by Rob Lowe
Cue the music, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” as I kiss my grandparents and hop into the packed car. Bill is not there, he has gone, unable to watch, saying his good-byes and hugging us boys in the middle of the night.
My football gang is there, too, the kids of great hardscrabble North Dayton families: the Freemans, the Scarpellis, the Eiferts. They run alongside the car as we pull away. I want to jump out, tell my mom, don’t do this; don’t make us go, I’m scared. I want to stay here with my friends. But I say nothing, I’m frozen inside. My brothers and I watch as our friends begin to stop running, falling by the wayside, unable to keep up, as our car speeds off into the distance.
CHAPTER 4
I have never seen so many cars in my life. Our Volvo station wagon is stopped dead in the middle of the biggest, busiest freeway I have ever seen. It’s eighty degrees in the middle of winter and the sky is the color of a baseball mitt. To my left, eight guys in a pickup truck are blasting accordion music, like what you might hear at a circus. To my right is a trailer hauling cars. One of them is the Batmobile. Welcome to Los Angeles, kid.
My mom navigates the traffic jam as best she can with little Micah crawling like an ape around the car, trying to remove the oxygen mask she’s taken to wearing. Her new hero, Dr. Wilson, of the allergy hospital, has prescribed the mask and a number of other remedies, as a way to prevent allergy flare-ups. The horrific brown L.A. air suggests that the oxygen mask might be a sound idea, but I have no clue why she is also wearing thick, white gardening gloves. (Later I learn that they supposedly protect her hands from the toxins “out-gassing” from the plastic steering wheel.) Now, out my window I can see the Pacific Ocean. It is rugged, crashing, and huge. A sign says, “Welcome to Malibu, 22 miles of scenic beauty.” I’m feeling a queasy mixture of homesickness and gurgling excitement, beholding this stunning, alien world.
Point Dume sits at the westernmost edge of Malibu. A breathtaking, palisaded promontory, it looks like a sawed-off volcano, jutting its jagged cliffs into the crashing surf below. Named after the Spanish missionary Father Dumez, who cowed the local Chumash Indians into Christianity, it is rumored to be haunted, and stories of ancient burial grounds and lost underwater villages are legend. At the moment I’m unaware of this unsettling history, although within months I will see the signs everywhere. But as we turn into a cul-de-sac of modest ranch-style houses, I only know that my mom has chosen Point Dume because it has the best air quality in Southern California.
Our new house is a rented, single-story ranch house, very plain, with three bedrooms, one bath, and a yard strewn with what look to be small moon rocks. Chad and I will come to despise this yard, as we will have to weed it of intruding crabgrass every weekend before we can go out to play. But the real showstopper is the tiny horse corral, which Mom tells Chad and me was constructed with the leftover wood from the set of Planet of the Apes. I can almost look down the gully behind it to see the beach where Charlton Heston discovered the remains of the Statue of Liberty in one of filmmaking’s most iconic scenes. There’s also an unsubstantiated rumor that the Captain and Tennille may have lived in our house. I am quickly sensing that, in Point Dume, there is adventure as well as Hollywood history at every turn.
An entire book could (and should) be written about Malibu in 1976. In the bicentennial sunlight of that year, it was a place of rural beauty where people still rode to the local market on horseback and tied up to a hitching post in the parking lot. Long before every agent and studio president knocked down the beach shacks to build their megamansions, Malibu was populated by a wonderful mix of normal working-class families, hippies, asshole surfers, drugged-out reclusive rock stars, and the odd actor or two. The town was extremely spartan. Its lone movie theater only got films months after they had played everywhere else. Its one record shop wouldn’t have the latest record for weeks and weeks after you could find it all over Los Angeles. There was a taco stand, a donut shop, a biker bar, and one or two restaurants in all of its twenty-two miles. Although Hollywood was only a forty-five-minute drive away, at that time it might as well have been forty-five light-years. It’s almost impossible now to imagine a Malibu without Wolfgang Puck, Nobu sushi, Starbucks, and paparazzi documenting every B-list celebrity who walks out the door with a latte, but it did exist, once upon a time.
As I’m settling into my new bedroom, which I will share with Chad, my mom tells me she has a surprise in the other room. Chad is convinced it’s a puppy. He and I run into the living room, excited to see what she has in store for us.
It isn’t a puppy.
From behind a stack of boxes emerges a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a black beard. (Think one of the guys on the box of Smith Brothers cough drops.) Chad gasps. “Dr.… Dr. Wilson?”
“Hey, Chad-o!” he says, smiling. I look around the room. Dr. Wilson? The allergy hospital guy? What’s he doing here?
“How do you like the surprise?” Mom asks cheerily, as if she’s just presented us with a new jungle gym or, indeed, a puppy.
“Hey, Rob-o!” he adds warmly.
“Steve is going to be living with us!” Mom announces.
I look at her. She is beaming. Happy. After taking a moment to digest the announcement, Chad seems to be down with the program as well. And in a testament to the simplicity and resilience of twelve-year-olds, I take a minute and process this instant addition to our family and conclude … sounds okay to me, can I have the bed by the window?
Later that night as I sleep in my new room, I think about what’s become of our family. I’m desperately homesick for my dad and grandparents. I wonder if my friends are playing football without me. I consider my mother. She must be a brave person to leave an unhappy marriage when so many people of her background stick it out. I figure she is to be admired for following her heart and doing what she thought was right for both herself and us boys. As the beautifully pungent aroma of the night-blooming jasmine wafts through my window, I begin to see my mother in a new way. A rebel. An artist. A dreamer. A searcher. I am sad for her too, worried because I have no idea what she is searching for and fear that neither does she.
Dr. Wilson, or Steve as we now call him, is an intellectual, awkward, kooky, but nice guy. He and my mom have a deep connection; they spend hours reading Carl Jung (Steve is now working in L.A. County’s Mental Health Department as a shrink), listening to Phoebe Snow, eating hummus, and rubbing each other’s feet. He treats Chad and Micah and me well, and I’m relieved to see my mom happy and out of her pajamas for long stretches of time.
As our first day of school approaches, Chad and I haven’t seen many other kids. There are no pickup football games, no kids riding bikes in the street, no sounds of yelling, rough-housing, and mischievous camaraderie between the houses. Chad and I wander aimlessly, looking for people our own ages. Eventually I will learn that this is very different from the Midwest, where kids connect with each other via big communal activities like kick the can and street hockey. Malibu kids are isolated, solitary by nature, and when among their peers they form small, extremely tight cliques. The surfers. The burn-outs. The brains. The nerds. There are also those who seem like ghosts, not belonging to anyone or any clique. The Lost Boys of Malibu. And indeed, their tragic narrative of freak accidents and death will play itself out throughout my teen years on Point Dume, lending credence to the stories of its haunted past.
* * *
My first day of seventh grade at Malibu Park Junior High begins with me getting on the bus and sitting next to a kid I think I might be able to befriend. But then he gives me a look that makes me feel like an idiot for not sitting in an empty seat behind or in front of him. I make a mental note of the Malibu bus protocol. Never again will I sit next to someone unless every other seat is taken.
Things don’t get any better upon arrival at school. Kids snicker at my clothes; I’ve worn my favorite Levi Toughskins, not knowing that no one wears long pants to school, ever. Under any circumstances. In the classroom I’m eage
r and interested, which is also frowned upon. The cool kids sit in the back of the class in their shorts and flip-flops and talk about surfing until the teacher tells them to shut up. I begin to watch the clock, hoping that P.E. will be different, but I get no break there either. I am hoping for flag football or baseball or kickball, but get volleyball instead. Not a lot of volleyball in Ohio. I suck and everyone notices.
At lunch a group of girls ask me what I’m “into.” I tell them I want to be an actor. They stare at me. If I thought being forty-five minutes outside of Hollywood would make that concept acceptable, I was wrong. “Are you a fag?” one of the girls asks me. The others laugh as my face turns bright red.
A shaggy-haired blond surfer grabs the cute girl by the ass. “Who’s a fag? This guy?!” he asks, looking at me and pulling her in for a kiss. The other kids ooh and aah at this overt show of sexuality, and I use the distraction to make my escape, back to my locker. Finally school is over. I board the bus home and find an empty seat away from anyone else.
Over the next few weeks I begin to get the drill. Although my bus stop is first and the bus is always empty, I am NOT to sit in any of the back rows. If I were to attempt that, the ripped, blond leader of the cool set, a surfer named Peter, would have me forcibly removed. That area of the bus and other specific areas of the grass where we have lunch are the sole domain of the volleyball stars, surf champs, and their girlfriends. I eventually find my place in this Darwinian landscape where I probably, then rightfully, belong: with the nerds and the other “pleasures to have in class.”
One day as I’m killing time hanging out at the Mayfair Market parking lot, I see a bunch of kids running around in army outfits. They seem to be playing a sort of war game and are taking it very seriously. I ask the kid who looks to be the leader what’s going on. He is a chunky blond, with a runny nose that he doesn’t bother to wipe. He tells me that he is “filming” a Vietnam movie and he is using the market’s loading dock as a set. He shows me his 8 mm movie camera and introduces himself. “I’m Chris Penn. I’m the director.” Now this is exciting—kids shooting their own movie! I ask him who else is doing his movie, hoping he will ask me to be in it as well. “Well, I got my best friend, Charlie, my brother Sean, and maybe Charlie’s big brother, Emilio.”
“You mean you guys are actors, too?” I ask. I already know that none of these kids are in the cool crowd—they don’t surf.
“Nah, not really. We just like making movies. Charlie’s dad is an actor, though.”
“Holy shit! A real actor?” I ask.
“Yeah, he’s done a bunch of movies.”
“Can I meet him?”
Chris laughs. “Are you kidding? He’s been gone for almost two years working overseas on a film about war somewhere in the Philippines.”
Later I learn the movie’s called Apocalypse Now and his name is Martin Sheen. But at this moment, I think to myself, now that’s a guy I’d like to meet someday.
Chris tells me that when they make another movie, he’ll call me, but for now “we don’t have any parts for you.” I stick around and watch as they film each other getting shot in every conceivable fashion, slapping ketchup everywhere for fake blood. The Mayfair Market as Vietnam. The magic of Hollywood.
At home later, Chad has exciting news as well. His elementary school is going to be used the next day for the filming of a TV series. I can’t believe it. My intense loneliness and longing for my father and friends back in Dayton begins to fade into the background. This place isn’t so bad after all.
* * *
The previous week at my brother’s elementary school, Chad’s teacher hid a kid in his class in a closet so he would not be kidnapped in an ugly custody dispute. As the kid’s mom and a team of lawyers scoured the school, the sheriff was called to rescue the poor kid, who was ensconced, like Anne Frank, in a broom closet of the art room. The father arrived, as well, and the staff oohed and aahed, as he was a legendary rock icon, but the kids were more excited to see the sheriffs running around with their guns drawn. The incident was soon forgotten. If the same thing happened today, it would be on TV and in the tabloids for weeks.
I rush home from school to stand with Chad and watch a TV crew convert the principal’s office into a hospital emergency room with the help of giant lights and a caravan of equipment and trucks. People are crowding around to get a glimpse of the three actresses as they repeatedly enter and exit the “emergency room.” They shoot the scene over and over and to us it’s riveting each time. The three stars take a break and walk to their chairs. On the front are each of their names, Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett, and on the back a cartoonlike logo of them holding guns and the title: Charlie’s Angels.
Unlike Liza Minnelli, these gals have flocks of people surrounding them. There’s no way to get close, but eventually I strike up a conversation with someone on the TV crew. He looks important to me; he is hauling a lot of cables and lights and listening to a walkie-talkie. I ask him a barrage of questions culminating with the classic “How do you think I can get into acting?” The man tells me I should write to the producer of Charlie’s Angels, Aaron Spelling; he’s the biggest producer in the history of television. “I’m sure he would like to hear from you,” the man says with a smile. I run home and compose a letter to Mr. Spelling. It takes some time to find an address for him but finally I do, care of the 20th Century Fox Studios. I drop it in the mailbox and wait for his reply.
* * *
As seventh grade came to an end, I couldn’t wait to spend my appointed time back in Ohio with my dad. I would see my old friends and tell them of my California adventures, and I’d get my spot back in Peanut Butter and Jelly. It would be good to be onstage again, as I hadn’t done any acting since I moved to California.
My dad and my new stepmother, Kay, had a baby boy named Justin about a week before Chad and I returned. We all shared a room and Chad and I took turns giving him bottles. I was happy to be back with this branch of the family, but could have done without having a screaming baby as an alarm clock.
When I called the man who ran Peanut Butter and Jelly, he told me that the group wasn’t doing any performances “at the moment” and there was nothing on the horizon. It was strange. I had known this man for years and had never heard him use this kind, patient, and encouraging tone of voice with me. It would take me years of working in Hollywood to recognize this truth: When someone in the entertainment business (even in Dayton, Ohio) uses this tone with you, nine times out of ten they’re lying. And indeed he was. Peanut Butter and Jelly was playing all around Dayton. They just didn’t want me back.
After a month, Chad and I returned to Malibu, and only then did I realize that I was already beginning to prefer it to Dayton.
Malibu summers were epic. Each day was cookie-cutter consistent: eighty degrees and sunny, no thick midwestern humidity and no rain—ever. I had made some friends and we would spend endless hours exploring the mysterious overgrown gullies that ran to the ocean and bodysurfing in the crystal waves that made Malibu famous.
A ninth-grade girl had taken an interest in me, and I often rode my bike to her house to fool around with her. Like Julie the Jitterbug, she took great pleasure in teaching me the finer points of what my parents would probably call “heavy petting.” She was not, by any means, one of the girls in the popular set. In fact, I took a lot of shit for being linked with her, which seemed unfair to both her and me. We were both misfits in a way, which made us a good match. And let’s face it, when a ninth-grader is interested in a seventh-grader, it’s pretty cool.
As the summer drew to a close, I somehow got invited to the birthday party of the Queen Bee of Malibu Park Junior High “in crowd”—a stunning blonde, sometime teen model, and surf goddess. Pulling out of the driveway, I had my mom stop to check the mailbox, as was my custom since I wrote my letter to Aaron Spelling. It had been well over six months, but I still held out hope. And today, amazingly enough, I was rewarded.
Dear Rob,
I was happy to receive your letter. You seem like a very nice young man and I would welcome you to visit me at the studio anytime, providing it is fine with your parents. Please call ahead though.
Sincerely,
Aaron Spelling
P.S. I have a funny feeling you might have my job one day!
I was floored. It was on 20th Century Fox stationery! It was better than a letter from President Ford, as at the moment, Spelling was probably more powerful and popular than Ford.
At the party no one cared. The cool kids of the seventh and eighth grades were much more focused on the top-secret gift the birthday girl was sharing with everyone. It was a tiny amber-colored bottle with a black lid, filled with some sort of white powder. I asked Peter the Surfer what it was. “It’s coke, you idiot.” I didn’t know what he meant but knew enough to get that it was clearly a drug of some sort. By then, I was used to seeing kids smoke pot. A number of them had brought their parents’ “water pipes” to school and often set up a rudimentary bazaar on the lawn at lunch where the devices were traded and sold. But this was different. Since I was an outsider anyway, no one invited me to join them and the amber-colored bottle in the bathroom.