by Rob Lowe
I meet the other actors and they all seem nice. The real star of the show is Eileen Brennan, a dry and very funny actress, hot off her role in the hit movie Private Benjamin. I will play her son Tony. My TV brother is David Hollander, a show-business veteran, who has already starred in countless commercials and episodes of big TV shows as well as movies, including the current hit Airplane! Lauri Hendler, a savvy back-talker, is typecast as my savvy, back-talking younger sister. In a harbinger of things to come, I will play the good-looking, vaguely uninteresting, and extremely underwritten straight-man (boy) part.
The other family that will share the house with us consists of a beautiful brunette, who is known for being married in real life to the commander on the hit TV show CHiPs, and her daughter, played by a cute blonde who appears utterly uninterested in any form of acting whatsoever.
I’m given an embossed red script binder with the title of the show on the lower right-hand corner. I receive it as if I’m being handed an original copy of the Magna Carta. We read through the script, try on wardrobe, and then are assigned dressing rooms, which is like being given the best clubhouse any fifteen-year-old could ask for, complete with a phone! I’m introduced to the wonder of a stiff cup of coffee and a selection of twenty kinds of doughnuts every morning, a love affair that continues to this day. I learn the hierarchy of the set, who does what, and where my proper place is in the army of two hundred people it takes to make an episode of television. For the first time in my life, I do not feel “different.” Even though I’m as green as a pine, I feel the satisfaction of fitting in—of belonging.
The lessons are coming fast and furiously. During a rehearsal I “step” on one of Eileen Brennan’s lines (which means that I start talking before she’s done with her line) and she gives me a withering look. I will never make that mistake again. I watch as she navigates the role of “star.” One day she reads the latest script and goes ballistic, demanding the producers and writers come to the set for a script meeting. We are sent to our makeshift classroom as a very heated and tension-filled meeting goes on outside. It will be years before I properly appreciate the pressure she is under and how necessary it is for the star to fight every day (if they can) for the best writing possible. Eileen didn’t win many of those battles on A New Kind of Family, as most actors don’t, and I’m sure the show suffered for it. Most actors are very good judges of what “works,” and yet they are always at the mercy of writers or producers, who can label them “difficult” or “divas.” Meanwhile, if the show flops, it’s always the star who takes the most blame. Which is not to say that there aren’t moronic actors out there who will ruin Citizen Kane if given half the chance. But in general, I’ve learned, an actor who’s made it to a certain level knows what works for him or her better than anyone else.
* * *
A New Kind of Family was filmed before a studio audience of about two hundred people. They were tourists and folks off the street who were by turns excited and bored by the endless filming from seven thirty to midnight each Friday. When they could no longer be counted on to laugh at the jokes, a man would throw candy at them, which they would devour, and then they would cackle like hyenas, high on sugar.
A sit-com is basically a filmed play. You even have a curtain call (although unlike with a play, it comes at the beginning before you film). Even though it was my first big job, I had done enough theater to make me comfortable in front of the camera. We filmed six episodes leading up to our actual air date, and in early September 1979, our show debuted at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night on ABC. I was too unsophisticated to realize that we had been put in the “death slot” opposite the number one show in all of television, CBS’s ratings juggernaut 60 Minutes.
They crushed us. I mean it was a bloodletting. There were lots of tense long faces the next week as we prepped our next episode. I was too young to understand the pressure. I was living my dream.
It’s Friday night. The studio audience is full. The Doobie Brothers’ “I Keep Forgettin’” is blasting over the PA system. This is the week we will turn it around. This is the show we will kill it. It is also the first episode we’ve taped since our show’s debut. I come out for my preshow curtain call and the crowd erupts. They go absolutely bat-shit crazy. Up until this point, I’ve been greeted with midlevel, warm applause, so I’m stunned. I look around, not sure that this ovation is for me. Maybe the actual star, Eileen Brennan, is standing behind me. But she’s not.
The cameras roll. I enter. Bedlam. I hear for the first time in my life that particular, unique, high-pitched, piercing, hissing, sonic screech that is the sound of screaming teenage girls. We play the scene. Every time I open my mouth the girls go ape. Just last Friday I was happy if I got a big laugh. This Friday, after one show on the air, I can’t get one laugh because my new fans won’t shut up! It is a stark lesson in the power of television.
Eileen Brennan, being a consummate comedienne and veteran actress, is having none of this. I can see in her eyes that she’s livid. I hope she’s not pissed at me; I’m just trying to get through the scenes. Finally, it’s over and no one knows quite what to make of what has just happened. For my part, I’m at once shell-shocked, embarrassed, and (in truth) loving every minute of it.
As Clark and I arrive for work the next day, I head off to the makeshift classroom for my daily on-set schooling. I’m studying my tenth-grade French when a production assistant stops by with my very first fan letter.
“Here ya go, Rob. Got a bunch more up at the offices.”
I don’t know what to say, it’s all new. Someone has written a fan letter to me.
“Oh, and one more thing … from now on, no one under the age of eighteen will be allowed in the studio audience,” he says mildly as he heads out.
I don’t know whether to be upset or even whom to be upset with. I do know that this new edict marks the end of my ear-splitting receptions. I turn my attention to my fan letter. I open it carefully, excited to read it.
Dear Mr. Rob Lowe:
I enjoyed you very much on the TV show The New Kind of Family. You are a great actor. Can you please send me an autographed photo of yourself? If possible in a bathing suit or in your underwear.
Sincerely,
Michael LeBron
#4142214 Pelican Bay Prison
In our second week, our ratings are even worse. (Although today any network would absolutely kill to have our numbers. In 1979, if fourteen million people watched you, you were at death’s door. Today, a huge smash like Two and a Half Men averages about that.) Our executive producers are two smart and energetic women, both of whom are married to powerful husbands who run movie studios. This is their first big producing job, and they go on the offensive to boost our ratings, orchestrating a press barrage, personal appearances, and a trip to New York to compete against actors on other ABC shows on The $10,000 Pyramid. (That’s right, The $10,000 Pyramid—can you imagine that amount of prize money today? You’ve made it all the way to the final rounds and you’ve won almost enough to buy a used car!)
The network doesn’t want to be known as a home for idiot actors, so they gather their young stars for a “game show” audition, to pick out who goes to New York. I religiously watch Pyramid and am no slouch at charades, trivia, or similes (thanks, Mom), so I’m chosen to go to New York.
On the big day, I draw a cute twenty-something actress from Eight Is Enough as my partner. We will play Tony Danza, a young ex-boxer who is a huge hit on the smash comedy Taxi, and a sultry brunette, about my age, from ABC’s other big new comedy hope, Out of the Blue, starring some young comedian the network thinks will be the next Robin Williams. (He won’t be.)
I love Dick Clark, the host of Pyramid and already a TV legend—and I will continue to. But the man is absolutely mangling my introduction.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ron Loeb!”
I stop. He stops. I go back to enter again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Rob Lone!”
This goes on fo
r a good ten minutes until finally the game begins. The woman from Eight Is Enough reads me the clues.
“Okay, um, okay … it’s … it’s … something the astronauts…”
“TANG!” I shriek.
Ding! Yessss. I don’t know what’s gotten into me; I’m in the kill zone and I can’t miss.
“Okay … okay … um … um … It’s a … It’s a … um … they’re really old. They are really old … um…”
“THE PYRAMIDS!” I yell. Come on, girlfriend, we’ve got ten grand to win.
Ding!
We easily beat Danza and his little minx partner in straight rounds. At the final round in the Winner’s Circle, I figure we have to cut our times down. I’m treating this celebrity charity show like it’s Wimbledon.
“Let me give the clues.”
“You sure?” says Eight Is Enough.
“Yes.”
Dick Clark has my name right now. “Rob, for ten thousand dollars, here is your first clue … GO!”
It appears in the screen in front of me.
“Founding Father. Flew kite.”
“Benjamin Franklin!”
Ding!
“Cordoba.”
“Ricardo Montalbán!”
Ding!
And so it goes. We win with ten seconds to spare.
I donate my winnings to the Cleveland Amory Fund for Animals and the Wilderness Society. As we all squeeze together for the “good-bye shot,” Tony Danza’s young partner surreptitiously puts her hand on my backside. And keeps it there. “See you on the plane,” she whispers.
On the flight home, I have what is to be the first in a long series of lessons about the temptations of actresses. Although Corrie’s waiting back in Malibu, the excitement and glamour of the enfolding romantic drama in the first-class cabin quickly overpower my fifteen-year-old male willpower. What happens on the plane isn’t anywhere near Erica Jong territory, but I’m definitely not going to be sharing any traveling stories with my girlfriend.
* * *
Back in L.A., the battle to save our show continues. I’m sent to Riverside, California, for a personal appearance. Even at fifteen I don’t see how walking through the Riverside fairgrounds will boost our ratings enough to put a dent in 60 Minutes. But I like snow cones as much as the next guy, especially when they are free. So, off I go.
There is a line of mostly young girls waiting to get autographs. This time I am on the other end of the line, and I’m not sure what the protocol is. I make a rookie mistake.
Dear Marie-Sue:
Thanks for watching A New Kind of Family. I hope you like it. Good luck at UCLA in the fall. Go Bruins!
All my love,
Rob Lowe
I will learn that this is not the way it’s done—too much time, too many people to get through. In spite of wanting to connect personally, you have to keep it simple. “Just write Marie-Sue and sign your name,” the network handler tells me afterward.
Later, on the way to the car, I see them. They are swarming, gathering in the shadow of the Tilt-A-Whirl, twenty to thirty girls who look to be between twelve and sixteen years old. They are whispering, pointing, and staring at me. One starts to shake. Another lets out a sort of whimper and runs with her feet in place like she has to go to the bathroom. Another pushes the girls in front of her to the ground and runs toward me. The girl on the ground screams, then they all scream; low at first, then building to a point where it sounds like a sonic knitting needle is puncturing my eardrum. And then … they charge. I don’t know it yet, but I will come to learn that being charged on the African savannah by a rhino is only fractionally more dangerous than being bull-rushed by a gang of fourteen-year-old girls whipped into a lather by hormones, group think, and an overdose of Tiger Beat magazine.
“Hi there,” is about all I manage before they are all over me. One girl grabs me by the arm, another by the hair. One girl is literally untying my shoes while another steals the laces. The network representative does nothing. “I bet this doesn’t happen to Morley Safer,” he says. I can only hope this kind of mauling will help our ratings, but something tells me it won’t.
On the long drive back from Riverside, I have a lot of time to ponder the conflicting emotions welling up in me. On the one hand, how cool is it to be mobbed by a bunch of girls my age? It’s any guy’s dream, right? And it is part and parcel of being a star. Right? All true, more or less. But on the other hand, the whole experience feels a little shitty. And feeling shitty about something that’s meant to be exciting makes me feel worse. The girls’ reactions seemed almost programmed, like they were both the performers and the audience in a teen-angst drama that had nothing to do with me. It certainly wasn’t about what a good actor I was. And if I was such a hottie to them, why didn’t I have the same effect on those who knew me well at school? And so the first wisps of an idea appear on the horizons of my consciousness. And the idea is this: If you really knew me, you wouldn’t like me nearly as much.
CHAPTER 8
The network has shut down our show. It’s not canceled, they say, it’s on a “creative hiatus.” I have no idea what that means, but the practical ramification is that I get to make my first appearance in a real high school.
I still don’t have my learner’s permit, so I take the bus the twenty-two miles from Point Dume to Santa Monica High. It’s a huge monolith of a school, with thousands of students of all races, backgrounds, and economic standings. There are also gangs, although not on the level of rival school Venice High, a few miles down the road. I have a lot to navigate, particularly coming in a few weeks after everyone else, and it doesn’t help that Corrie and I are having trouble. She watched Pyramid and saw the cute actress put her hand on me. She has retaliated against my tacit flirtation on national television by hanging out with a rough, young surfer (who will in later years become Malibu’s resident paparazzo, causing Barbra Streisand to take out a restraining order against him). It is the beginning of the end for us.
If I was expecting a reception from the girls at “Samohi” like the one I received in Riverside, I was mistaken. When I walk the “Quad,” there is no indication that my TV career was noticed. The Mexicans don’t care, the whites don’t care, the blacks don’t care, and the Malibu kids never cared. Part of me is disappointed and part of me is relieved. I am just like any other sophomore newbie. I dive into the subjects I love (history, marine biology, French) and grind it out in the ones I don’t (anything math-related). I spend time with my small clique and try to fit in with this huge new pool of faces. And, I wait. I know our show’s fate is hanging in the balance, but I try not to think about it.
Soon, I get the call to come back to work. As Clark drives the harrowing road between the Pacific Coast Highway and the 405 freeway that has killed so many truckers, I notice that he seems out of it. When he passes a car by driving on the shoulder of the road, I know something’s up.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Mmmm. Long night. Sorry.”
We pull up to the soundstage, and I can see all the producers and even some network executives milling around. We are late, so Clark pulls right up to them at the stage entrance. I open my door and wave hello. Clark opens his door and vomits on his shoes.
It’s all downhill from there.
As I get my usual morning coffee and doughnuts, I notice a young black girl with pretty eyes grabbing the last glazed twist.
“Hi. I’m Janet.”
“Hi. I’m Rob.”
“Nice to meet you. Have you met Telma yet?”
“Who?”
“Telma! C’mon. I’ll take you to say hi.”
I have no clue who this girl is or why she’s on our set. But I go with her to meet Telma, who turns out to be a tall, dark beauty who could be Janet’s mother. It is then that I notice that the two actors who play the members of the other family living with us on the show aren’t anywhere to be seen.
“Have you guys met Gwyn and Connie?” I ask.
They both loo
k at me blankly as a production assistant ushers us to our seats around the table where we read through the scripts.
Janet and Telma sit in the seats usually occupied by the two missing actors. What’s going on here? As we read the first scene it all becomes clear. Janet and Telma are replacing the missing actors. In the script there is no explanation of what happened to the original family that was living with us, or why these new folks have moved in. To this day, I have no idea what happened. I can only assume someone at the network felt that our ratings would improve with the more dramatic concept of a black and a white family living together. Amazingly, they thought viewers would simply accept the switch without even a good-bye to the previous family.
Janet comes from a big family with a ton of show business savvy. She is painfully shy but we are about the same age and we become confidants. On the day when our show is mercifully canceled, we console each other.
“I’m done with acting,” she says.
Ever the optimist, I fill her head with a rosy vision of her acting future.
“I tell you, I’m done. I’m going into music. If my brothers can do it, so can I.”
I wish her luck, hug her and the rest of the cast good-bye, pack up my dressing room, and leave. A New Kind of Family shot thirteen episodes, five of which aired in 1979. 60 Minutes survives to this day. Next to me as I write this is today’s newspaper. In it, I see a photo of my old friend Janet. The caption reads, “Janet Jackson sells out opening night of new world tour.”
* * *
You think star athletes have a tough re-entry when they retire? Try going from endless free doughnuts, screaming girls, and a starring role on television to tenth-grade driver’s ed. It’s almost as if my show never happened. It certainly didn’t lead me to any new jobs, at least temporarily disproving the old adage about just getting your foot in the door. In fact, with money so tight at home, I go back to work on the weekends as a busboy at the Nantucket Light. (You’d think I could have at least landed a gig as a waiter.) On the positive side: It’s easy to keep your head on straight when you are signing an autograph while clearing someone’s lobster dinner. I go back to the life of any other teenager, except for the few times when someone yells out “A New Kind of Family!” while I’m getting gas or walking down the street. But that is very rare. I guess our bad ratings didn’t lie.