 New memoir outs pretty much everyone in 1940s Hollywood. Every year, a raft of Hollywood tell-alls hits the newsstands, all claiming to be filled with juicy revelations, with only a scant few actually delivering on that promise. Scotty Bowers' newly published Tinseltown memoir Full Service seems to fall into the latter group. Bowers was a World War II vet-turned-bartender who arrived in Hollywood in 1946 and quickly found that his striking looks opened doors for him. Those doors allegedly led to the bedrooms of such varied personages as Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Vivien Leigh, and the Duke of Windsor.
Bowers soon became known on the Hollywood fast track as a guy who could arrange trysts for stars too cautious or too shy to manage it themselves, and located sexual partners for Vincent Price, Katherine Hepburn, Rock Hudson and scores of others. Some of his claims are just jawdropping. Among them: he says he procured about 150 women for Katherine Hepburn, had threesomes with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, and learned Spencer Tracy was bi-sexual only when, in a drunken stupor, the star "began nibbling on my foreskin." There's always a degree of scepticism aroused by books like these, but Full Service dovetails with rumors that have been floating around Hollywood for decades, and has been endorsed by Gore Vidal, who claims to have been privvy to much of what Bowers describes and has called the book "as revelation filled as Hollywood Babylon." Predictably, the relatives of some of the stars mentioned in the book are not happy with its content, but Bowers steers clear of any true libel and probably can't be sued. As to why it took him so long to reveal his many secrets, he said in an interview with the New York Times, "I'm not getting any younger and all my famous tricks are dead by now. The truth can't hurt them anymore." 
Los Angeles, Hollywood, Full Service, Scotty Bowers, Cary Grant, Edith Piaf, Katherine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Rock Hudson, Randolph Scott, Vincent Price, Gore Vidal
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1974—Police Raid SLA Headquarters
In the U.S., Los Angeles police raid the headquarters of the revolutionary group the Symbionese Liberation Army, resulting in the deaths of six members. The SLA had gained international notoriety by kidnapping nineteen-year old media heiress Patty Hearst from her Berkeley, California apartment, an act which precipitated her participation in an armed bank robbery. 1978—Charlie Chaplin's Missing Body Is Found
Eleven weeks after it was disinterred and stolen from a grave in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin's corpse is found by police. Two men—Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old Pole, and Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian—are convicted in December of stealing the coffin and trying to extort £400,000 from the Chaplin family. 1918—U.S. Congress Passes the Sedition Act
In the U.S., Congress passes a set of amendments to the Espionage Act called the Sedition Act, which makes "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces, as well as language that causes foreigners to view the American government or its institutions with contempt, an imprisonable offense. The Act specifically applies only during times of war, but later is pushed by politicians as a possible peacetime law, specifically to prevent political uprisings in African-American communities. But the Act is never extended and is repealed entirely in 1920. 1905—Las Vegas Is Founded
Las Vegas, Nevada is founded when 110 acres of barren desert land in what had once been part of Mexico are auctioned off to various buyers. The area sold is located in what later would become the downtown section of the city. From these humble beginnings Vegas becomes the most populous city in Nevada, an internationally renowned resort for gambling, shopping, fine dining and sporting events, as well as a symbol of American excess. Today Las Vegas remains one of the fastest growing municipalities in the United States. 1928—Mickey Mouse Premieres
The animated character Mickey Mouse, along with the female mouse Minnie, premiere in the cartoon Plane Crazy, a short co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. This first cartoon was poorly received, however Mickey would eventually go on to become a smash success, as well as the most recognized symbol of the Disney empire.
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