Stories I Only Tell My Friends

by Rob Lowe

  In the middle of season two, Aaron writes my favorite episode of The West Wing. “Someone’s Going to Emergency, Someone’s Going to Jail” will end up being the only script in which my character has the main story line. It will earn me my only Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. I urge Aaron to write more for Sam based on the reaction to this episode. “I’m only as good as you make me. But give Sam Seaborn some meat, and I will get into the end zone for us every time,” I say. But Aaron has many other actors to write for and has even added more, like the outstanding Mary-Louise Parker and Marlee Matlin. I hope that maybe they could work for, or be love interests of Sam (who never had a gal in all my four years), but they go to the character of Josh Lyman instead. I do end up shooting one scene with Mary-Louise Parker on my very last episode, a fun look at what might have been.

  * * *

  “Hello, I’m Brian Williams,” says the handsome MSNBC anchor as he stands in the Roosevelt Room set. “I brought my wife and kids to listen to the read-through of the script today. We are obsessed with the show!”

  “Great to meet you. I watch you, too!” I say, shaking his hand. (I never got tired of discovering the diverse assortment of Wing-nuts. You never knew who they’d be or where you’d find them.)

  The Williams family takes a seat in the corner of the set while the cast gathers around the large Roosevelt Room table as we always do to read each episode aloud. Aaron sits at the head like the nickname I’ve given him: “the maestro.” I sit by my buddy Dulé Hill, whose on-set tap-dance solos during moments of boredom keep both of us from losing our minds. We begin the read-through.

  Like many of our scripts, there is a main story that has the dramatic weight and a lesser story with more humor. This story concerns the beloved secretary to the president, Mrs. Landingham, played by Kathryn Joosten, getting a new car. It’s sweet and very funny. The room is laughing, and I can see that Brian Williams and his family are as well.

  At the end of the script is a scene where Dulé, who plays Charlie Young, answers the phone in Mrs. Landingham’s office. She has just left in her new car. It’s Leo on the line. He says there’s been an accident on Eighteenth and Potomac. It’s Mrs. Landingham. Charlie asks if she’s okay.

  John Spencer, who plays Leo, hesitates. Seeing this, I look down at his next line in the script. In shock, I turn to John, who now has tears streaming down his face. He won’t say his line. He turns to the head of the table, to Aaron.

  “Is this real?” he asks.

  Sorkin nods.

  John stares at him a moment longer. Then he looks down and, in a shaky voice, answers: “Charlie. Mrs. Landingham was killed.”

  We never see the scripts until we read them aloud, so the shock in the room is utter and complete. The Williams family, seconds ago laughing and enjoying this so much, are ashen. None of us saw this coming.

  Later, Kathryn Joosten tells me that she had been told this story line was a possibility (she would go on to many other roles, including in the massive hit Desperate Housewives).

  “Ah, Rob, it happens,” she tells me. “It’s been great, but it’s always better to leave too early than stay too late.”

  Bernie Brillstein is getting nowhere with my bosses on The West Wing. For three straight seasons, the show has been the biggest thing on the network, an acclaim magnet not seen in the history of television. It’s been almost a year since the rest of the cast received their well-earned reward for their contributions. And now Martin is renegotiating for the second time. It is reported that he may make nearly a quarter of a million dollars an episode. Bernie asks that I receive the same raise as my costars. We don’t ask for “Martin money”—he’s the president after all. I am refused.

  Bernie can do no more. “John Wells says you are being paid exactly what you should be. There will be no raise for you. I’m sorry, kid,” he says.

  Finally I begin to see what is, as opposed to what I would like to see. It is clear to me now that I have had an unrealistic expectation that I would participate financially in the show’s success. I know I am at a crossroads, with only two options: stay put or move forward. And if I am to move forward, it will require me to make a very difficult choice.

  I’m contemplating this at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, where I’ve traveled to location and to shoot a TV Guide cover with Martin in front of the White House.

  Sheryl has made the trip with me—she has been my rock and sounding board as I try to work my way to a path forward.

  Kathy Kelly Brown is the head of publicity on The West Wing. She’s smart, funny, and good at her job. Now she’s knocking at my door. I open it, dressed for the TV Guide shoot. Seeing me, her face falls. She looks at her feet.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She looks at me standing in my Sam Seaborn crisp white shirt and blue tie.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t tell you,” she says quietly. “Martin shot the cover an hour ago. With John Spencer instead of you.”

  Back in Los Angeles I have a meeting with Aaron about my future on the show. He’s always been straight with me and I with him. I tell him: “I know that Sam Seaborn is the part of a lifetime. I love this part unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. But I think it’s bullshit that I’m the only actor on the show who hasn’t been given even a penny raise. But I want to stay if we can grow this part creatively. If there is no financial future, let’s make a creative future.”

  But Aaron has many plates in the air, and he is clearly caught in the middle. (In fact, he will leave The West Wing in its fourth season as well.) When our meeting ends without any plan, I know it is time to move on.

  I had been an alcoholic for an important portion of my life. During that time I had hidden from conflict, fearful of not being liked, worried about how I would be thought of. But I was sober now for almost fourteen years. I was not the little boy back in Ohio in the lumberyard who said what he felt and got emotionally sideswiped for his efforts. I was not the overwhelmed twenty-year-old “sensation” who found it so much less painful to just say yes than to say no, even when I knew I should. I was also not a boy, without any real advisors, making it up as best I could. I was none of those things. Not anymore.

  So I came to the realization: Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life. To the extent that I had any inner turmoil, I had only myself to blame. I also thought of my two boys and what kind of example I hoped to be. I would always want them to take charge of their own futures and not be paralyzed by the comfort and certainty of the status quo or be cowed by the judgment of those on the outside looking in.

  But how could I ask that of Matthew and Johnowen if I couldn’t ask it of myself?

  I left The West Wing after four seasons and some eighty-plus episodes. It was one of the highlights of my career and I have zero regrets. To fly down those White House hallways, hitting that brilliant rapid-fire dialogue with such unbelievably talented collaborators, was pure joy.

  The passion of the show’s fans continues to amaze and humble me, even today. I recently took Johnowen’s class for a weekend tour of the real West Wing. The entire speechwriting staff came in on their day off to greet Sam Seaborn.

  The level of love The West Wing inspires makes it a show for the ages. And I believe it will go down as maybe the best ever. I’m proud to have contributed to those record-setting first four years.

  For me, the ongoing rewards of the series have been both professional and personal. By pushing through my comfort zone, I was able to train an emotional muscle that serves me well today. All of us on a daily basis have the opportunity to move forward or backward or stay put. Today, I know to move forward. And it’s funny—initially I wanted to be on The West Wing because I knew it would challenge me as an actor. But its real gift was that, in the end, it challenged me as a man.

  * * *

  Today, life’s blessings continue to surprise me. And the stories that follow from this mysterious, glorious, maddening, saddening journey are enou
gh to fill another book, maybe for another day. In the time I have worked on Stories I Only Tell My Friends I have shot three terrific television series in which I starred (Brothers and Sisters, Parks and Recreation, and Californication) all at the same time, sometimes two shows in one day. Moving from the real, human drama of Brothers to playing a true comic lead (not straight man) on Parks (after one fast fifteen-minute drive between sets) presented a thrilling contrast that few actors get to experience. I was blessed to be able to work in both comedy and drama surrounded by actors of such a high level of talent. In the middle of that hectic schedule I shot the controversial movie I Melt with You, playing one of the most rewarding roles of my career. It premiered at Sundance and will be released in 2011.

  In a screening room on location in Australia in 2003, I watched The Outsiders: The Novel, a new edition of the movie that contained my long-lost scenes from almost twenty-five years before. On-screen I saw a boy more like my sons now than myself. In that beginning, unformed haze of my career, I thought maybe I had botched these scenes. Now I saw they were beautiful and heartbreaking; the emotional ending the author always intended. They say you can never go home again, but I’m not so sure. That day I caught a good glimpse of my former self, and I came very, very close.

  Aaron Sorkin and I reunited in 2007 when I starred in the West End revival of his play A Few Good Men. I’m happy to say that the reception was everything we had hoped, as was our collaboration.

  I continue to produce, for HBO, even for the E! channel. My best pal and mentor, Tom Barrack, and I have started an entertainment fund and, along with our other investors, purchased Miramax Studios from the Walt Disney Company for $640 million in December 2010.

  In the middle of my life, I am in the middle of the thick of it. I am transitioning to new areas of passion and challenge; always driving forward, always pushing.

  I finally took up surfing and fell in love with its inherent demands of fitness, balance, commitment, and risk-taking. When I paddled out for the first time at Point Dume, I was moved to share the experience with Matthew, who was now the same age I was when the local surf gang discouraged me from learning so many years ago.

  The great Bernie Brillstein passed away in 2007, and was eulogized at one of the largest and most moving memorials ever held in Hollywood by the one who first introduced us back in 1978, Kermit the Frog.

  My mother died of breast cancer, too young at sixty-four years old. In her honor, I work regularly for cancer charities; in her memory I have written this book. She wrote every day of her life. I hope this would have been up to her standards.

  My father and my brothers are all well and ensconced in their lives; new wives, beautiful babies, and deep family reinvestment being the order of the day.

  And in the most surprising fact of my life, one that at one point I thought I was incapable of feeling and unworthy of achieving: I am still in love with my wife. After almost twenty years of marriage, I look at her face and see her radiant light; I hold her and feel our hard-earned and sometimes difficult history passing between us, enveloping us in an aura of comfort, gratitude, and profound attraction. If you’d asked me when I was a young punk what would be the best thing that could come my way, I would’ve said, “A movie with Martin Scorsese.” But God had other plans. He gave me Sheryl.

  As I write this, Matthew and Johnowen are waiting for me at home. I am on a packed, delayed flight back from shooting a project I’m producing in D.C. I’ve only been gone a few nights, but we are so close, the three of us, that it feels like a lifetime. I want to get back to them; there is a Colts game to be watched and we will crunch together on our couch and laugh and snuggle under our comfy blanket, even though they are seventeen and fifteen years old. President Clinton appears to have been right. If you’re lucky, those affectionate childhood bonds can grow even deeper with time.

  And today, that is what I look forward to. Time. Time to grow as an artist, businessman, and now author. Time to love my wife and watch our young men grow to make us proud, as I have no doubt they will. Time to watch them crystallize into the strong, sensitive, witty, and engaging men they almost are. The future is theirs. It’s all so close for them. It takes my breath away.

  My plane is descending into Los Angeles, bringing me back again to the city I wanted so badly to conquer as a child, arriving with my mother in our old Volvo. Los Angeles looks huge from the air, particularly in the setting sun’s magic hour. I can’t even comprehend how many close-ups I’ve shot, standing in that incredible amber light. I see the Hollywood sign now and it, too, is bathed in an almost purple hue. I’ve looked at that emblem of so many people’s dreams so many times that I often don’t even notice it. But today I do and I realize: It still means something to me. And I’m glad.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Sheryl, Matthew and Johnowen: Thanks for your love and patience; you make life worth living.

  My father, Chuck: For your inspiration and love; you are my hero.

  My brothers, Chad, Micah, and Justin: I’m blessed to have you in my life. Thanks for putting up with me; I love you very much.

  Brian, Jodi, Lucas, Jacob, and Darlene: For making my family complete and for your unwavering love.

  Tom Barrack: For your friendship, generosity, and example. Together “we go!”

  Bill Paxton: Thanks for the years of friendship and confidence.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger: For being who you are. Friend. Father. Leader. Here’s to many stogies to come.

  Maria Shriver: For your beauty, brains, and friendship and for sharing your beloved father with the country in ’72. It changed my life.

  Aaron Sorkin: For your friendship. For Sam Seaborn.

  Mike Myers: Thanks for the laughs, support, and the idea to write a book.

  Kenny and Lyndie Gorelick, Scott Sassa, Brian Novack, Herb and Bui Simon, Beth and Tag Mendillo, Mark and Heather Melchior, Kevin Falls, Dallas Taylor, Dr. Mark Morrow, and Betty Wyman: for being my treasured friends and confidants.

  Bob Timmons and Doug Fieger: I’m still going strong because of your wisdom. I miss you both.

  Eva and Olaf Hermes and Laurel Barrack: You were the first to hear this book, and your thoughts and support helped make it happen.

  Jennifer Dynof: Without you there is literally no manuscript. I am in debt for all you do for me, lowePROFILE, and the family.

  Carol Andrade and Carmen Bautista: For your loyalty and love, and for treating our family as if we were your own.

  Russell Strickland: For always having my back.

  Marc Gurvitz, Adam Venit, Richard Weitz, Alan Nierob, Jon Liebman, Ari Emanuel, Jonathan West, Nicole Perez-Krueger, Esther Chang, Andrew Weitz, Sean Perry, Mari Cardoos, Craig Szabo, and Larry Stein: I am blessed to have your daily attention and guidance. Thank you.

  Jennifer Ruldolph Walsh: For being there through the process with such tremendous encouragement.

  Gillian Blake: My great editor and new friend. Thanks for your patience and for turning me into a writer.

  Steve Rubin: For having faith in me and my stories and for making this all happen.

  Everyone at Henry Holt and Company: For your confidence, vision, and hard work on such a tight deadline.

  Jan Miller: For your faith in me and your added value in so many ways!

  Richard Abate and Jonathan Karp: For your early confidence in me as a writer.

  Nancy Josephson: Thank you for helping me put the pieces together.

  Graydon Carter and Oprah Winfrey: For being early and enthusiastic supporters of this book. Thank you.

  To all my friends and colleagues both current and throughout the years: some of you are mentioned in the narrative and some are not, but you all have inspired me.

  To my fans and friends around the world: Without you it all stops. Thank you so deeply for the decades of support.

  To all friends of Bill W’s.

  To all young actors everywhere.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ROB LOWE is a film, television, a
nd theater actor, a producer, and an entrepreneur. He also is involved in politics. He lives with his wife and two sons in California.

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  Copyright © 2011 by Robert Lowe

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lowe, Rob.

  Stories I only tell my friends : an autobiography / Rob Lowe. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8050-9329-2 (hardcover)

  1. Lowe, Rob. 2. Actors—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  PN2287.L664A3 2011

  791.4302'8092—dc22

  [B] 2011001622

  First Edition 2011

  Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are courtesy of author’s personal collection. Photograph here of Rob Lowe by Jim Wright / Icon International.

  eISBN 978-1-4299-9602-0

  First Henry Holt eBook Edition: April 2011