Rob Lowe . . . gets serious. Husband. Father. West Wing star. The Brat-Pack
heartthrob is all grown now, with grown-up things he needs to tell you
It's a damp afternoon in New York City, and though Rob Lowe has
been up since dawn, there's not a trace of stubble on his sun-kissed face, and
his astonishing blue eyes are as bright as ever. At 38, he's still
breath-taking, but more handsome now than cute. There are even bits of
imperfection: A blue bruise marks one perfectly tapered fingernail, and a few
dark brown hairs are twisted out of place.
Married since 1991, and the father of two young sons, Rob Lowe has
clearly come of age. The boyish ingénue who danced with Snow White at the
Oscars and angsted his way through a bunch of Brat-Pack movies has been replaced
by a new, more serious Rob Lowe, star of the hugely successful series The West
Wing, and a man who says he feels "confident" about his work as an
actor.
But it's not acting that brings him here today, to a conference
room at the Four Seasons Hotel. Lowe is involved in a personal campaign to
promote a better understanding of chemotherapy and the threat of infection
during treatment. In 1990, his father, Chuck Lowe, now 63, was battling
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and developed a dangerous infection while undergoing
chemo.
"The irony is that the chemotherapy was doing exactly what it's supposed
to do - but that also means my dad's immune system was incredibly suppressed and
unable to fight off outside infections," Lowe explains. "They had to stop chemo
until he got over this infection. And when you're on chemo and it's stopped -
that's one more day that your life isn't getting saved. My dad thought he was
going to die.
"My family is no different from any other," Lowe continues. "The
stress was unbearable. We were so overwhelmed and unsure and
frightened."
At the time, not much could be done to protect patients from the
risk of infection during chemo. Now, according to Lowe, all that has changed.
"Patients can ask their doctors about treatments going into it," he says.
"There's no reason they have to go through what my dad did." (Father and son
have made a videotape for patients and their families, available at the Web site
www.bymyside.com).
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In keeping with his more mature persona, Lowe has made a conscious
effort to keep his family life free from the Hollywood maelstrom: Lowe, his
wife, Sheryl, and sons Matthew; nine, and JohnOwen, seven, live some 90 minutes
up the California coast from the West Wing set. But like most parents, Lowe has
to work at drawing limits for his kids. The boys recently saw a PG-13 movie,
Lowe reports, and some foul phrases started creeping into their vocabulary; "I
told them, 'I really thought you were aware of what to say and what not to. If
you aren't, I can't let you see those movies."'
As a father, he says, "You make it up as you go along... and you
learn from your own experience." Having experienced early stardom, Lowe knows
one thing he doesn't want for either of his boys: a career as a child actor.
"You shouldn't have to grow up in the public eye," he says emphatically. "It's
hard enough to grow up privately. Part of growing up is pushing limits, and
you're inevitably going to mess up. You don't want to do it in front of a
camera. People shouldn't have to see that."
Lowe, of course, had an infamous episode of his own during his
BratPack days, one that appears to have changed his life. When he turned 25, he
says, "I asked myself what I wanted to do. I'd established a career, but I
didn't feel like I had the same skills when it came to the rest of my life. I
wanted marriage, family kids -- I wanted to be part of all that." Before long,
he was.
As for his good looks, Lowe insists "it cuts both ways -- his
appearance has helped and hurt him. But, he adds with good-humored resignation,
"I realize it isn't the kind of thing for which anyone is going to have a
wellspring of pity." He also notes that his role as the bright if easily
flustered Sam Seaborn on West Wing's one of the first that doesn't trade on his
physical attributes. "Everyone else on the show is making out but Sam. Everyone
else has a girlfriend. We need to have a telethon for him! He's the loneliest
man in prime time."
In between shooting The West Wing and tending to his family, Lowe has
made two movies. In A View From the Top, a comedy opening this month starring
Gwyneth Paltrow, he plays "a very tongue-in-cheek, cool-guy pilot." Then there's
the upcoming TV thriller Framed, with Lowe as a straight-arrow working-class cop
-- and Sam Neill as the bad guy who tries to corrupt him.
Does the bad guy succeed? Rob Lowe flashes a dazzling,
you-can't-possibly-think-I'd-give-that-away grin. "I don't want to ruin it for
you," he says politely.
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