Rob Lowe

Rob Lowe (born March 17, 1964, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.) is an American television and film actor known for playing the role of cerebral White House deputy communications director Sam Seaborn in the political drama series The West Wing (1999–2003 and 2006) and the excessively optimistic city manager Chris Traeger in the situation comedy Parks and Recreation (2010–15). At the beginning of his career in the 1980s, Lowe was part of a group of young and brash American actors who collectively became known as “the Brat Pack”—which included Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and others—some of whom appeared with Lowe in films such as the crime drama The Outsiders (1983) and the coming-of-age film St. Elmo’s Fire (1985).

Early life

Robert Hepler Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, to Barbara Lowe (née Hepler), a teacher, and Charles Davis Lowe, a divorce lawyer. As an infant, he contracted a case of mumps that was undiagnosed, which left him deaf in his right ear. The family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when he was a young child. He realized that he wanted to become an actor at age 10 after seeing a local production of the musical Oliver! His younger brother Chad was also an aspiring performer who would eventually go on to act in television and films. After Lowe’s parents divorced and his mother remarried for a second time, the family moved to Malibu, California. He later attended Santa Monica High School, where his classmates included Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn, who would both go on to successful acting careers.

Early career

Lowe made his television debut in the late 1970s playing teenager Tony Flanagan in the short-lived situation comedy A New Kind of Family (1979–80). He landed the role of Sam Alden, a star high-school baseball player who is diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease, in the television movie Thursday’s Child in 1983. In that same year he made his feature-film debut portraying heartthrob Sodapop Curtis in American director Francis Ford Coppola’s coming-of-age drama The Outsiders, which was also an important early film for other young American actors, including Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, and Estevez. Lowe went on to star in mid-1980s films such as the comedy-drama The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), the sports film Oxford Blues (1984), the Brat Pack film St. Elmo’s Fire, and the romantic comedy About Last Night (1986).

Personal life

Lowe started to drink alcohol as a teenager and eventually developed a substance use problem. He was 18 years old when he worked on The Outsiders, and he recalls that film studio union members supplied the teenaged cast members with beer. His career was temporarily damaged in 1988 following a scandal that centered on a sexually explicit videotape of Lowe and two women, one of whom was a minor. He performed 20 hours of community service to avoid criminal charges. He entered a substance abuse rehabilitation program and stopped drinking and using drugs in 1990 at the age of 26. Lowe, who has abstained since then, has said that his understanding of life stemmed from seeking help and staying sober. He married American makeup artist Sheryl Berkoff in 1991; they have two sons, Matthew and John Owen.

Later career

He hosted the late-night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the first time in 1990, and this helped to rehabilitate his image. On the set of SNL, he met Canadian actor and cast member Mike Myers, who eventually offered Lowe roles in the comedies Wayne’s World (1992), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). Lowe also appeared in several other 1990s movies before landing a role in American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s political drama The West Wing in 1999.

Lowe abruptly quit The West Wing in 2003; at first he cited the diminished role of his character on the show, but later he admitted that he left because he was not offered a pay increase. He went on to appear in the drama series Brothers & Sisters (2006–10) and the situation comedy Parks and Recreation (2010–15). On Parks and Recreation he played nerdy city manager Chris Traeger, a role that Lowe admitted was not that much of a challenge for him, saying in a 2014 interview with The New York Times Magazine, “My deep dark secret is that I was a nerd in school. I liked the theater. I liked to study.” He also appeared in the comedy-drama series Californication (2011–14), the legal comedy series The Grinder (2015–16), the medical drama series Code Black (2016–18), and the procedural drama series 9-1-1: Lone Star (2020– ). He has hosted the podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe, in which he interviews entertainment industry friends and collaborators, since 2020. He has also starred with his son John Owen in the workplace comedy series Unstable (2023– ).

Lowe shared Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series with his fellow West Wing cast members in 2000 and 2001. He is the author of two memoirs, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (2011) and Love Life (2014). Additionally, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015.

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