'Sex Fixer' Scotty Bowers of 'Secret History of Hollywood' Fame Dead at 96

Hollywood "sex fixer" Scotty Bowers - the subject of the 2017 documentary "Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood," which looked at Bowers' long career as a go-to guy for movie stars looking to get discreet same-sex introductions - has died at the age 96, media outlets say.

The documentary, which was directed by Matt Tyrnauer, was preceded by a 2012 memoir authored by Bowers, noted The Hollywood Reporter, which also noted that Bowers operated in a place and time when sex was a much more delicate subject than it is today - and gay sex was, in any case, considered scandalous.

The Hollywood Reporter quoted Tyrnauer as saying that Bowers' life story "forms an astonishing counter-narrative of Hollywood and exposes the mores of the movie capital in a time when gay men and women were forced to be sexual outlaws and were publicly shunned and often persecuted, or at least forced to live double lives."

Bowers was a WWII veteran who came of age during the Great Depression, noted The Hollywood Reporter. After the war, he settled in Los Angeles, where he worked at a gas station. The story has it that a chance encounter with movie star Walter Pidgeon led to a relationship and that, in turn, opened the doors that would enable Bowers to serve Hollywood A-listers as a facilitator for private intimacy for stars living in the glare of public scrutiny.

Bowers was good at discretion - so good that the world remained unaware of the services he had provided until he wrote his bombshell memoirs. The juicy anecdotes he told in the book have been questioned by some, but have more or less become accepted as essentially factual.

Noted The Hollywood Reporter:

Among Bowers' claims: He once hooked up closeted actors Grant and Hudson at the gas station for $20; he arranged more than 100 get-togethers for Hepburn over five decades; he personally slept with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover while the latter was dressed in drag; he organized orgies for composer Cole Porter; and he participated in numerous studies with sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, who was keen to learn more about Bowers' pansexuality.

Though a "fixer," Bowers denied being a procurement professional. Los Angeles Magazine, reporting on Bower' death, had this to say:

While Bowers has been labeled a "pimp" or even "male madame," he insisted that he never accepted cash for his encounters with celebrities or the meetings he facilitated. Rather, he described what he offered as a discrete "introduction service."

Variety reported that Bowers died at home at his Laurel Canyon residence on Oct. 13.