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In fact, Ernie's behavior in Hollywood runs much more in line with conventional wisdom about the degradation and humiliation of sex work and the darkness of the Hollywood closet.Īs Tyrnauer said, there was a perception that, “sex work is exploitive and there’s coercion and fear, and was just not that. This aggression is a much darker portrayal than anything Tyrnauer found with Bowers’ workers, though Bowers did reportedly arrange an orgy for the real life Porter. Otherwise, no money, and you can get the fuck out of here!” “So if you can’t walk into a shed and lend a helping hand to national treasure Cole Porter, you better find me somebody who can. You don’t get to set the terms of your employment here, Jack, I do!” Ernie yells. In a striking scene from the first episode, Ernie tries to force Jack to have sex with Cole Porter, the famed composer. In Murphy's Hollywood, the sex work Ernie is arranging is not quite so voluntary or affirming. That’s not your normal moralistic take on a world of underground sex,” Tyrnauer told us. “The workers and the clients-they all spoke of as the most admirable, unique person they knew, who was all goodness and charm and positivity.
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Viewers get the sense that these men, now in their 90s, worked voluntarily, interested in the money and a good time. Tyrnauer interviewed many of Bowers’ workers for his documentary, all of whom spoke of him admirably, and never mentioned feeling pressured or coerced. He saw himself as more of an arranger, rather than a pimp. As detailed by many individuals who worked for him, Bowers never took a cut of the profits. He soon meets Ernie, who quickly explains the rules of Jack’s employment with a quick, “sometimes you have to service them” double-entendre.Įrnie also outlines his role as a pimp, noting that for each “client,” he takes $100, or 50%, of the cost of the. In the first episode of Hollywood, Jack Castello (David Corenswet) starts working at the Golden Tip, which he thinks is just a gas station. "Frankly," Bowers wrote in his memoir, "I knew Hollywood like no one else knew it." Not Your Average Pimp He garnered even more notoriety due to his friendship with director George Cukor, also featured in Hollywood for his famed parties, rampant with gay affairs.
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According to Bowers, he arranged sexual paramours for Cary Grant (including having sex with with Grant and Spencer Tracy individually, as a threesome, and with "a buddy"), set up Katharine Hepburn with over 150 women, had a three-way with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner at Frank Sinatra’s house, and slept with FBI directer J. His endeavors eventually lead him to a certain Hollywood crowd. Bowers preferred the company of women, but, unlike Hollywood’s Ernie, was not exclusively heterosexual. According to the documentary, Bowers was even interviewed by renowned sexuality scholar Alfred Kinsey (the inventor of the famed Kinsey scale) for being remarkably sexually fluid. Throughout his life Bowers worked odd jobs, including bartending and his own sex work.