spotlight matt tyrnauer “Eventually, I was sitting with Gore Vidal, he was someone I
was close to as his literary executor,” Tyrnauer recounted. “He sort of blurted out, apropos of nothing, ‘I want to see Scotty!’ I said, ‘Who’s Scotty?’ To which he said, ‘He was my pimp and he used to have a gas station.’ I immediately put it together.” Though this type of source material could definitely come off
as gossip-laden, Tyrnauer took great lengths to not let it go in that particular direction in his retelling of Bowers’ adventures in Hollywood. “I think Scotty’s story is important and I think it could lose its importance in a field of salacious details,” Tyrnauer explained. “I wanted to make sure in the film that everyone understood I think he’s a significant figure and that what he has to say is of importance. Because the subject in part is sex—what the writer Preston Sturges used to refer as ‘Topic A’— it’s easy to get distracted,” he said. “Everyone is interested in sex, whether they are willing to admit it or not. Everyone brings different freighted emotions to the subject of sex and sexuality and especially salacious gossip, which Scotty is a purveyor of. You have to be purposeful and careful when telling the story of someone as complex as Scotty Bowers.” As far as which stars used Bowers’ “services,” Tyrnauer said he
wasn’t as interested in the big names, he was more interested in the “minor figures who are almost forgotten” in Tinsel Town. He cited Director Irving Rapper ofNow, Voyager and the ‘50s TV game show host, Robert Q. Lewis as examples of those he was more intrigued by and had visited the gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. “Not much surprises me in the field of ‘he or she did what to whom,’ maybe ‘he or she did what with whom’ is a better way to put it,” he quipped. “There were people that you just don’t think about, they’re not in the movie, to be honest with you, because people don’t respond or care or want to know about them. But, I do.” “What you see is that people who were kind of like the
furniture of TV and film, that are not the movies stars but the people who are the mainstays or the foundation,” offered Tyrnauer. “That in a way is more interesting to me than hearing details about Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy or Tyrone Power, as there’s no shortage of people on the A-list of immortal stardom that Scotty revealed things about.” He seesScotty and the Secret History of Hollywood as a valuable
learning tool for the younger LGBTQ set and a reminder of how far all of us have come. “There were very few people who were major players in the so-called ‘Golden Age of Hollywood,’ who are still alive and able to tell their stories,” Tyrnauer stated. “Scotty’s story is about a particular aspect of Hollywood, I call it a counter narrative, which gives us something that I think is vitally important. Hollywood was, and is still, a myth-making industrial complex. Scotty was a member of the community who worked in the shadows, because it was necessary to do so then, though he allowed other people to have authentic lives.” “He has a complicated story that’s not one-dimensional,
Tyrnauer continued. “Through the movie I attempted to show the many facets of Scotty and the many complex issues that
confronted gay, lesbian and bisexual stars in a very different period in a very important place. That’s why I wanted to make the movie, because it’s easy for us to forget those times were rough,” he said. “It’s important I think, certainly for younger generations, to have a window into what happened before they came along.”
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood will screen at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday, July 14 at Outfest Los Angeles. It is also scheduled for wider release on Friday, July 27. For more information on the fascinating documentary, go to
altimeterfilms.com.
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RAGE monthly | JULY 2018
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