The stories I only tell my friends
by Rob Lowe
(Bantam Press, R235)
Not just a pretty little face, but someone who can write too. This autobiography makes you glad Rob Lowe did not only tell his stories to his friends, but put them down on paper – eloquently, honestly and entertainingly.
Lowe, as a child actor in Hollywood, went the almost predictable way kids-with-too-much-money-and-fame usually do. But, here’s a strong “but”, fortunately.
Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, the breaking up of his family turned the young Lowe to school-acting for comic relief, loving it right from the start. His handsome, gregarious father left home and he and his brother Chad became weekend kids to him. The new stepfather – a bleeding-heart liberal – moved them to a lesser neighbourhood on the outskirts of town which was difficult to adapt to, but installed political consciousness in the young Rob.
With the security of Midwest surroundings and extended family lost when his mother drove down to Malibu, California in a tattered Volvo, it provided a different counterculture in the mid-Seventies.
The surprise was that her waiting “allergy doctor” was part of the shock. The neuroses of his withdrawing mother contributed to his escaping into other characters, but also helped the start of his career.
His first break came with television’s A New Kind of Family and being cast as one of “The Greasers” in The Outsiders of director Francis Ford Coppola a few years later.
This launched him into the Hollywood-set of famous young-sters. Youngsters who were allowed to drink at 15: “Like with all else on my first movie, I am learning how after hours are done in the big leagues. Work hard on the set, and then play hard at the hotel”.
Stories about other actors and directors make for interesting reading and laughs – he trained himself to look at life with humour.
Lowe worked with Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, was at the Sheens’ house over weekends, became estranged from his family, facing bigger stakes in his life. “Like with so much in my life, I was making it up as I went along,” he sums up as to how he handled whatever came in his direction.
That also included being seduced by an older woman, meeting Roman Polanski in Paris, making friends with Andy Warhol and having numerous romantic interludes, from Nastassja Kinski (co-star in The Hotel New Hampshire) to Princess Stephanie of Monaco.
Rob Lowe’s fortune and fame and being a member of the “Brat Pack” – buying a house at 20, a bevy of girls at his feet, unrestricted partying and clubbing typically of the Eighties – took its toll and soon after he met the love of his life, make-up artist Sheryl, he went into rehab “getting to the bottom of it”. Today, he is “clean” and a devoted family man.
The West Wing was Lowe’s biggest break and the combination of work and politics on the same set (the actual White House). This TV show won more Emmys than any other first-year show in history as well as two Golden Globes and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The cast was invited to the White House on several occasions and Lowe met president Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, turning meetings into a friendship.
The prologue to the book is about his admiration for the young John Kennedy, and ends with “another marvel at the hand of fate” when his usual flight on American Airlines (77) is flown into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Four years later, he is told he is on a list of people to be deposed (by Zacarias Moussaoui) as he was on the dry-run flight 11 days before, with the same hijackers.
Rob Lowe, with his keen eye and ear, has a tale to tell and can at the same time be admired for the way he took charge of his life, but mostly for his humility and appreciation for those things that make him happy, like his wife and sons.