Bowles was good friends with Christopher Isherwood and later also of Isherwood's life partner, Don Bachardy. Isherwood was so enamored of Bowles, that he choose the name Sally Bowles for his seminal works "Sally Bowles" (1937), "Goodbye to Berlin" (1939), and "The Berlin Stories" (1945; later reissued as "The Berlin of Sally Bowles" (1975)) which were the basis of the 1972 classic film, Cabaret (1972).
Bowles was a member of the literary and artistic circle of Gertrude Stein, who also suggested to Bowles that he visit Morocco.