Keeping A Lowe Profile

Reviewing a new memoir by Rob Lowe, Heather Havrilesky finds that the actor has pulled off the near-impossible – a celebrity book with some humility:

[H]e makes up for … egocentric passages with lovable Diary of an Emo Kid interludes in which our hero is overcome by his surging emotions. On a flight to visit his son during his freshman year at college, for example, Lowe is forced to wear sunglasses and hide behind his newspaper to mask his copious tears. “I am amazed that so much water can come out of the eyes of someone who dehydrates himself with so much caffeine,” he writes, wryly deprecating his sentimental foolishness while also indulging a telltale celebrity Angeleno focus on maximal body maintenance.

Throughout Love Life, Lowe seems attracted to his most demeaning stories:

Jewel wipes her mouth with the back of her hand after she’s forced to kiss him while shooting the short-lived drama The Lyon’s Den. He dresses up as Bigfoot to scare his kids while camping, and ends up getting kicked in the balls. He visits Warren Beatty’s house with his girlfriend; Beatty lightly informs him that he’s been sleeping with her.

Mostly, though, Lowe’s books are a great example of the power of confounding expectations. You wouldn’t think a face off the pages of Tiger Beat magazine would revel in his own humiliation as much as Lowe does. When, in Stories I Only Tell My Friends, a young Lowe goes to a screening of The Outsiders and discovers that his central role in the film has been reduced to an afterthought, it’s impossible not to feel sad for this needy teenager, who desperately hopes for some proof that his big dream hasn’t been a waste of time. Instead, he is humbled, truly.