In case you just tuned in, I’m doing a little fact-checking as I go through Scotty Bowers’ “Full Service.” This will be fairly tedious except to a research drudge.

I’m sure you’re thinking: “Part 20 and you’re still on Pages 3-4? St. Bonaventure moved faster than this when he was writing his commentaries on Ecclesiastes!” On the other hand, I doubt that Ecclesiastes made St. Bonaventure’s head explode. (Oh dear, he may have been poisoned. How awkward.)

A friend – and respected researcher – who has been following my dissection of Scotty Bowers’ book sends along a bit of information about our current subject, Jacob/Jack/Jacques Potts, who purportedly joined Walter Pidgeon in Bowers’ first Hollywood tryst at a Benedict Canyon home in 1946.

Fact-Checking “Full Service”: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19

My friend notes that according to 1930 U.S. census data for Chicago,  Jacob S. Potts was a retail merchant in women’s wear, born “abt 1876” in Pennsylvania to parents from Germany. His wife, Effie H. Potts, 52, listed her profession as “sales director women’s wear.” They lived at 545 E. Ohio St.

Remember that I said Walter Pidgeon would have been 48 in 1946…

And if this the Jacob/Jack/Jacques Potts in question, at the time of the tryst with Bowers, he would have been about … 70.

Let’s compare this to what Bowers says:

Pidge and Potts were two very nice, sweet, highly likeable guys. They were both smart, well groomed, and very rich. Their manners were impeccable. Neither of them exhibited even a hint of effeminate behavior. They were both in remarkably good shape, too, especially when you consider their ages. Walter Pidgeon must have been at least fifty at the time. Potts could have been a bit older.

Pidgeon (age 46) “at least fifty.”

Potts (age 70) “could have been a bit older.”

A 24-year age difference is “a bit older?” Really?

This is what we have so far: In 1946, in the days before cars had air conditioning, Walter Pidgeon is motoring around Hollywood on a miserably hot day with the windows in his car rolled up? Pidgeon – a prominent movie star and board member of the Screen Actors Guild — picks up a total stranger at a gas station for some gay sex, offering to pay $20 ($233.50 USD 2012)?

He and Bowers head up Benedict Canyon Drive to a house, allegedly across the street from Harold Lloyd’s estate – which is actually 0.2 of a mile away? He has a three-way with a guy who is 70?

At least Ecclesiastes doesn’t make my head explode – it’s just depressing.