"Stories I Only Tell My Friends" - And Now the World!

Like most people who are 40-something, I have been watching watching Rob Lowe's meteoric rise to fame, unbelievable crash and eventual career resurgence for the past 25+ years. As a long time admirer of Rob Lowe, I was excited to read his autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, which is a fascinating look at Hollywood from an insider who has been equally the golden boy and the goat. A uncompromisingly honest and surprisingly funny memoir, Rob has had a truly fascinating life and has met an amazingly diverse group of Hollywood royalty from Cary Grant to Liza Minnelli to Lucille Ball, plus a bevy of politicos, such as JFK, Jr., Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton. Having spent his formative years in Malibu hanging around the likes of Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Sean and Chris Penn, long before they were household names, Rob has some of the most entertaining stories of these future stars. For anyone who is or wishes to be an actor, it's also an engrossing look at the machinations of "the business" and the politics behind it all. Additionally, for any performer, Rob shares his insights on the craft of acting, including one of my favorite passages:

"I've never agreed with the conventional wisdom that 'actors are great liars.' If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be 'actors are terrible liars,' because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What's called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary," (Lowe, p 107)

Huzzah! Thank you, Rob, for nicely summing up what my acting coach and I have been saying for years!

An entirely enjoyable read, I applaud Rob Lowe for his honesty and his wonderful ability to laugh at himself. Good for you, Rob!  Intelligent, funny and honest - it's nice to know he's more than just a pretty face.