Rob
Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on March 17th, 1964.
He was raised in Dayton, Ohio. He made his on stage debut at the
tender age of eight and by the age of twelve he had appeared in
over 30 plays. He appeared in local TV commercials and modeled
in his youth.
When his parents divorced, his mother, younger brother Chad and
Rob moved to Malibu, California. He attended Santa Monica High
School, where he met Sean Penn and Emilio Estevez. They dabbled
in Super-8 film making and the three would form the core of, what
would become known as, the Hollywood "Brat Pack".
While
in high school, he resumed going on auditions. He was nominated
for a Hollywood Foreign Press Association Golden Globe award for
his part in the television movie "Thursdays Child."
When Rob was 19, he was cast in his first film "The Outsiders"
(1991), as Soda Pop, the handsome and playful older brother to
the lead character, Pony Boy. The movie launched several careers
including Rob's.
He
kept up his sex appeal with roles in "Class", "Youngblood",
and Oxford Blues." He again hit the jackpot with Demi Moore,
Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson in "St. Elmo's
Fire." The stars of the show were refereed to as "The
Brat Pack" and Rob was probably the most notorious for getting
into trouble. He validated his brattiness by videotaping sex acts
with a minor during the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta.
The teenager's mother sued; Lowe was penalized with just 20 hours
of community service and a pile of negative publicity. Rob's career
took a turn for the worse and was practically unseen until the
mid 90's.
He
later married make-up artist, Sheryl, with whom he has two sons.
Rob went on to portray an evil character in "Bad Influence",
and scored third billing in the popular "Wayne's World".
It appeared that the public had forgiven him for his video sex-capade.
He appeared in the highly successful, extraterrestrial encounter
film "Contact" as the head of the Christian Coalition.
He then returned to the big screen in yet another Mike Myer's
comedy mega-hit "Austin Powers."
While
Rob's new career has not reached the phenomenal status he had
achieved in the 80's, he is well on his way to recapturing it.
He is taken more seriously as an actor and a person now. His new
television series "West Wing", is a political-comedy
and was hailed as the most promising of the Fall of 99 line up.
