Documentary

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Water's End Productions

Wavelength

Altimeter Films

Greenwich Entertainment

United States of America

English

Scotty Bowers

William Mann

David Kuhn

Stephen Fry

Peter Bart

Lois Bowers

Matthew Hoffman

Paul Teetor

Jack Kimberling

Michael Childers

Lee Shook

Robert Hofler

Dian Hanson

Tony Charmoli

Paul LaMastra

Phyllis Bowers

Dale Bowers

Liz Smith

Myke Dodge Weiskopf

Randolph Scott

Laurence Olivier

Ramon Novarro

Orry-Kelly

Vivien Leigh

Elsa Lanchester

Rock Hudson

J. Edgar Hoover

Katharine Hepburn

William Holden

Cary Grant

Whoopi Goldberg

Ava Gardner

Greta Garbo

Tom Ewell

Beach Dickerson

Bette Davis

George Cukor

Joseph I. Breen

Lauren Bacall

Jennifer Aniston

Judith Anderson

Walter Pidgeon

Cole Porter

Elvis Presley

Sherri Shepherd

Spencer Tracy

Lana Turner

Barbara Walters

Edwin B. Willis

Wallis Simpson

Chris Dapkins

Pierre Lagrange

Daniel Morfesis

Graham High

Jonas Kord

Lionel Friedberg

Lynn Pincus

Elliott Sernel

Josh Braun

Alice Bamford

Alison Schnapp

Dustin Bath

Jenifer Westphal

Jane Antonia Cornish

Corey Reeser

Joni Benickes

Jordan Abrams

Troy Benjamin

Bob Eisenhardt

Grant Nellessen

Kendall Hailey

George Pereyra

Dave Chang

Sean McElwee

Kristopher Gee

Dan Bora

Christine Greene Roe

Akemi Abe

Matt Tyrnauer

Jake Abrams

Nicholas Albert

Niles Harrison

Kate Coe

Alex Gootter

Tom Dolby

Samantha Andre

Evan Houston

Timmy Seely

Bill Georgiou

Miles Benickes

Christi Leftwich

Thanasi Andrianos

Nate Thor Odden

Carlos Flood

Peter R. Berg

Lorenzo Castellarin

Ben Forman

Zach Seivers

Philip Welch

Jim Hosney

Jaclyn Lee

“Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood” wears a lot of hats, none of which quite fits. A salacious tell-all about the hidden sex lives of postwar movie stars; a peek at the underbelly of the repressive moral dictates of the studio system; a breezy biography of a self-described Hollywood prostitute and procurer; and a psychosexual study of a possibly damaged victim of extreme childhood abuse.

Only the last offers a clue to interpreting the movie’s more astonishing revelations and unprobed corners. Until then, Matt Tyrnauer’s gossipy portrait of Scotty Bowers, an impish nonagenarian and former Marine, listens without judgment as he describes decades of servicing the closeted hungers of stars like Rock Hudson and Katharine Hepburn, helped by an eager network of World War II buddies. Back then, in a couple of trailers behind a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, $20 could buy just about anything.

Meandering behind Mr. Bowers as he shares faded photographs of extravagantly endowed young men and prurient factoids about his famous “tricks” — cheekily illustrated with scenes from classic movies that read rather differently in hindsight — Mr. Tyrnauer surreptitiously hoses away the layers of dirt to reveal the fragility of his subject’s anything-goes hedonism. Benevolent hustler (he never took a cut of others’ action) or naughty fabulist — perhaps both — Mr. Bowers putters around his hoarded Hollywood Hills home and gazes into the hole in his patio deck as if searching for something lost long ago.

Consequently, what starts out salty ends up as something sadder and more complicated. And when he unabashedly recalls a childhood rife with sexual encounters — which he insists were consensual — with adults, the camera fixes on his mile-wide grin and we wonder if his mission to meet the needs of others has somehow ignored his own.

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood - Official Trailer

Best Movies

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Scotty Bowers

William Mann

David Kuhn

Stephen Fry

Peter Bart

Lois Bowers

Matthew Hoffman

Paul Teetor

Jack Kimberling

Michael Childers

Box office

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