Date of Birth:March 17, 1964
Place of Birth:Charlottesville
VA,U.S.
Lowe was living in Dayton, OH, at the age of ten when he was first inspired to become an actor by a live production of "Oliver!" After his parents' divorce, he and younger brother Chad moved to Los Angeles with their mother, and Lowe embarked on his career with appearances in TV commercials before landing the plum role of Eileen Brennan's son on the short-lived ABC sitcom "A New Kind of Family" (1979-1980). After a spell of failed pilots and "Afterschool Specials," the newcomer earned a Golden Globe nomination for playing a young patient awaiting a heart transplant in the CBS TV movie, "Thursday's Child" (1983). But it was his role in "The Outsiders" (1983) as Sodapop Curtis, one of a group of working-class teens engaged in a dangerous class war in post-war, small-town middle America, that transformed Lowe (and his co-stars) into a teen heartthrob. Lowe was soon lumped in with fellow greasers C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, and a host of other young adult actors and actresses who dominated 1980s teen films and were collectively referred to as the Brat Pack. While Lowe seemed a bit deer-in-the-headlights in "The Outsiders," he established the doltish, smarmy, charm that would become his early trademark with his role as a prep school student whose mother (Jacqueline Bisset) engages in an affair with his roommate (fellow Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy) in "Class" (1983).
Despite having displayed little in the way of actual acting chops in his first big screen outings, Lowe was featured opposite proven thesp Jodie Foster in the film adaptation of John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire" (1984), which brought the young actor attention for his affair with co-star Nastassja Kinski, though he was at the time in a very public relationship with the prim "Half-Pint" Melissa Gilbert, of "Little House on the Prairie" fame. Rob Lowe followed with a similar role, playing a smooth-talking, slightly suspect charmer who chases a love interest overseas in "Oxford Blues" (1984). In another Brat Pack offering, Lowe won a Razzie Award for his unconvincing portrayal of a devil-may-care musician who is forever toting around a saxophone and breaking hearts in the unintentional comedy, "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985). That ensemble film that counted Estevez, McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy among its cast was followed by Lowe's pairing with Moore in the romantic comedy "About Last Night" (1986), which banked on both actors' reputations as fast-living types. Lowe's pairing with Swayze in the physique-focused hockey drama "Youngblood" in 1986 was the last of his Brat Pack projects. Rob Lowe went on to earn a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as a mentally-challenged Texan in the NBC TV movie, "Square Dance" (1986).
Lowe acquitted himself well in the romantic thriller "Masquerade" (1988), but following a starring role in Peter Bogdanovich's dreadful romantic comedy "Illegally Yours" (1988) it was becoming apparent that the former teen star's status was plunging quickly. That dive was accelerated by the surfacing of a videotape showing Lowe engaged in sexual activity with two women in an Atlanta hotel during the Democratic National Convention of 1988. As if that were not scandal enough at the time, one of the women turned out to be 16 years old. Rather than face prosecution, Lowe agreed to perform 20 hours of community service, but the damage was done and the actor found himself Hollywood poison, having crossed the line from notorious lothario to alleged sexual criminal. The actor entered treatment for drug and sex addiction and laid low, surfacing only to make an ill-advised appearance on the 1989 Academy Awards telecast where his rendition of "Proud Mary," sung to a faux Snow White, failed to do anything but make him that much bigger a joke. Rob Lowe did, however, begin to regain some ground with an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975- ) where Dana Carvey's Church Lady paddled him for his indiscretions. For his return to film several years after the scandal, Lowe aligned himself with his public image and positioned himself as a villain in Curtis Hanson's "Bad Influence" (1990), a thriller that paired him with James Spader as a law-abiding friend cajoled into unlawful behavior by the charismatic Lowe.