It was through my newly acquired friend Albert that I met Peter Bull, a British actor who divided his time between London and Los Angeles. Peter was in his late thirties and the son of Sir William Bull, British member of Parliament for the constituency of South Hammersmith. Peter had gone to the esteemed all-boys boarding school, Winchester College, and was the product of a classic English public school education. He took a liking to me and we often had sex together. To say that he was eccentric would be an understatement, but he was an absolutely charming man. At the time I met him he had appeared in films such as Oliver Twist, Contraband, and Saraband for Dead Lovers, and he was preparing to return to England to shoot scenes for a film that would become a true classic. It was The African Queen, to be directed by John Huston. In it Peter would appear as an officer on board the German gunboat Louisa that was sunk by a makeshift torpedo cobbled together on board the boat African Queen by the story’s two leads, played by Humphrey Bogart and my good friend Kate Hepburn. Peter was a lot of fun to be with. He had a marvelously dry sense of humor and the biggest teddy bear collection that I had ever seen. He always traveled with a portion of it. He would ultimately write the definitive book on the subject, Bear with Me. Whenever we had sex together we would first have to clear his large double bed of soft, cuddly bears and carefully stash them on shelves and along the skirting board of the floor. He adored those bears as though they were his own children. If you wanted to make Peter happy all you had to do was buy him another teddy bear and he was in heaven.
I was gathering a plethora of really high-class British friends. One Sunday when I was over at George Cukor’s home for brunch I was introduced to a writer-director named Brian Desmond Hurst. Brian was about sixty years old at the time and was best known for the 1939 production The Lion Has Wings. It was one of the first and finest of the propaganda films that came out of England to boost British morale as World War II got underway. Brian was a literate and articulate man who was also responsible for directing Dangerous Exile and The Mark of Cain. In 1951 he would go on to direct Scrooge, which starred Peter Bull. It wasn’t long before I was tricking Brian, too, and, needless to say, sending other young men from the gas station crowd over to him whenever he requested it. He was a bit conservative but he would never say no to watching two guys having sex together and then gently easing himself into the action.
George Cukor was also responsible for connecting me with one of the most talented and respected people who had ever come over from England to work in Hollywood: the renowned photographer and costume designer Cecil Beaton. When I met him he was one of the top portrait and fashion photographers in the world, dividing his time between Vogue magazine’s London, Paris, and New York offices. He was originally lured to Hollywood to photograph movie stars, and infused all his portraits with his unique touch. His camera captured not only the beauty and glamour of female stars and the rugged handsomeness of male actors, but also made their personalities shine through. He was brilliant at capturing people and the hidden something behind them that made them tick. He was able to do this with members of the British royal family, too. His images provided a window into their very persona. Beaton loved working in Hollywood but he wasn’t always that easy to get along with. He was fastidious, arrogant, and never hesitated to say what he really thought or felt about people. He had an intense dislike of Katharine Hepburn. I was shocked at his forthrightness as we sat around the pool of George Cukor’s home late one afternoon. George was going on about Kate’s haughty attitude regarding her makeup when Beaton chirped in with his own take on the woman.
“Oh, forget about it, George. I don’t know why you bother with someone whose skin is as scaly as a dead crocodile. Nothing could ever enliven it or make her look beautiful.”
Although Kate did have poor skin I thought that was a rather cruel remark from Cecil. But his scathing comments extended to British royalty, too. When someone asked him just after the war how Queen Elizabeth, mother of the present Queen Elizabeth II, could influence feminine fashion by setting an example, he dryly commented, “The best thing she should do to influence fashion? Oh, very simple, darling. She should just stay at home and never be seen.”
In addition to being one of the world’s leading photographers, Cecil was also a consummate costume designer, turning his talents to Broadway and the London stage. He was quite a handful. You could be easily bruised by his searing criticism. Fortunately, he took a shining to me and we saw a lot of one another. He was fairly prudish and shy when it came to sex but he did seem to shed some of his really stiff British inhibitions with me. He would eventually take me into his confidence and sometimes behaved like a spoiled child, telling me how the world didn’t understand him. He was often painfully prissy. Whenever he had tea, the tea and milk had to be poured in the correct order. Exactly one lump of sugar had to be dropped into the cup at a precise time and in only a very certain way. He was an absolute stickler for details. He always eyed things from an artistic standpoint. He would get into my car and finger the seats and the upholstery or the dashboard and say, “You really ought to make this brown, you know. This color is all wrong.” Or he would look at me very carefully before being seen in public with me, examine my coat or shirt and then pass judgment, saying something like, “This is all wrong, you know. It should really be gray.” Or yellow, or blue, or whatever. Nothing was ever right. Before having sex, Cecil would carefully draw back the bed sheets, neatly and tightly fold the overhang under the mattress, tuck in all loose ends, then straighten out any creases. He would have driven some people crazy but I happily tolerated his obsession for detail and, as a result, we got along fine.
The most difficult period that I experienced with Cecil was many years later, in 1964, when he was working as the production designer, art director, and costume designer on the Warner Bros. production of the musical, My Fair Lady. George Cukor was the director. Even though George and Cecil had been close friends—and perhaps even lovers—for years, they occasionally got into the most unholy arguments and fights, usually over trivial matters such as how much Audrey Hepburn’s hat ought to be tilted on her head in the Ascot race sequence, or whether Rex Harrison’s buttonhole was sufficiently visible, or whether Wilfrid Hyde-White should be wearing a smoking jacket or a dinner jacket in a scene. Apparently they even argued about how much makeup needed to be applied to Stanley Holloway to make him appear a little more dirty and street-worn in the scene where Professor Higgins comes to bargain with him about keeping his daughter Eliza at his home in order to train her in the better usage of the English tongue.
The film was a mammoth, expensive, and challenging production. It was shot entirely on the Warner Bros. soundstages in Burbank. It is not surprising that tempers occasionally flared or that the patience and tenacity of the key creative personnel were taxed. But when George and Cecil got into an argument it was usually blown out of all proportion and brought filming to a standstill. Many times it ended with Cecil storming off the set and having his driver take him back to his private bungalow on the grounds of the Hotel Bel-Air to sulk. That’s when George would call me.
“Scotty,” he would say, “the goddamned queen has walked off the set again. I need her back here by tomorrow but she won’t listen to reason. Please go out there, make nice, help her to simmer down, and make sure she makes tomorrow’s call time. Okay?”
“Of course, George,” I’d say. “Don’t worry. I’ll see what I can do.”
I would have to go through the rigmarole of getting Mac to take over for me while I drove out to the Hotel Bel-Air to try to placate Cecil. I would spend the entire night with him while he ranted and raved about how cruel and uncompromising George was. He would hug me tightly and cry on my shoulder, sniffing for hours. Meanwhile, I would gently undress him, make tea for him, climb into bed with him, give him a massage, soothe his brow, and ease us into a long, slow night of gentle sex until he fell asleep like a baby. In the morning I would wake him up, conjure up a white lie by telling him that Geor
ge had called and was deeply repentant about hurting his feelings, and then make sure that his driver got him back to the studio lot in time for his call. Sometimes, if he was reluctant to face George, I would drive him out to the studio myself. The conflagrations between those two extremely individual, hardheaded, and obstinate personalities occurred at least a dozen times during the filming of My Fair Lady, but having me spend the night with Cecil always seemed to help quell their fighting. What a volatile Madonna he was, but I was very fond of him.
14
A Royal Affair
One day Cecil told me that two very important British royal visitors were due to come to town for a short stay. He said they were none other the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, both close friends of his. He confided in me that he was especially close to the duke. Now you have to remember that this couple were more famous in their day than the so-called Camelot couple, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his bride Jacqueline Kennedy, were decades later.
In the midthirties the story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had taken the entire world by storm. It was the stuff of legend. It was also touted by the international press as the romance of the century. Remember that at that time the British Empire was still at its height. Enormous swathes of the earth were under British rule. Innumerable nations were British colonies within the Empire, but there were dominions and protectorates and independent countries all over the world that also owed allegiance to Britain and who regarded the British monarch as head of state. George V was their emperor and king. His wife was the beloved Queen Mary and the couple had five sons and a daughter. The eldest son would become king when his father died. Edward, the Prince of Wales, was that son.
Edward reputedly had a number of romantic flings but in June 1931, at the age of thirty-six, he attended a party at which he was introduced to a charismatic and sophisticated American socialite by the name of Wallis Simpson. As the legend goes, it was instant chemistry; love at first sight. But there was a problem. She was still married. To a second husband, no less. And, to top it off, she was American. This made the royal affair scandalous. Future kings do not have affairs with divorcées, let alone entertain notions of marrying them. His parents, the entire royal family, the government, and a large proportion of the British population were dead set against Edward’s love for Mrs. Simpson. For years the press in England, the rest of the Empire, Europe, and America kept the story of the royal romance alive.
When King George V died in 1936 it was Edward the Prince of Wales who automatically took over the duties of king and it was in that capacity that he served his nation for a full year. By then Wallis Simpson had divorced her second husband and the couple planned to marry. This generated an even greater outcry. Although he was acting monarch and referred to by his loyal subjects as Your Majesty, no coronation had yet taken place, and a man is not officially the head of state until he is crowned king. Everything was put on hold until Edward renounced his desire to marry his beloved, twice-divorced commoner and foreigner.
It was a crisis that swept the British nation like wildfire. But Edward was resolute. Said to be heartbroken that he would not be permitted to marry Wallis Simpson, he was left with few options. He reluctantly made the decision to renounce the throne. In short, to abdicate. On December 11, 1936, he broadcast an impassioned speech to the nation and Empire announcing his abdication and marital intentions. Suddenly public sympathy poured out to him but it was too late. His younger brother Albert took his place and was crowned with the name King George VI.
After his younger brother took the throne Edward himself receded into the shadows. He was given the title Duke of Windsor and he married Wallis Simpson in 1937 in a small private ceremony in France. She was bestowed with the title Duchess of Windsor but was never accorded the right to be referred to as Your Royal Highness. That was a form of address strictly reserved for Edward. Relations between the couple and the royal family were strained and difficult. Because Wallis Simpson was denied a royal title and was always regarded as an outsider, the couple moved to Paris. In 1940 Edward’s brother, the king, supported by Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, appointed him as Governor of the Bahamas, where he and Wallis spent five years. It was a relatively unimportant and low-ranking position as far as royal duties go, but Edward and his bride were happy there. In time, they also socialized with the upper classes of Paris and the French Riviera, spending their time partying, shopping, dining, and generally enjoying life.
They visited the United States many times. I cannot remember the exact year—it must have been during the late forties or early fifties—but when Cecil Beaton told me that they were going to be visiting Los Angeles and were to stay at our mutual friend Albert Brown’s home in the Pacific Palisades I looked forward to meeting the couple. Then Cecil came out with a bombshell. He told me that the Duke’s sexual inclinations leaned not only toward his beloved Wallis Simpson, but to men. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard that. This was the romance of the century, for crying out loud. And now I’m told that the guy is gay!
I could hardly believe it. But Cecil had more to say. He said that Edward—the duke—was a classic example of a bisexual man. He was equally drawn to the delights found in both a heterosexual and a homosexual world. According to him, the whole myth of the great royal romance was a fabrication, a giant cover-up by the royal family and the British government to conceal the truth about Edward’s sexual preferences. A king could not possibly get away with living the kind of lifestyle as that favored by Edward. It would have stifled him. Apparently Wallis Simpson shared similar bisexual urges. Because of that she was the ideal candidate to become Edward’s wife. Although she was portrayed as the great love of his life and the person behind his reason for abdicating from the British throne she was in actual fact the perfect partner to share his double life with him. He liked boys. She liked girls. Occasionally they even had sex with each other but, essentially, he was gay and she was a dyke. What better way to save face and ensure that they would have the freedom to live their lives in peace and out of the public spotlight than to marry one another?
Frankly, I cared not one iota whether they were gay, straight, or bi. And I cared even less about the controversy surrounding their marriage or, indeed, why they even married at all. What business was it of mine? And who cared a rat’s ass whether they preferred men or women outside their marriage? If that’s what made them happy, what else mattered?
One day Albert called me and invited me over to his home in the Palisades.
“They’re here, Ducks,” he said, “and they’re dying to meet you.”
On the following Saturday my aging Plymouth coughed its way up to the Pacific Palisades. A butler welcomed me at the door and showed me into the library, where Albert and two of my other British friends, actor Peter Bull and director Brian Desmond Hurst, plus a couple of other people I didn’t know, were chatting with none other than Edward the Duke of Windsor and Wallis the Duchess of Windsor. It was quite a gathering of the aristocracy. Apart from the duchess I think I was the only American there! But before I could even begin to feel out of place Albert beamed at me and called out, “Ah, here he is! Do come in, Scotty!”
The very first person to grab my hand and shake it warmly was the duke himself. I wasn’t sure what to call him. He must have sensed that because he smiled and said, “Please, call me Edward.”
“Hi Eddy,” I said. I’ve always had a habit of shortening people’s names to catchy nicknames. Why should Edward be different, ex-king or not? Fortunately, he didn’t seem the least bit offended by my informality and then introduced me to his wife, who he referred to as Wally. So that’s what I called her, too.
With the ice broken we all began to get to know one another. There were no pretentious charades or aloofness in their behavior toward me whatsoever. Edward gently pulled me aside and said, “You know, Scotty, a lot of people have told me about you, long before Wally and I came to California. Albert, Peter, Brian, and Cecil all said t
hat I ought to look you up when we got here.”
He was referring of course to our mutual friends, his host Arthur Brown, as well as Peter Bull, Brian Desmond Hurst, and Cecil Beaton. He went on to tell me how highly they had all spoken of me to him in London and how much he had been looking forward to meeting me. It was obvious that his relationship with those four men transcended mere platonic friendship. This became patently clear less than twenty minutes later when he and I slipped into the guesthouse at the bottom end of the large garden, stripped off, and began making out. Eddy was good. Really good. He sucked me off like a pro.
I spent about an hour and a half at Albert’s place that afternoon and did not leave until Wally explained exactly what sort of young lady she wished me to send over for her. Over the next few days I would send up a nice young guy for Eddy and a pretty, dark-haired girl for Wally. Each time I sent somebody different. The royal couple enjoyed variety and, to be frank, I never told the kids I sent over what their real identities were. Besides, most of the guys and gals were too young to remember the great scandal of the thirties. In all the years when they visited California and I arranged tricks for them no one ever really knew who they were. Even though I became a very busy man in later years, I often tricked Eddy myself. We became good friends and were very attached to one another.
After I’d left the gas station and my bartending days really began in earnest, I would get to know many of the top hotel managers, restaurateurs, and chefs in town. One of them was a guy named Hathaway who, for a time, was the manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel. I once got Hathaway to set aside one of the more plush garden bungalows of the hotel for Eddy and Wally without revealing their true identities to him. While they were there it was easy for me to bring over a bunch of new young people for them. We would have a mixture of half a dozen males and females engage in a display of gay and straight sex in the bungalow and then Eddy, Wally, and I would each pair off with the one we fancied most. Eddy liked a three-way with a girl, too, now and again, and occasionally he wanted a woman only, and there were indeed occasions when he got involved in a three-way with Wally and another woman. But his preference was definitely for the boys.
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