Book Review of “Stories I Only Tell My Friends”— (22/52)
Rob Lowe’s stellar memoir offers a witty and insightful take into his Hollywood and personal life
Exactly midway through his excellent 306 page memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob Lowe, on page 153, asserts that his most enjoyable and self-fulfilling parts as an actor have not necessarily been the biggest roles of that work. Instead, the best parts that Lowe has played in his 30+ year acting career have been the ones that are “the most memorable” (Lowe, 153).
A role that “Literally!” — sorry, had to go there — proves this slice of Lowe’s wisdom regarding acting is the one he played in the hit NBC show Parks and Recreation. The Amy Poehler-led show had already aired for almost two successful seasons before Rob Lowe and Adam Scott made their guest appearance in the penultimate episode of the second season.
The audience had also came to form deep emotional bonds with the other characters in the show. Aziz Ansari’s character, Tom Haverford, provided brilliant comedic relief while Chris Pratt’s “Andy” exhibited raw aloofness. Aubrey Plaza’s April Ludgate was delved as much into cynicism as Rashida Jones’ character, Ann Perkins, was seeped in logical and rational thinking.
Yet, the arrival of Rob Lowe’s character, Chris Traeger, provided the perfect character the already-almost-perfect show needed to reach the upper echelons of sitcom immortality. As Lowe states, Traeger was not the most important character on the show (that pedestal was rightly taken by Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope), nor was he of the level-headed, decisive cynic mold that fitted Nick Offerman’s character, Ron Swanson. But, somewhere in those hilarious circumstances and people of Pawnee, Indiana, Rob Lowe’s, Chris Traeger, shone as the show’s “most memorable character.”
Early Rise to Stardom
While he grew up in Dayton, Ohio during his early childhood years, due to his parents’ divorce, Lowe and his mother moved to the “City of Angels,” Los Angeles. There, Lowe would later attend Santa Monica High School, a institute of learning that would produce thespian superstars like Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, and Robert Downey, Jr.
While Charlie Sheen wanted to pursue a promising baseball career, Lowe and Charlie’s brother, Emilio, set their sights on acting. From Lowe’s writing and description of his teenage thoughts, it is evident that acting is readily attractive to him. And, instinctually, he has a sense that his future consists of delivering pitch-perfect lines as a career.
“I didn’t become an actor to get famous. I didn’t become an actor to get rich. I was too young and unsophisticated to really understand that these things were even an option; I just wanted to do what I loved.”
— Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Page 265)
The Outsiders
While Rob Lowe would have decent initial success in commercials and TV shows, his first big break came when he was cast by Francis Ford Coppola — a legendary director who directed The Godfather, among other classics — in The Outsiders. The cast was a relatively young group of budding actors that features Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez (Lowe’s friend), Patrick Swayze, and Matt Dillon.
Almost all of these actors would go on to grab the highly-coveted feature roles in major Hollywood blockbusters and their experience while making the film would bond them forever. While Lowe had an engrossing and self-fulfilling experience working under Coppola’s direction, when the film was released, Lowe’s character, Sodapop, a character that is supposed to be the heart of the film, is not featured all that often. In fact, some of Lowe’s best scenes are inexplicably cut from the final version of the film.
But, the role would jump-start Lowe’s acting career and in the 80's he would become one of the most sought-after leading-men in show business.
Personal Life
In reflecting on his eventful life, Lowe felt that he ran at full sprint towards his acting dreams when the opportunities presented themselves. But, in the process, he also gave up many other things (notably, family life and friends). He found fame to be both gratifying and perplexing. Lowe, as his fame burgeoned, would be swarmed by girls everywhere he went, which was in stark contrast to his life during his high school days when girls were basically indifferent to his mere presence (for the most part).
Fame, it seemed to Lowe, presented him as someone he was not. In fact, in a poignant sentence he writes, “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t like me nearly as much” (pg. 84).
Pursuing his acting dreams also wreaked havoc on his persona life. In fact, in the 1990s, he will finally detach himself from Hollywood’s enigmatic, fast lifestyle and settle down for a much-needed slow-paced life.
“I want what I’ve never had. A normal life. And so, after spending the eighties working on a career, I will spend the nineties working on my life.”
— Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Page 260)
Some Lessons I Took Away
Rob Lowe’s acting career definitely had its fair share of twists and turns. But, in that sinewy and winding journey, some lessons stuck with me. The first lesson was how the concept of “creative experience” works. While filming The Outsiders, Lowe, in a dull moment on set, struck a conversation with his director, Francis Ford Coppola, about the vaunted director’s success with The Godfather film franchise. In an interesting choice of metaphors, Coppola compared his experience making those films to a lamp.
“If you are fortunate enough to be part of a hit, particularly a transcendent one, all emotional ownership is transferred from you to the audience. They judge it and embrace it; project their own hopes, dreams, and fears onto it; take their personal meaning from its themes, and with these investments it becomes theirs. The significance of your participation pales in comparison to the significance the project has on their imaginations. And so, you are left outside of the phenomenon. Just as Paul McCartney can never experience the Beatles, Francis Ford Coppola can never experience The Godfather. It becomes a lamp.”
— Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Page 138)
The second tidbit that hit home with me was how to build a lasting career and the truly inherent difficulty of that undertaking.
“Anyone can run a career when the going is good. But it’s in the down times, the quiet times, that long-term careers are really made. You need to find ways to stay in the conversation, to be current and to reinvent yourself.”
— Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Page 237)
Finally, the third piece stuck out to me given what NBA Superstar Kobe Bryant recently tweeted out:
Lowe’s thoughts on the topic pretty much mirror Kobe’s:
“That’s the way it works in show business (and in life); if you have some success, you often outgrow those who were there in the beginning, but you give them a shot to grow with you. If they can’t — or won’t — you move on.”
— Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Page 89)
Sources
Lowe, Rob. Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography. New York: Henry Holt, 2011. Print.
Notes
This is the TWENTY-SECOND book review (out of 52 in total eventually) that is a part of my 2015 Book Reading Challenge.
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