Under-age lovers, transvestite tendencies and a porn stash - featuring Joan Crawford: New book exposes secret world of J. Edgar Hoover

Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is the subject of a new book that details his porn habit and rumours that he was a closeted homosexual and transvestite

J. Edgar Hoover assembled the largest collection of pornography in history to meet his insatiable sexual demands, according to a new biography.

The former director of the FBI built up a vast stock of adult films made by Hollywood stars before they were famous which he watched for his own titillation - or to blackmail them.

They included one starring a very young Frank Sinatra made in 1934 he shot when he was a penniless wannabe actor slumming it in New York.

Hoover was also partial to ‘classically erotic lithographs’ depicting men with giant phalluses or full frontal nudes which he hung on his bathroom walls

Among the book’s other revelations are that Hoover and one of his close friends both had sex with a male suspect caught by the FBI - before letting him go and making his case disappear.

Hoover has long been the subject of speculation about his private life, in particular that he was a transvestite and enjoyed a gay relationship with his close friend and FBI associate director Clyde Tolson.

Last year saw the release of the Clint Eastwood biopic ‘J. Edgar’ starring Leonard Di Caprio, although it avoided the question of whether he was even gay.

The new book by contrast goes much further and delves into the most sordid details of the man who did more to shape the morality of America than any other person.

In 'J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson: Investigating the Sexual Secrets of America's Most Famous Men and Women', author Darwin Porter writes that Hoover built up what was considered the biggest porn collection in history.

Quite the collection: Hoover had early pornographic films featuring Joan Crawford and Frank Sinatra



Heart throbs: Hoover had nude photos of actors Tony Curtis and Warren Beatty (when he was a teen)



The material was culled from FBI raids and taken by Hoover for his own personal enjoyment. It was especially controversial because at the time pornography was illegal.

In an interview with MailOnline, Porter said: ‘Hoover was especially interested in collecting copies of ‘blue movies’ made by movie stars before they became famous, Joan Crawford being among the most famous instances of this.

Spilling the beans: the new book has salacious details about many Hollywood stars

‘Hoover was said to have obtained a pirated copy of The Masked Bandit: He Robs P****, a ‘blue movie’ made by a very young Frank Sinatra (the film’s ‘masked bandit’) in 1934.

‘Sinatra shot this movie when he was down and out on the streets of Manhattan. His parents had kicked him out of their house for not pursuing a regular job.’

Porter added that Hoover was ‘mostly interested in nudes of famous people’ and would not just look at any old porn.

Of particular interest were frontal nudes of male celebrities including Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, a teenage Warren Beatty, Elvis Presley, Charlton Heston and James Dean.

Porter said: ‘It was widely reported that the gun molls of gangster John Dillinger defined his endowment as ‘the eighth wonder of the world.’

‘When Dillinger was slain by the FBI, Hoover ordered an agent to take a nude picture of him as his dead body lay on a marble slab in a mortuary.’

In Porter’s book, Hoover is portrayed as clamping down on the sexual behaviour of an entire country whilst at the same time allowing himself free reign to conduct himself as he pleased.

In one episode in 1947 his friend Guy Hotell, a Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, brought in a 17-year-old suspected of robbery for questioning.

Hotell had him released into his custody and flew him to a hotel in Miami where Hoover was on vacation and they both had sex with him before buying the teenager a plane ticket home and dropping the case.

Lovers? Leonardo Di Caprio (right) played Hoover in the film J. Edgar, while Armie Hammer played his rumoured lover Clyde Tolson, and while they do not consummate their relationship in the film, it is hinted at heavily



The book also details how in the 1930s Hoover used male prostitutes whilst on holiday in Havana at a notorious brothel known as 'Cocktail' whilst disguised in a fake moustache, hat pulled down and dark glasses so nobody would recognise him.

In his later years Hoover also became obsessed with a bizarre that he could end WW2 by himself flying to Germany and arresting Hitler or gunning him down if he resisted.