by Rob Lowe
Back in Paris, Glenn goes to the gym after dropping me at the airport, and then heads home. Getting out of the Mercedes in front of his house, he is shot multiple times in the chest, by three masked gunmen. He collapses onto the hood of the car. Hearing shots, his girlfriend comes out of the house, calling his name. When he hears her voice, Glenn forces himself to rise and button up his jacket, sparing her the sight of his wounds, which he knows are grave.
“I’ve been shot; I need to go to the hospital. We won’t be able to wait for an ambulance.”
He gives directions as she drives. He crosses his legs to hide the blood pooling in his seat. He is white and consciousness is fading. The ride takes fifteen minutes.
“I think the back entry will be quicker at this hour,” he calculates.
Somehow he walks unaided into the ER. The staff take one look at him and rush to help.
“I have five wounds. I believe they are 9 mm,” he tells them before passing out.
Glenn dies on the operating table.
His girlfriend tells me the story, in a matter-of-fact delivery. She is obviously in deep shock. I am sitting among my luggage at my house; the phone was ringing as I walked in the door from McDonald’s. I try to offer any comfort I can, but I, too, am devastated. I may not know who Glenn worked for or who had him murdered, but I do know that it was likely a pro from the highest levels. Which means it was well planned; which means they waited for the right moment; which means they waited until the moment I was gone.
I was later told that Glenn was honored by both the French and the American governments for heroic service. President Reagan had a small private ceremony at the White House and wrote a lovely letter of condolence to Glenn’s father. Neither of these ceremonies, nor the assassination itself, was covered in the press in much detail. Glenn Souham’s killing remains unsolved.
* * *
Fans breaking into my house to steal underwear. Princesses. Professional hits in broad daylight. My life is becoming unreal, even to me. And in spite of a (very) small inner voice warning me that this kind of chaos is not a good thing, I don’t know how to stop it.
Long, eventful careers, by definition, have cycles. Cycles are almost impossible to identify until you are well into their sequence. In retrospect, Glenn’s death would be the first movement of a cycle in which I would be put in the wrong place at the wrong time and with people whose agendas conflicted with mine. Or to put it simply: Now would begin a period when I couldn’t catch a break. Sometimes it would be completely my fault. Sometimes it wouldn’t.
My relationship with Stephanie is the first casualty of this undercurrent of conflict. While our life in Paris was a magical escape from reality, life in America is unrelenting reality. My mother, now deep into her illness, has a psychotic break after going off the drug Halcion, cold turkey. Steve, who has been prescribing medications for her, wants her committed; she wants him investigated for overmedication and attempted poisoning. This, as I bring the princess home to meet them.
As Stephanie sits waiting in the living room, my mom has me cornered in the bedroom, forcing me to examine various used wads of Kleenex she believes have been shaped by Steve into voodoo dolls in an attempt to “intimidate” her into silence about his “poisoning.”
I should have sent the princess packing, called the family into a room, and gotten to the bottom of all the insanity. Shamefully, I did not. My conflict/stress/reality-avoidance mechanism, engaged so long ago in that hot Dayton lumberyard, had now grown into a monster.
Stephanie and I flee back to a “safe house” where we are encamped, trailed by rabid paparazzi. There is a large bounty for the first photos of us together, but so far we have managed to stay under wraps.
Finally, it is time for us to fly to Dallas, Texas, for our cohosting duties. The Princess Grace Foundation raises money to support young, fledgling artists, wherever they may be. The annual ball is always long on both Hollywood and actual royalty. Tonight’s black-tie event is packed; Frank Sinatra will perform.
In the VIP area, I lock eyes with the chairman of the board. Never known as a people person, Ol’ Blue Eyes is under siege at the moment; Kitty Kelley’s eviscerating bio has just come out. As Sinatra makes a beeline for me, I’m anxious. He marches right up, inches from my face, which he grabs with both hands. He leans in close, looking intensely into my eyes. He then slaps me upside the head, hand. “My grandkids love ya!” he says, and walks off.
Stephanie, in the month I was in Paris, never introduced me to her father, Prince Rainier. I thought it odd that she wouldn’t want him to meet her new boyfriend. Now I’m hosting an event for his charity, he’s standing ten feet away from me, and I still haven’t been introduced. He’s glancing at me from time to time, but it’s clear he has no intention of saying hello, much less thanking me for the two days of press and fund-raising I’m doing on his behalf. My American anti-caste-system inclinations begin to stir. I look over at him. He turns away.
Finally, I walk to him and offer my hand. The prince is doing that thing one does of concentrating really hard on a bullshit story someone is telling, hoping to avoid any interlopers. No luck this time.
“Excuse me, sir,” I say, as his group stares, openmouthed. “I’m Rob Lowe, I’m hosting this event and dating your daughter. Welcome to the United States.”
Later in the evening I find my old friend Cary Grant.
“Young maaaaaan!” he calls. “Congratulations on all of your success. I’m sooo proud of you.”
It’s a nice full circle from his early, kind words so many years ago. We talk for a while and he moves on. Within months he will be gone, the greatest movie star who ever lived. I know his amazing body of work well by now and take solace that I will have more to remember him by than soap on a rope.
Stephanie and I are now over the buzz of our initial meeting, and it’s becoming clear that the mutual infatuation has been sated. We both know it’s time to move on.
Near the end of the evening I look to the head table. It’s late and the men have congregated together, as have the women, who are off somewhere. I see Gregory Peck, Robert Wagner, Cary Grant, and Prince Rainier and approach the group.
“Excuse me. I just wanted to say good-bye and thank you for letting me be a part of a wonderful evening.”
Rainier grunts and nods, the rest offer warm good-byes and I head out.
Then, when I am almost out of earshot I hear my future Austin Powers costar Robert Wagner say: “Ya know, guys, I think that kid’s banged every one of our daughters.”
* * *
Peter Bogdanovich made The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and What’s Up, Doc? consecutively, in the early seventies, in what was probably the greatest back-to-back-to-back achievement of any director. Each movie is a classic and, for my money, two of them are perfect (The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon). Now, after an extended banishment, he is back in Hollywood’s good graces due to his newest hit, Mask, for which Cher was nominated for an Oscar.
I screen-tested for Mask and lost the part to Eric Stoltz. Bogdanovich had me put a stocking over my face with eye holes cut out, to simulate the “mask” that the actor would wear. But he told me, “Your eyes are too identifiable, too unique.” And that was that.
But now he is directing a romantic comedy, and I’ve chosen it as my follow-up to About Last Night. I loved what Bogdanovich did with Ryan O’Neal and I’m hoping he still has the mojo to do the same with me. And looking at Mask, it seems like a good bet.
But from day one my instincts scream to me that there are serious problems. For the slightly older female lead, names like Michelle Pfeiffer, Jodie Foster, and Melanie Griffith are discussed. But Peter is adamant that he be allowed to cast Colleen Camp, a good friend of his, with whom he’s worked before. I like Colleen, but I know this type of movie needs star power. Still, I defer to my director, who, after all, has made some of the best movies in the genre.
Peter also wants to rewrite the script from page one. The script was
good enough to get us all to want to do it in the first place, so I’m worried about changing it. Even when Bogdanovich adds a major new character for his girlfriend to play (in spite of her having never acted before) and creates another role for his estate manager, I say nothing. Maybe these changes will elevate the movie to What’s Up, Doc? But inside, I suspect otherwise. Rather than blow the movie apart, which confronting Bogdanovich most certainly would have done, I drink almost every day after work to quiet my conscience.
Any one of these conceptual changes alone should have been sufficient grounds to depart immediately over “creative differences,” but I had no leadership in my life. (My agents also represented Bogdanovich and they weren’t going to rock the boat.) And I was an inveterate people pleaser who had very few personal boundaries. Plus, I loved Peter. He is one of the most well-read men I have ever met and among the most charismatic. He could lead you anywhere and you would follow, happy to be in his entertaining, insightful company. But every artist can chase his own vision into a blind alley. And on Illegally Yours, he did just that.
After seeing the final cut, the studio let it sit in the can as unreleasable. Eventually, it came out in a few cities to scathing reviews. The original writers took their names off of it. But stars have no such luxury, no way to avoid the fallout, and that is one of the reasons they get, and deserve, the big bucks.
My agents and I were smart enough to go directly to another movie to minimize the damage to my leading-man momentum. And this time, the movie would turn out pretty well.
Masquerade is a sexual thriller out of the Patricia Highsmith mold. Morally ambivalent in tone, it is a dark, sexy, and sophisticated movie that gives me my first antihero role. Meg Tilly is terrific as the vulnerable heiress I seduce, and Kim Cattrall is perfect as my bored, sexually predatory mistress. Directed by Bob Swaim, a hot director who has recently swept the French Oscars, it also reunites me with Oscar-winning cinematographer David Watkin. With Oscar-winning composer John Barry on board, the filmmaking is state of the art.
Until this movie, I’ve been relegated to fairly pedestrian locations. Tulsa. Chicago. St. Augustine, Florida. But Masquerade shoots entirely in the Hamptons and I fall in love with the low-key, old-money style and lazily debauched nightlife.
Charlie Sheen is also in the Hamptons, shooting Wall Street with Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas. It’s a good combination for fun and we make the most of our surroundings. Charlie and I compete to see who can play harder, then show up to work and still kick ass. Verdict: Sheen by a nose.
By the end of the Masquerade shoot, I’m raw and ragged. I’ve done two films with no break at all. In both I was in every scene, working thirteen-hour-plus days from February to July. Masquerade was a grind for all concerned. On the last day the writer says to me, “If this fucking movie doesn’t work, I’m quitting for television.”
The movie bombed. It was stylish and sexy (maybe too much so), and I still like it very much. But the studio releasing it was being sold and was in chaos. I also heard that the studio president’s wife hated “all that sex” in the movie. At any rate, my stock took another hit and it would be my last starring role in a studio movie for years. Masquerade’s writer kept his promise and quit for TV. A half billion dollars later, I am happy to have driven Dick Wolf, the creator of the Law & Order franchise, out of the movies to greener pastures.
CHAPTER 16
With the disappointing performance of these last two movies, the rocket ride suddenly and dramatically slows. The heady and exhilarating g-forces that have buffeted, stimulated, and medicated me for years have quieted and I look to fill the void.
I’ve thrown myself into politics. In the middle of a thirteen-state tour, I find myself in Minnesota, about to do an early-morning live TV interview for presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.
I’ve been traveling with and for the Massachusetts governor off and on for the last eight weeks. I’ve come to love the unique blend of backbreaking campaigning and passionate policy strategy by day and hard-charging nightlife when the day is done. The staff, the advance team, and the traveling press corps can be like a band of marauders in the name of “The Great American Experiment.” And while today’s road adventures pale in comparison to campaigns of yesteryear, there are still enough of the old-guard hacks around to keep the dream alive.
We’ve all come out for a freewheeling convention where Jesse Jackson stole the show with his classic “Keep Hope Alive” speech and almost-spoiler candidacy. There is also tremendous drama surrounding the choice for vice president. Will it be Jackson? Will it be the young buck Al Gore? Will it be an unknown? Unlike today’s long-form infomercial conventions, where everything is carefully scripted and nothing left to chance, the Atlanta convention of 1988 was probably the last of its kind in that there was some actual chaos and drama.
Downtown one night I was standing with a group from our delegation at the doors of a nightclub. The doorman was hassling me hard for an ID, which I had left in my jacket in the car.
“Dude, you need proper ID to get in. No one under twenty-one allowed,” said the guy.
“But, you know it’s me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you know I’m over twenty-one?”
“Sorry, need your ID. No exceptions.”
Geez, these guys are like the Gestapo! I cursed as I schlepped back to find my jacket.
Finally in the club, I was approached by two girls who wanted me to join them back at their place. This being most twenty-four-year-old guys’ dream scenario, I suggested we reconvene at my suite. Having just received the third degree from the doorman, it never occurred to me that there could be anyone in the club who wasn’t of age.
As the three of us left, I had no idea that this romp would set in motion events that would ultimately, through a painful, long, and circuitous path, lead me to greater happiness and fulfillment than I could have ever hoped for.
And now, sitting for my morning-show interview in Minnesota, I feel the unmistakable saltiness that is the precursor to a live on-air vomit. As they count down to air, I quickly grab a wastepaper basket and hide it at my feet.
“Three, two … Goood morning, Minneapolis! Today we are talking to Rob Lowe, who’s in the Land of Lakes for Michael Dukakis! Good to see you, Rob. How ya doing?”
I vomit into my shoes. The food on the road and the grueling after-hours’ agenda is taking its toll in every way possible. I try for moderation, but my whole life, I’ve only known one gear: full speed ahead. Outrun loneliness, outrun feeling “different,” and outrun the shock that dreams coming true don’t change your feelings. And like anything with the accelerator stuck, I am bound to crash. But not quite yet.
Although it’s probably just a coincidence, after I’m done in Minnesota, Dukakis goes up three points, statewide.
Back on the campaigning plane, or “Sky Pig,” as it was called, I witness something that no one should see. Walking to the front compartment, I see the would-be commander in chief having his makeup applied. It is like stumbling into a hot-dog factory: You like hot dogs, you know terrible deeds go into making them, but nothing prepares you when you actually see it. A lot of male candidates wear makeup these days, but that doesn’t make it right; it really should be a Screen Actors Guild union violation.
I like the governor and his family a lot. Like an unfortunately large number of would-be leaders I have known, Mike Dukakis is much more engaging in private. However, his running mate, the legendary Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen, turns out to be the real star of the ticket. He and I travel throughout Texas together and he is mobbed like Mick Jagger wherever he goes. Even hot young coeds lose their minds for the seventy-year-old senator. He is brave and romantic; every time we fly, he reaches out to hold his wife B.A.’s hand. They have survived two plane crashes together and they still keep going. One night, at some terrible Motel 6, I’m with the traveling staff, watching him debate Dan Quayle. “You’re no Jack Kennedy” remains one of my favorite moments
in television history.
The last presidential debate took place in Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. Sitting with the high command, we all know it’s over for our guy after the very first question. Bernard Shaw of CNN opens the debate with:
“Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
There are gasps at the question’s premise and audacity. Then, you can feel the silence filling the room like methane. With the right answer from the candidate, it will explode and everyone knows it. Dukakis whiffs.
Instead of saying, “Well, first of all, I’m offended by your premise,” or coming up with a forceful rejoinder to Shaw’s provocative bushwack, he’s lethargic and passionless about his wife being raped and murdered. If he had said, “As you know, Bernie, I am against the death penalty in all circumstances. That said, if someone were to harm my wife, you’d probably get to use it on me,” the guy might’ve been president on the women’s vote alone!
Back at the scene of the crime, I address the fourteen thousand people packed into the historic UCLA arena. It is less than twelve hours away from the polls opening on election eve, and the place is rocking. Even in a campaign that is clearly behind, in the last moments everyone believes (or at least hopes) that a miracle is at hand. When Dukakis takes the stage, there is a last gasp of optimism.
Later, flying down the entirely closed 405 freeway, I get my first taste of the majesty (and convenience) of life at the threshold of the presidency. The armored limo, the decoy, the war wagon, the staff cars, the follow vans, the press vans, the ambulance, and the phalanx of thirty motorcycle cops providing red-light running escort and protection. The trip from UCLA to LAX should take twenty minutes on a good day. We are on the plane in twelve.
At 3:45 a.m. we land in an Iowa cornfield. Temporary floodlights illuminate the large crowd that has assembled at this ungodly hour to offer support at this final campaign stop.