s Cannes Film Festival. He only said that he’d offered over 100 hours of recollections in front of Tyrnauer’s camera, and that the film was in the home stretch, etc. I said it would be great to see the finished version play at one of the festivals next year.
I told Bowers that I enjoyed the book (the prose was finessed by Lionel Friedberg but the stories are all Scotty’s), but said I had trouble believing that Walter Pidgeon and Spencer Tracy had gay appetites. He only said that they were warm, elegant fellows who sometimes indulged, especially in Tracy’s case after bending the elbow a few times.