As the effects of age began to redefine her life, Mae began to change. It was disturbing to watch it happen. Slowly, she began to control Paul’s every move, watching him like a hawk. Eventually poor Paul was absolutely miserable. He was always eager to get out and be social. He enjoyed meeting friends his own age, chatting up girls, or having a beer with the guys, but God help him if he stayed out ten minutes longer than he promised. Then, without fail, my phone would ring at home.
“Where’s that man of mine?” Mae would demand of me, or of Betty, if I wasn’t there. “Is he there? What’s he doing?”
If Betty or I denied knowing where he was Mae would merely spit back, “I know he’s out there somewhere. I’m here alone and he’s foolin’ around. I know it and I just can’t stand it. If you see him send him home right away, y’hear?” And then she’d hang up.
Poor Paul. We all felt so sorry for the guy. He was totally denied his freedom. Mae was so much older than he was and there was no more sex between them and yet he had to go home to Momma like a dog with its tail between its legs. He was still a virile, healthy, horny guy, but he had to spend most of his evenings with Mae at home eating TV dinners on a tray while watching boring sitcoms. He became a pathetic, fat slob, and simply wasted away. When dear old Mae died in November 1980 it was too late for Paul to start his own life all over again. By then he was a broken, beaten man.
DURING THE FIFTIES one of the biggest shows on television was the much-beloved I Love Lucy, starring the nation’s sweetheart, Lucille Ball. She played the character Lucy Ricardo, wife of Ricky Ricardo, portrayed by Desi Arnaz. Desi was also the executive producer of the series as well as the real-life husband of Lucille. America adored them. Once the show went into foreign syndication the world grew to love them, too. They were iconic figures, embraced in every living room with a TV set. It became the most successful and instantly recognizable sitcom of all time. Under an initial contract with CBS, the couple started their own production company, Desilu Productions, owning a piece of their show. They also pioneered a new multiple motion picture camera system for shooting the shows on film that became a standard industry practice for sitcoms.
Desi was a hot-blooded Cuban, born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III. He was six years younger than his pretty, redheaded, all-American New York–born wife. I hardly knew Lucille, but Desi and I became great pals. He was a sweetheart of a guy, with a healthy heterosexual appetite. He often called me up for girls, tipping them more generously than anyone else I knew. Instead of handing over the typical $20, which was the going gratuity at that time for a trick, he would often slip a girl as much as $200 or $300. I don’t know where he found the time for all that philandering because he was a very busy man, responsible for churning out a lot of television airtime every week. But Desi saw at least two or three girls every few days. He was a lusty fellow, to say the least. And the girls were crazy for him.
One night at a party where I was bartending, Lucille came striding over to me in a beautiful long evening gown, stopped in front of the bar, glared at me for a second or two, and then . . . Wham! She slapped me in the face and yelled “You! You stop pimping for my husband, y’hear!”
I tried to profess innocence but apparently Lucille was fully aware of Desi’s sexual flings. She claimed that she had been monitoring all of his calls to me and that she was in possession of my phone number.
“I know exactly who you are, mister!,” she yelled. “You’re the infamous Scotty Bowers. Get out and stay out of my husband’s life!”
Desi and the other guests were in shock. No one said a word as Lucille stood there glaring at me, her chin thrust out, her eyes on fire. It was obvious that Lucille knew full well that Desi was heavily into hookers as well as many of my girls from the old gas station crowd. But to this day I’m still not exactly sure why she chose that particular night, and that very awkward moment, to bare her fury with me in full public view. The incident didn’t leave me with any anger toward her. She was right. Nobody ever messed around with Lucille. Her temper equaled her charm.
WHILE I PREFERRED the sexual company of women, my “other” life continued to remain robustly alive and well. A guy I saw a lot of during the fifties was a motion picture, theatrical, and musical publicist in his late forties named Rupert Allan. A brilliant Rhodes scholar and a lieutenant commander in the Navy during the war, Rupert had risen to the top of his profession, representing major movie stars like Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Gina Lollobrigida, Catherine Deneuve, Rock Hudson, Melina Mercouri, Steve McQueen, and one of the most beautiful and popular actresses of all time, Grace Kelly. After Grace was transformed into a fairy-tale princess by marrying Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, Rupert was appointed Monaco’s consul general in Los Angeles.
Even though I tricked him often, the real love of Rupert’s life was a guy of his own age, a motion picture producer by the name of Frank McCarthy. Both men behaved in a totally masculine manner. It was virtually impossible to pick up on the fact that they were gay. Frank was a retired brigadier general who had served as an aide to General George C. Marshall during World War II. Frank and Rupert were lovers, but they respected one another’s space and wanted to maintain their own homes. The best way to do this was to have houses next door to one another, so they each bought a property above Beverly Estates Drive up in the mountains of Beverly Hills. Rupert’s house was a fine single-story place, whereas Frank’s was a more spacious and luxurious two-story home. Through his association with Rupert, Frank knew Princess Grace of Monaco very well. She often visited L.A., especially after she became a mother. She would come over from Monaco with her son, daughter, and a small retinue of aides and they would all stay at Frank’s place. There was a large sparkling pool between the two houses so it was an ideal vacation venue for the Monaco royal family. The fact that the two men had separate homes also made it impossible for the press or the gossip columnists to label them as gay lovers. I tricked each of them, but always separately, never together. Rupert became a bit of a drinker. Eventually, it didn’t take much to get him loaded. Sometimes I would leave after a session of sex with him and quietly sneak past the pool and across the garden to Frank’s house next door for a quickie. During all the years that I did that, the two of them never knew that I was tricking them both.
21
To Each His Own
Living in Hollywood meant that you were never far away from a world of fantasy and make-believe. Whatever else it was, above all this was a town that was built on the solid bedrock of the movie industry. Reality and fiction often blurred, even in the way people lived their lives. There was a wonderful duality about it all, a kind of mixing of personalities, times, eras, events. I found it all very magical. And as I accumulated friends and fellow tricksters who were immersed in the utterly engrossing medium of film I felt especially grateful for their friendship. Many of the people I knew had fascinating stories to tell. If they were actors their lives sometimes mimicked the characters they played on-screen. But most thespians had to dig into the deep recesses of their talents to take on completely new personas when the cameras rolled. It was all rather interesting, especially for a farm boy like me from the Midwest. I found that those who made movies, both in front of and behind the camera, were a pretty fascinating bunch. One of them was my good friend Ramon Novarro.
Born José Ramón Gil Samaniego in 1899, he was the son of a dentist in Durango, Mexico. When he was twelve years old the Mexican Revolution broke out, and five years later it became impossible for the family to safely continue living in the country. Leaving everything behind they fled to the United States as refugees. Starting life all over again they settled in Los Angeles. It was tough for the dark, lanky, good-looking, five foot eight teenager. He had to support himself and tried his hand as a piano teacher and a ballet dancer, but neither worked. He was obliged to turn to waiting tables at a downtown cafeteria. But it wasn’t easy because he wasn’t fluent in English. Ramon was gay, and, because of his good loo
ks, he was spotted by an old queen who took him home and introduced him to the gay world of Hollywood. That totally changed his life.
In 1917 he landed a gig as an extra in the fledgling movie industry. He struggled along for five years until 1922 when he was spotted by the director Rex Ingram and cast in the role of Rupert in The Prisoner of Zenda. Suddenly, new opportunities opened up for him. Audiences loved him. Ingram was the one who recommended that he change his name to Ramon Novarro as his career as a leading man began to blossom. By 1925 female audiences were swooning over him. Audiences went crazy for him in silent films like The Red Lily, A Lover’s Oath, and The Arab. In 1925 Ramon landed the most coveted role in Hollywood as Judah Ben-Hur in the silent version of Ben-Hur. Following that plum role Ramon went on to star in many popular pictures that included The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, The Road to Romance, and Forbidden Hours. When Rudolph Valentino died at the age of thirty-one in 1926, Ramon immediately took his place. After the arrival of the talkies he appeared in movies such as Call of the Flesh, Daybreak, Son of India, Mata Hari, The Barbarian, and The Night is Young. At the peak of his career in the early thirties he was earning upwards of $100,000 per film. He invested his money wisely, especially in property and real estate. The result was that he became a very wealthy man.
Somehow or other our paths crossed during the fifties when Ramon was primarily appearing in episodic television shows. He was a really nice guy, very friendly and outgoing. Though in his fifties, he had not lost his good looks, but he had developed an unfortunate habit of drinking too much. At parties he was always loaded. He would throw back glass after glass of gin and then fall face-first on the floor, Errol Flynn–style. Though still sexually active and very popular in the gay community the heavy drinking caused him to suffer from impotence. Fear of the inability to have an erection is the bane of every man’s life. Just about all males I have ever known have been worried about it happening to them at some time or another. It was a regular affliction with Ramon. Nevertheless, he still loved sex. There was nothing that gave him more pleasure than to perform oral sex on a virile, handsome young man. He could easily suck fifteen guys off, one after the other. He referred to semen as “honey.” He revered it more than anything else. He believed that by swallowing it he would retain his vigor, his strength, his good looks.
“Scotty,” he would call me up and say, “I need some honey. Urgently. Tonight. Help me out and find me a few guys. Please.”
So I would bring five or six young guys over to his house. He was usually so drunk that even if he had seen any of them on a previous occasion he wasn’t able to recognize them. I would sit in his living room reading a magazine or watching television while the young fellows sat around, waiting to be called into Ramon’s bedroom. Summoning them in one by one, behind his closed door he would suck each of them off. Within the space of half an hour he would go through them all and then stumble out and call the first one in again. But young and potent though the young stud may have been, because he had already ejaculated he could not do it again so soon.
Then Ramon would call me in and in a hushed but slurred voice say, “Shit, Scotty, what’s the problem? What’s wrong with that kid? He doesn’t come. Why’d you bring him over?”
“No, Ramon,” I would explain. “There’s nothing wrong with him. The guy can’t come because you’ve already sucked him off, half an hour ago. Remember?”
“Oh, really? Did I?” he would say, staring at me through a dazed and puzzled fog.
It was sad to see Ramon crumble under the destructive effects of alcoholism. Even sadder was his final demise. On the morning of October 30, 1968, his body was discovered by his servant in his North Hollywood home. The police eventually found out that he had been savagely beaten to death by two young male hustlers who had erroneously been informed that he had thousands of dollars in cash stashed away somewhere in the house. He didn’t. There was no money on the property so poor Ramon was murdered in vain. What made it even more tragic was the fact that for months he had been tricking those two guys who murdered him. And—in case you’re wondering—no, I didn’t know them.
ANOTHER FASCINATING MAN that I met during the fifties was that wonderful British actor, Charles Laughton. I think we were introduced at a party where I was working, and I soon began tricking him regularly, as well as arranging for him to see other guys. I also introduced him to my old pal Tyrone Power. Charles became very enamored with Ty and saw him often. Charles was married to the actress Elsa Lanchester who, in addition to many other roles, had played the bride in the campy horror film, The Bride of Frankenstein, in 1935. They had already been married for many years when I met him. I doubt the relationship could ever have been categorized as conventional. Charles, or Chuck as some people called him (much to his dislike), was openly gay. Elsa once told me that although the marriage began with the two of them having sex now and again, things changed as the years rolled by. Gradually, those encounters became more infrequent, so much so that eventually Charles’s sex life was exclusively gay. Yet she never held that against him. I always admired Elsa for her unstinting loyalty toward him. In fact, it was far more than loyalty. I do believe that Elsa loved Charles deeply. She stood by him for more than thirty-three years, from the time of their marriage in 1929 right up until Charles’s death in 1962. She went beyond the call of duty, tolerating his double life without ever questioning it. She was a remarkable lady. She knew full well that I was tricking her husband and arranging liaisons with other young men for him, but whenever she saw me she was always courteous and friendly. She never bore any animosity or ill feeling toward me or anyone else who was having a relationship with Charles. She unflinchingly accepted her husband’s infidelities and double standards. You don’t see that very often in either a wife or a husband.
Perhaps because of Charles’s sexual rejection of her, Elsa had developed a rather odd but quaint predilection. She had a passion for young gay men. She would seduce them by whatever means possible and then call upon her substantial talents to coerce them into having sex with her. The younger ones, who were often more experimental than their older counterparts, were the easiest to win over, and still willing to dabble in heterosexual behavior. She once told me that she loved nothing better than to “conquer” men who had never had sex with a woman before. Even though she knew it was a futile exercise she fantasized about changing them.
Charles was one of the most talented actors of his time. He appeared in his first film, The Tonic, opposite Elsa, in England in 1928. He went on to star in many movies including The Sign of the Cross, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, The Private Life of Henry VIII, Rembrandt, The Canterville Ghost, Witness for the Prosecution, and classics like Hobson’s Choice, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Young Bess. He won an Oscar in 1934 for his performance in The Private Life of Henry VIII. Charles emigrated from England and became an American citizen in 1950. But there was one prickly thing that I always had to be very careful about in front of him. I was never permitted to mention the name of my good friend Laurence Olivier. There was no love lost between those two talented, strong-willed natives from the Sceptered Isle. It wasn’t only professional competition and creative jealousy but also a very deeply rooted personal antagonism stemming from heaven knows where. Larry would never mention Charles, even when others in his company talked about him. Charles, on the other hand, would fly into a rage or withdraw into a deep, dark mood and spout unending cynical remarks about Larry when he heard others talking about him. This clash of personalities would come to a furious peak when the two actors worked together in the 1960 production of Spartacus. That film has gone down in history as one of the finest and most intelligent of the great Hollywood epics about ancient Rome. It was written by the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and directed by the much-lauded Stanley Kubrick.
In their scenes together Charles and Larry often locked horns. They constantly tried to upstage and out-act one another. At many cocktail parties and dinners
during and after filming, the subject of their contest of wills would often be brought up. When Larry was present at these gatherings he would merely shrug, wave his hand in disgust, and dismiss the whole affair as though it did not warrant discussion. Charles, on the other hand, would seize upon the opportunity to belittle Larry whenever he could. If someone brought up the subject around a dinner table he would visibly change expressions, his color would take on a distinctly purple hue, his eyes would glaze over, and he would lean back, take a sip of wine, and hiss like a viper.
Apparently their clashes on the set were extremely volatile, with neither giving in to the other. I heard that Kubrick and producer-actor Kirk Douglas often had to call for a five-minute break in filming as they tried to calm them down.
When it came to sex Charles had some decidedly odd habits. They may seem crude and disgusting but, to me, the dividing line between what many regarded as normal and abnormal had long since disappeared. Who can understand what turns some people on and some off? I had come to realize that I had no right to judge the tastes and preferences of others, no matter how excessive, unusual, or unappetizing they may appear. However, one thing I really had a hard time understanding about Charles was his reticence to wash. He seemed to enjoy being dirty. I distinctly remember him coming to a cocktail party from a shoot one day where he was heavily made up for a character part. He had not bothered to remove his makeup and, when I saw him again four days later at another function, he had still not washed the makeup off.
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