Tell-all bares sex secrets of Hollywood's Golden Age

Scotty Bowers, a former Marine who claims to have run a gay and bisexual prostitution ring for some of Hollywood's biggest names beginning in the 1940s, is about to spill the details in a tell-all book.

Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, George Cukor, Katharine Hepburn and Vivien Leigh are among those named by Bowers, now 88.

"Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars" is to be published on February 14 by Grove Press.

Bowers, who lives in the Hollywood Hills, was interviewed by the New York Times ahead of the release of the book, which was written by Lionel Friedberg.

Bowers, who claims to have plied his trade for nearly three decades, said he has turned down many offers to tell his story over the years.
"I finally said yes because I'm not getting any younger and all of my famous tricks are dead by now," he told the Times. "The truth can't hurt them anymore."

The tales are lurid. Bowers says in the book that he set Hepburn up with "over 150 different women" and recounts the sexual high jinks of Spencer Tracy, Cole Porter, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and publisher Alfred A. Knopf.

Bowers said he got started when he was working at a gas station near Paramount Pictures and actor Walter Pidgeon came in and propositioned him. He accepted, the word spread, and, according to Bowers, a business that flourished until the onset of the AIDS epidemic was born.

Younger readers -- at least those raised in the Internet and TMZ age -- may find nearly as shocking the fact that the stories were squelched by studio publicists and remained largely under wraps back in the day.