With Hollywood now available on Netflix, no doubt some viewers will have questions about what really happened during the so-called Golden Age. The series mixes fact and fiction, blending real-life figures like Rock Hudson and Hattie McDaniel with fictionalized characters. In one twist that might shock a certain corner of the audience, director George Cukor hosts gay sex parties at his mansion. Even more shocking: they actually happened.
Cukor, the Oscar-winning director behind classic films such as A Star is Born, The Philidelphia Story and My Fair Lady, made no secret of his sexuality throughout his moviemaking days. Cukor became known for his wild and distinguished parties, hosting Hollywood’s brightest on Friday nights, and a more sordid crowd on Sundays.
Related: WATCH: Darren Criss, Laura Harrier & Samara Weaving on giving ‘Hollywood’ the Hollywood treatment
Biographer Patrick McGilligan detailed Cukor’s social life in his book George Cukor: A Double Life. In it, friends and associates dish on Cukor’s parties…and just what to expect depending on the night.
“He liked distinguished, famous people,” actress Kitty Carlisle told McGilligan. “And you always expected good food. You accepted his invitations with alacrity because he made everyone feel important. He made everyone feel as though they were the most welcome guest.”
McGililgan also details how, on Sundays, Cukor would host all-male pool parties in which gay and bisexual men could meet, mingle and hook up. As Hollywood depicts, guests would include closeted celebrities like Rock Hudson and his sadistic manager, Henry Wilson.
Miraculously, law enforcement generally left Cukor and his parties alone, though he was once arrested on vice charges. MGM studio bosses managed to conceal the infraction, and Cukor enjoyed a prestigious, thriving career until his death at 82 in 1983.
Woteva
Read SCOTTY BOWERS autobiography – he attended several of Cukor’s parties and provided some of the guests through his ‘little black book’ side business which functioned from the gas station he worked at in Hollywood near the big studios. Scotty’s ‘business’ is a thread that runs through the entire Netflix Hollywood series that aired May 1st 2020.
Troysky
@Woteva …true!….that was a very spicy (gay/bisexual) book. Not exactly beautifully composed, but dishy, bigtime from that era… I read it a few years ago. So fascinating…..I mostly remember how I believe it was Vivian Lee who was strangely disturbed & yet also an intense nymphomaniac more than any other human being Scotty encountered. It was almost cartoonish, and even Bowers didn’t understand why, if i recall.
sunshinerevans55
This is the best and most financially rewarding job I’ve ever had. I actually started this few Weeks ago and almost immediately started to bring home minimum 74BUCKS p/h. I use details from this webpage…? 6.gp/a72HQ
Man About Town
I read Scotty Bowers’ autobiography and it was torture getting through it, because I kept thinking about what Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman: “Every word she says is a lie, including ‘a’ and ‘the'”
In other words, the book is filled with apocryphal stories that defy even the most open-minded sense of plausibility.
Cam
@Man About Town
Every time somebody mentions this book there is always some intern from an aging old Hollywood fan that keeps saying the book is full of lies.
Interesting then that not only was the guy left a house by one of the people in the book, but none of the studios, or families of the people mentioned have sued.
But you keep doing you.
contrary1
You should also check out the documentary based on the book – it’s called Scotty & the Secret History of Hollywood and a very interesting doc with interviews of a lot of the people that worked for him. The Netflix Hollywood takes quite a few liberties, but a fun watch.
Jerry
Full Service is on Kindle but I’m happy that I found it at my library ebook selection. It’ll be even better, free. I always forget about the ebooks and zines via the library.
fur_hunter
Jerry….Since you read, you might consider reading some of my works. I have 3 novels in print so far. BUT…..if you would like to save your money for the books and shipping on Amazon, send me an email and I can send you all 12 novels, 13 short stories and 1 commentary and you can read them at your leisure. I will separate the email as I’m not sure they will print it here if complete. Just take out the spaces and replace the at and the dot.
fur hunter1 at ya hoo dot com
Two Portraits in Oil just got published in March. I write under the name: E. Thornton Goode, Jr.
Hope you are being careful and safe with this virus going around. Stay well.
LamarTrotsky
John Rechy’s book “City of Night” is also worth a read. He went to pool parties and included a character based on Cukor in the book. It’s a good read and includes the trashy goings on in the Hollywood sexual underground. A gay classic. Arthur Laurents also talks about Cukor and his rent boys in his memoir “Original Story.”
fur_hunter
Lamar, check out the message I wrote to Jerry. You might be interested.
Kangol2
I love John Rechy’s work. I remember reading City of Night in my 20s and being fascinated by the world he depicts, his characters, and his biography. In addition to the character based on Cukor, he also fictionalizes the Cooper Donuts uprising in LA, which occurred a decade before Stonewall. I also like his novels Numbers and Rushes. I do want to check out his two most recent novels. I also love that he’s still writing and publishing at 89.
Chrisk
I was in my early twenties when I first read John Rechy. To me it felt like a how to book on being gay at the time. City of the Night was beautifully written. Then the Sexual Outlaw, Numbers and Rush which at times felt more like porn but also great literature.
This was right at the time I moved to LA and it was weird because it pretty much was the end of that era in Rechy’s world but you could still see it. Would’ve been the late 80s. To me it was like reading about Disneyland as a kid and one day finally getting to visit it.
Allot of his subject material came from prostitution, cruising parks, bars. He an escort himself for many years.
Rock-N-RollHS
Maybe this is news to the unread and those just emerging from their safe spaces, but there is both a good PBS American Masters documentary and Patrick Milligan biography on Cukor. His blow job casting of the very hot but straight Adlo Ray (as Ray told it) also probably send some gay church lady skirts flipping here. I would have blown Adlo too!
pscheck2
I’m old enough to have seen Aldo Ray in movies where he was always shown stripped down to his belt line! He was built like a Fullback, but had a rugged handsome face (not a pretty boy!). I wasn’t sure what I was at that time, but in retrospect, the vibes I got whenever he was in a scene could be interpreted, today, as a FOD! Just read his bio. and from what I read, he was one self-contained individual who knew who he was and would not let anyone or any situation interfere with that persona! Interesting, at the end of his career when he was just eking out an existence (he lost it all!), he blamed it all on his relationships with women! He implies that if he had to do it all over again, it would be without women! I think his life would make a great movie, because he was a very singular person
tjack47
I think I was in 8th, possibly 9th grade when I read John Rechy’s Sexual Outlaw. I was 13 or 14, I know. Being young and gay, I would sign my name saying I was 21 to get books of interest. I did it on the sly. My folks had no idea what I read. Those were the days.
Joshooeerr
Since Cukor’s parties have been written about extensively in countless Hollywood histories and biographies over several decades, I can’t imagine that there is anyone left to be “shocked” by any of it. Movie fans are far more likely to be shocked by the appalling writing and performances Ryan Murphy offers up in his half-assed, muddle-headed mess of a show. It’s sets out to depict Old Hollywood as shallow, twisted and morally bankrupt, but ends up shining a much brighter light on the great gaping soulless vacuity of Murphy himself. The only fun is in watching good actors (Lupone, Parsons, McDermott, Mantello) trying to make it fly and shockingly bad actors in some hilariously poor impersonations of, among others, Vivien Leigh, Noel Coward, Tallulah Bankhead. Shocking, yes, but not for Cukor’s parties.
chrisbissexwilliams
I agree with your comments about the casting. I was quite enjoying the series until I saw the portrayal of Noel Coward. I’ve been an aficianado of Coward for as long as I can remember. Although there were only fleeting glances of him in “Hollywood”, the casting was completely wrong. Noel was six feet tall, with a dark brown, unmistakeably plummy voice, with perfect enunciation. The actor chosen to play him was about 5 ft. 6 in. with a camp, squeaky voice. How could they get it so wrong?
rocknstan
I couldn’t agree with you more. “Hollywood” is titillation for the straights who can watch such debachery at a safe distance.
Anything resembling authenticity or naturalism is foreign to schlock mesiter Murphy.
I hated to hear GAYUSA remind viewers to view “Hollywood.”
pscheck2
I agree with your assessment of the movie ‘Hollywood’. I think the performance of Jim Parsons as Henry Wilson was fantastic! (That guy can act!). For me, the storyline of this movie was nothing more than social docudrama on racial injustice! It reeked with ‘Political Correctness’ (in attitude, that is) and the actors playing the disenfranchised minions had no chemistry, so their appeal to feel their quest falls flat! It bugs me to be preached to by these social activist’s who have an overinflated altruistic attitude on the social woes of society which must be ‘righted’ by their interpretation of the solution! (BTW: I watch movies to be entertained and not preached to!)
Shirley Some-Mistake
I was more pissed off about the way they hatcheted Dorothy Dandrige’s story in the Camille character.
I realise it’s all historical fiction, and Anna Mae Wong’s story was the only one that was treated with some level of veracity, but yes to miscast in the way they did makes you wonder WTF.
I think the WTF stems from the fact that there was an obvious budget overrun.
Queen Latifa as McDaniel was a waste of a good actress.
It came across as a Lifetime Movie and not a big budget Netflix production (he reportedly signed a 5 year $300million deal only 18 months ago).
As to the Cukor parties, well any gay male with an adult reading age knows about them.
What’s more interesting, to me, is the hidden sexuality that happened with managers, agents, producers etc.
There’s a whole #metoo movement for gay/bisexual men from that era until today that has gone unreported.
I do also wish that film makers would respect the mores and attitudes of the times. You cannot transplant a modern expectation back onto historical characters without totally invalidating their life experience.
Anyway, I thought Hollywood missed the mark in so many ways I’m glad that it’s only a short run series.
All the actors were gorgeous though and it was lovely seeing them again.
rocknstan
Spencer Tracy generally gets overlooked to the extent that he gets to retain his “straight cred.”
Yes, do the research.
rocknstan
Refer to the masterful “Gods and Monsters” instead.
pscheck2
In an indirect way, I became an observer of the ‘pool parties’ that are thrown by the elites of the gay power brokers of Hollywood. This happened in the early 70tees and it involved my then SO. Background: He was the premier hairdresser of Kansas City working for the #1 salon. As such, he had as his clients the actresses who appeared in summer stock plays at the ‘Starlight’ theatre. One of them (forgot her name-but famous) made him her friend and would take him out to dinner when in town. Long story short: when he was in Las Vegas for a hairdresser convention, she was also there doing a show. When the convention ended, she asked Gary (my SO) if he would like to attend a party in Palm Springs given by Allan Carr. He jumped at the chance and described how all the guests were gay and didn’t wear swimming trunks. Most were celebs and young twink wannabe actors. For some reason,(I’m still baffled by this) he hooked up with John Travolta! When he came home, he said: “Quess what?” “John Trovolta just flew me back in his Jet.” W H A T????? If I recall, correctly, I think he said Travolta was going to meet him again but he never did. What I don’t understand Gary was very good-looking, but, in truth, was too fem and had a slight build! What could Travolta see in him even for a one night stand? I’m sure he’s gone now and John is happily married to Kelly Preston, so maybe he saw in Gary a guy who was funny (he was!) and sincere and just enjoyed his company!