by Rob Lowe
CHAPTER 14
Patrick Swayze and I reunite for Youngblood and I am once again enthralled by his mastery of anything physical. While I had to work hard to look good on my skates, he seemed to be a natural from the start. But by the first day of shooting, we both look like we’ve been skating forever.
The producers need to fill the large arena where we are shooting with a crowd, so they invite fans to come see us in the flesh. Swayze and I take bets on how many would show. I think maybe five hundred; he thinks more like a thousand. When two thousand people show up, some carrying handmade signs and all going crazy, we can’t believe it.
“Hey, little brother,” says Swayze, “looks like we’re hot shit!”
He skates out to a giant roar and cross-steps like Wayne Gretzky into the corners.
I skate out to an ovation and fall on my ass.
Swayze is a relentless spirit. He never sleeps, works out like an animal, and writes and records music on a portable studio he has set up in his hotel room. He has written a song for Youngblood called “She’s Like the Wind,” and he lobbies 24/7 to get it into the film. Everyone “yes’s” him to death, hoping he’ll forget about it and get back to acting. Eventually he will get the song into one of his movies—it will be a breakout smash for Dirty Dancing.
As the shoot grinds on, I am often in full hockey gear in my trailer with a saxophone around my neck. It’s not a good look, but lunchtime is the only moment I have free to prep for St. Elmo’s Fire, which will shoot as soon as I wrap.
By the time I’m done with eight weeks of fourteen-hour days on or around the ice, I swear I will never lace up a pair of skates again. And while it’s definitely been a rush to have fans surrounding my trailer and milling in the hotel lobby, I’m relieved to return to the other half of my life at home in Malibu, with my family.
The property I bought has a guesthouse for me that I have designed to my specifications. It’s about what you would expect from a twenty-year-old in 1984. Modern, stark, with lots of glass—picture a set from Miami Vice. Even though my family is living on the same one-acre lot, it’s the first place I can call my own. I barely have time to acclimate before I’m off to Washington, D.C.
* * *
In the classic film The Exorcist the priest, now inhabited by the demon, throws himself down a long, foreboding stairway somewhere in Georgetown. After a long night of “research” for St. Elmo’s Fire (it’s about a bar after all), I find myself with Emilio and Judd Nelson at the top of these stairs, peering into the darkness below.
“This is pretty freaky,” I offer, as we try not to tumble to the bottom in our present condition. Judd breaks into a perfect Linda Blair and recites some of the movie’s more memorable lines involving hell, mothers, and fellatio.
We are a week into shooting and I’ve never had more fun in my life. Once again I’m working with Ally Sheedy and Emilio. Judd is new in my life and I discover that he is whip smart and hilarious. It’s my second movie with Andrew McCarthy. I adore the wildly talented Mare Winningham and envy Emilio’s on-screen romance with the stunning Andie MacDowell. Demi and I connect so well on-screen that I don’t mind when she jumps ship and switches to a more serious relationship with Emilio. It’s one big, fun, wild, talented bunch—a sort of “pack,” if you will.
I have a theory that sometimes an actor gets a character that they love so much that they can’t let go. They lose themselves in the exciting, or possibly frightening, challenges the role offers. Directors, producers, and even studio executives egg you on, thrilled that you are inhabiting the role so well. All your needs are catered to; your only responsibility is to deliver this character to the screen. You get swept up in the moment, and if the right part comes to you at the right time, you stop playing the role and start living it. It becomes your persona.
I sink my teeth into Billy Hicks, the lady-killing rockin’-and-rollin’ funmeister, and never look back. For so many years I was the nerd, the last picked for sports teams, the acting freak, the one who couldn’t get the girls’ attention. Now I have the part of the guy I could never be, no matter how hard I tried, and people love me in it. So I run with it. For a long time.
* * *
My return from shooting St. Elmo’s Fire is met with sad, tragic news. During the filming of a stunt for the TV show Airwolf, a helicopter has gone down. On board was my friend and stunt double, Reid Rondell. He would not survive. I mourn the loss of a friend and colleague and am reminded that although accidents are rare, filmmaking can be dangerous. This is also the week the space shuttle Challenger explodes. Along with the rest of the country, I grieve for the brave crew and their families. I am moved by President Reagan’s beautiful and soaring eulogy, which included the beautiful lines of poetry: “They … ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’” It is stunning oratory and I look up the White House speechwriter who crafted it. Her name is Peggy Noonan, and I make a note to follow her and the other West Wing speechwriters in the future.
Having spent the last six months starring in two movies back to back, I am ready to have some serious fun. A phone call from Emilio provides a perfect excuse.
For weeks, Emilio has been trailed by a reporter from New York magazine, who is doing a cover story on him as the youngest writer, director, and star to make a movie since Orson Welles (it’s true, you can look it up). He’s been swamped in postproduction, in editing rooms, and in marketing meetings on his movie Wisdom. (In hindsight, I could have used a little wisdom myself when I agreed to join him and the reporter for an off-the-record dinner). Emilio is worried that the reporter has only seen his serious, hardworking side and is eager to show him that he can have fun as well. He also wants to take him out for a night on the town as a thank-you for all the hours spent on the profile.
A spur-of-the-moment dinner party is put together at our favorite hangout, the Hard Rock Cafe. Our gang from St. Elmo’s Fire is invited and we are all still in some way living our characters’ relationships. Judd Nelson joins me, and a number of fun girls are invited, in case the writer is single. When we take our usual booth at the Hard Rock, the place is pretty chaotic. It’s full of buzzed kids our age, all looking to have a good time. Sexual possibilities are everywhere; there is food for days and more kamikazes than the emperor’s fleet at Midway. The reporter, a balding, skinny guy who made no real impression on anyone, eats and drinks with us like it’s his last night before the electric chair. Emilio, always generous, picks up the very large tab. The writer hugs us all good-bye and thanks us as he hops into his cab. Judd, Emilio, and I watch him go.
“Thanks, guys. I think that went really well,” says Emilio happily.
A few weeks later, the writer drops his story about Emilio as an auteur. Instead, he writes a sneak-attack, mean-spirited hatchet job about our dinner in his honor. New York magazine runs it on its cover with a studio photo from the soon-to-be-released St. Elmo’s Fire. The headline: “Hollywood’s Brat Pack.”
According to the reporter, what he observed during our dinner wasn’t the exuberant camaraderie of peers or a celebratory thank-you for him, but the obnoxious exploits of a “pack” of interchangeable, pampered, spoiled, vacuous, attention-seeking actors who were long on ambition and fame but short on talent or humanity. As he drank our booze, ate our food, and chatted up the girls at the table, he gave us no indication that he held us in such condescending, low regard.
The “Brat Pack” article was an instant classic. In one cover story, an entire generation of actors, many of whom weren’t even present, were branded with an image conjured up to sell magazines. Some of these actors would never escape this perception or the moniker. The story primed the pump of an inevitable media backlash against the industry’s growing obsession with youth. Other reporters duly took their cues from the story, and overnight every profile had whiffs of the article’s passive-aggressive vitriol. So, when St. Elmo’s Fire opened shortly thereafter, the critics were ready to hate it. And they did.
But audiences don’t care about New York magazine and most don’t read reviews. St. Elmo’s Fire opened to big box office and was the must-see date-night movie of the summer. Its soundtrack was inescapable for weeks, went to number one on the charts, and became a romantic classic that people are “married and buried to” to this day.
The film captured an idealized yet believable world where friends were everything and you faced an uncertain adult life together. The character of Billy Hicks stood out in a cast of compelling characters, and the poster of me with my saxophone sold out its run and could be found in bedrooms and dorm rooms around the world. When I went to a Halloween party and saw guys dressed as me from St. Elmo’s Fire, I knew that the movie had hit the zeitgeist bull’s-eye.
My instinct on which part to play proved correct. Billy was just the right mix of sex, trouble, humor, and empathy to be the role that I’m asked about and identified with more than any other (with the exception of Sam Seaborn on The West Wing). The lovable rake became a large part of my persona and I embraced it, on all levels. Having spent quite enough time sitting in the nerd area of the quad, I was ready for this seismic change.
And the “Brat Pack”? Although the term spent at least a decade as a vague pejorative in the press, interestingly, a lot of the public saw it as something cool. To them it was just their version of the Rat Pack: a group of people whose movies they dug and who seemed to have fun making them. Nothing more, nothing less. Of the many great attributes fans have, my personal favorite is their ability to see through salesmanship, cynicism, and bullshit.
But for the actors in the Brat Pack, this new scrutiny, the minimizing and condescending lumping together of very different talents and personalities, took a toll. It was the end of the carefree, innocent nights on the town together, and the end of a number of friendships. Some never got over their resentment and some never had the chance to work their way to being identified with other, perhaps more iconic, projects and roles.
And while the writer acted like a scumbag, he did coin a great phrase. And so today, I own it. I’m proud to have been a leader of the “Pack.” Twenty-five years after the summer of St. Elmo’s Fire, there are rereleases, TV specials, and anniversary articles. It’s always an honor to be part of something that stands the test of time.
And to the writer, if you are still around somewhere and read this and want to apologize, I am open to sitting down to dinner. But this time, you can pay.
* * *
From the time I was a young kid, politics were exciting to me. Back in Dayton, Ohio, in the years when I was being shuttled to play practice in my stepdad’s VW, I would listen to him bitch about Richard Nixon and follow the Watergate hearings he was listening to on the radio. I punched in numbers at the phone bank to roll calls for Senator Howard Metzenbaum and sold Kool-Aid for McGovern, whom I snuck under a barricade to meet. It was in the waning hours of the ’72 campaign, at a large rally on the courthouse steps. I slid up through his security detail and tugged on his raincoat.
“I hope you win,” I said.
“Me too,” said McGovern.
Now, years later, the Hollywood political machine has taken note of my expanding public profile. My early acting heroes had almost always been activists (Newman, Beatty, Redford), and so when the call comes to join Jane Fonda for a “coffee and a discussion at her home,” I am excited to go. Not only am I predisposed to take an interest, but also Hollywood activism seems like an esteemed tradition.
I park on a busy residential street in Santa Monica, looking for Jane Fonda’s address. I’m surprised she doesn’t live in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, hidden away behind big gates like the other stars. But then again, there is no one quite like her. She starred in some of my favorite movies. The Electric Horseman, The China Syndrome, and 9 to 5 on their own would today be considered an entire career of achievement. But this wouldn’t include her debut, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, or her Oscar turn in The Morning After. She has an important production company. She is suddenly making millions of dollars with her workout tapes. Before anyone in Hollywood was entrepreneurial or smart enough to think of “branding” themselves, there was Jane in her leg warmers.
I walk through a small security gate right off the sidewalk and step up to a comfortable home surrounded by tall hedges. I’m let inside and find a place in the corner of the living room, which is packed with various industry types. I see Meg Ryan, whom I know from her work with Tom Cruise in Top Gun. I see Stephen Stills from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. There is that great-looking guy I’ve been seeing at auditions named Alec Baldwin. I also recognize the producers from Footloose and a few others.
As we all mingle, Jane descends the staircase, passing a giant Warhol portrait of herself. She greets us and introduces her husband, Tom Hayden, an extremely smart and intense guy in the fashion of an über-left-wing Dustin Hoffman. Soon he will become the first person I know to drive an electric car.
Jane and Tom lead a lively and passionate discussion that is as far-ranging as it is partisan. There is talk of the grave threat of the nuclear-power industry (“the China Syndrome”), the impending, desperate need to disarm the military, and various paths toward a cleaner environment. Tom Hayden knows his way around fiery rhetoric and Jane Fonda is Jane Fonda for a reason; so when they finish, we are a whipped-up mob ready to storm the Bastille for any cause they want. I leave impressed with them both, Tom for his big brain and Jane for her passion and beauty. I have always had a crush on her and now it is off the scale.
Hollywood was (and is) a one-party town. Tom and Jane’s unique, well-oiled indoctrination machine operated with total air superiority, there being absolutely no opposing viewpoint (let alone megastar mouthpiece) anywhere within the industry. They had the monopoly on the newly budding nexus between politics and show business, and with their intellect and charisma, and I was thrilled to be included. As I said good-bye, Jane put her hand on my shoulder and fixed me with those icy blue eyes.
“Thanks for coming. There’s so much to be done together.”
* * *
Lack of privacy is the expected, if complicated, collateral damage of any career that takes off. As I navigate through the insanity, I am taken by surprise at what a burden it is on my family.
My brothers now have complete strangers in their faces, probing their business for good and ill. For every beach bunny who now chats them up, there’s someone else who is looking to use them to get to me, or as a message board for me. “Tell your brother he’s soooo hot,” or “Tell your brother he’s a fag.”
My grandparents, square Republicans living in the tiny town of Sidney, Ohio, awaken one night to find three teenage girls standing over their bed. “Is Rob Lowe here?” they ask—why they think I would be in my grandparents’ bed under any circumstances is just one of the oddities of the evening. Turns out the girls had broken into the house. This being the polite and nonconfrontational Midwest, no police are called and no parents either. Grandma makes them some coffee to sober them up and off they go.
Within a few weeks there is a “Goldilocks” incident at my new bachelor pad in Malibu. I am on the road somewhere when my mom and Steve hear the laughter of girls in the middle of the night and investigate to find two girls who have broken into my house and are fast asleep in my bed. They are also wearing my underwear.
And so it goes. My dad takes to unplugging the phone at night to avoid the incessant “Is Rob Lowe there?” calls. He now spends an inordinate amount of time at the law practice fending off inquiries from everyone from the National Enquirer to families of girls who want me to show up at their prom.
It only gets worse when I come home to visit. We spend a lot of time being chased by caravans of cars and roving packs of fans. We are careful not to eat in front of the plateglass window at our favorite diner, because the crowd could accidentally break through as they press against the glass. On a few occasions I have to leave via the rear exit and be taken home lying down in the back of a police car.
/> One summer Chad brings his best pal, Charlie Sheen, to Indiana, where we water-ski. The paper puts long-lens surveillance-type photos of us on the front page with copy stating that we’ve been “sighted in the area,” like convicts on the run or perhaps a group of Sasquatches.
Slowly we all begin to adjust to this level of scrutiny. For me, it just becomes a fact of life—neither good nor bad, because it’s almost always both. And as long as the upside is that my career continues to thrive, it’s a small price to pay.
* * *
Sexual Perversity in Chicago is the best script I have yet read. Based on the classic play by the great David Mamet, it’s funny, moving, and romantic. For a while Jonathan Demme was going to direct, and my Footloose rival, Kevin Bacon, was going to star, but now the project is free and clear and the studio brings it to me.
Ed Zwick, a new young director, is now at the helm; this will be his film debut. Together, he and I begin searching for the three other main characters to round out this Chicago-based snapshot of sex, love, and commitment.
I am at my happiest moment of the decade. I am working on a major commercial movie that’s about something meaningful, is brilliantly written, and will demand a big-time romantic lead performance to carry it off. The role I will play of Danny is an Everyman, emblematic of any era: trying to rise at work, but stifled; wanting to break out on his own, but afraid; comforted by a best friend who he may have outgrown; and suddenly challenged by a one-night stand who he may love. The themes of the movie speak to me in a way that my other roles did not. Like my character, I, too, am beginning to feel that there may be more to life than tortured, on-again, off-again relationships on the one hand and commitment-free girl-chasing on the other. Danny’s journey will be a personal one for me as well.