“I love important birthdays because they are an opportunity to reflect and think about where you want to go”, confessed Rob Lowe a few days ago in an interview given to him by People magazine. The question referred to tomorrow, when the actor, who was a sex symbol in the eighties, will be 60 years old. “I have never felt better”, he admitted.
Lowe faces the new decade with an enviable physical shape, thanks to sport. But undoubtedly the elixir of youth and stability has been given by more than thirty years of happy marriage with Sheryl Berkoff (62), as well as his two children: Matthew Edward (30), an expert businessman in marketing, and John Owen (28), actor and screenwriter, with whom he works on the comedy Inestable (Netflix), which after the success of the first season has already started filming the second.
The small screen has been where the actor has achieved his successes, since the new century began with titles such as Cinco hermanos, Californication, Parks and Recreation and especially with the acclaimed The West Wing of the White House. And currently, in addition to Inestable, the fifth season of 9-1-1 Lone Star is pending.
Rob Lowe maintains the good star, in the personal and professional sphere, despite the fact that due to a sexual scandal and addictions he was about to lose everything.
He was born in Charlottesville (Virginia) and knew from an early age that he wanted to be an actor. At the age of 12, he had already participated in 30 plays. It was then that his parents separated and he moved with his mother and younger brother, Chad, to Malibu. In 1983, luck put him on the path of Francis Ford Coppola, who signed him to star in his film Rebels alongside other future stars, such as Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio or Matt Dillon.
That leap to fame (Youngblood, Hotel New Hampshire, St. Elmo’s, point of encounter or Enséñame a bailar) made him an idol of the masses and he allowed himself to be loved: Melissa Gilbert, Winona Ryder, Nastassja Kinski and Estefania de Mónaco were some of his partners, even Jane Fonda, 26 years older than him. But at the same time that success lifted him up, addiction to drugs and alcohol brought him down. Until 1988 he hit rock bottom when some sexual videos of him with a minor were leaked.
It was in an Atlanta hotel that Lowe, who was 24 years old, had relations with two women, aged 22 and 16, and recorded themselves. Then, while he was showering, they ran away with the video and another of the actor and a friend with a woman in Paris. With the public broadcast, Hollywood vetoed his career and, although they reached an out-of-court settlement, the justice sentenced him to 20 hours of community service.
“I was stupid and I didn’t make money with it like everyone else is doing now,” said the actor in a recent interview. And that scandal “is the best thing that happened to me. Honestly, I think so, because it helped me overcome alcoholism and sobriety allowed me to get married”, recalled the actor years later. In 1990 he started dating Sheryl Berkoff, make-up artist for the film Bad Influences, and they have been together ever since. However, in 2008 he was again the protagonist of other demands. Two nannies and a cook accused him of sexual harassment, but the actor sued them for defamation and the matter did not go to court.