Rob Lowe should thank his God every day that TMZ didn’t exist back in 1985. Even what little has trickled out about the actor’s wild exploits from that pre-Internet era has turned him into legend.
The actor, who was considered among the most handsome of his generation and whose photo graced countless teen magazines, spent the decade drinking, partying and dating more than most mortal men.
There was the cocaine-fueled night out at a Manhattan club with Jodie Foster, the long nights of drinking with his so-called Brat Pack friends, the press tour of Australia during which he got a tattoo — none of which he remembers.
And then there were the women. Nastassja Kinski. Princess Stephanie of Monaco. Melissa “Half Pint” Gilbert. Two random chicks with whom he made an infamous sex tape in 1988. Even he’s probably lost count.
“Ya know, guys, I think that kid’s banged every one of our daughters,” Robert Wagner once joked at an event when he thought Lowe was out of earshot.
If someone told you back then that 30 years later, we’d still be talking about Rob Lowe — he of the feathered hair, earring and ripped T-shirt — you’d probably have scoffed.
But Lowe, 50, has managed to avoid the fate of Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and many other of his once-hot contemporaries by reforming his image and grinding out a long, diverse career.
He writes about much of it in his new book, “Love Life,” out Tuesday. The memoir is loaded with showbiz anecdotes, self-deprecating tales and has a general sweetness that some readers might not be expecting from Lowe.
“I always like stories where the egg ends up on my face,” Lowe tells The Post.
In one story, Lowe fails to close the deal with a very game Madonna back in 1984. In another, he’s shooting an episode of his 2003 NBC show “The Lyon’s Den,” opposite the singer-turned-actor Jewel. The scene called for the two to kiss passionately and lie down on a desk before the camera cut.
“Jewel didn’t want to kiss me,” Lowe writes. “I was beginning to take it personally.”
Finally, she relented and Lowe was able to plant an awkward peck on her mouth. When the scene was finished, Jewel promptly wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“The reason that story is in the book is because it serves the larger theme,” Lowe says. “That’s just a day in the life of the BS that goes on that nobody ever tells you about.”
BS? It’s hard to imagine that someone who has seemingly led as charmed a life as Lowe puts up with any hardship, but as “Love Life” — as well as Lowe’s 2011 book, “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” — makes clear, Lowe is not the same man from the 1980s. He’s grown up, settled down.
In 1991, Lowe married makeup artist Sheryl Berkoff, whom he first met on a blind date in 1983. The couple have two sons. (Papa Lowe will be signing “Love Life” Wednesday at noon at the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue at 46th Street.)
The road to his current place of contentment has certainly been bumpy.
“Here’s my theory: If a person gets worldwide fame at a young age, they’re emotionally frozen at that moment,” Lowe says. “For me, that’s 15 to 18, so you find yourself in your mid-20s being a glorified 15-year-old. What could possibly go wrong?”
What went wrong was Lowe became an alcoholic. After first hitting it big in 1983’s “The Outsiders,” the actor became a teen idol, and he — along with close friends Charlie Sheen and the Brat Pack — began tearing up the LA party scene.
In “Love Life,” he writes about his first visit to the Playboy Mansion at age 19. After chatting up a plastic surgeon (“I do all the work up here,” the doc says with a smile), Lowe encounters a blond Playmate, and the two agree to meet in the infamous grotto later.
The actor later waits in the Jacuzzi, but his date fails to show. While he’s waiting, he sees another hot Playmate through the fog. She’s naked. The two begin a conversation, talking about movies and the Mansion. But as Lowe moves closer, he finds the steam has obscured one important fact: The Playmate is currently having sex with “a Hall of Fame football star.”
Lowe excuses himself, embarrassed.
Wild nights like that became rarer after 1990, when the actor decided to get sober. He was also continuing to suffer from the fallout caused by the leak of a sex tape shot the night before the 1988 Democratic National Convention showing him with two women — one of whom was underage.
“When I got sober,” he says, “I finally did the emotional growing that any natural person would have done.”
He says his chosen profession is partly to blame.
“The highest levels of fame in the entertainment business are geared toward keeping the artist disconnected, disinterested and continuing to make product and not developing any sort of ‘normal life,’ ” he says. “You have to actively work at it.”
Lowe credits his wife with keeping his family stable.
“I need her unrelenting attention to detail, her indefatigable drive for organization and order, and most of all, her utterly selfless ability to put her needs last as she focuses like a laser on the needs and wants of those she loves,” he writes.
Both hits and flops would follow in the next decades. Now sober and a family man, Lowe went back to work, filming smashes “Wayne’s World” (1992) and “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997).
The actor has said that stretching himself by doing comedy was great for his career. In 1993, Lowe was chosen to play opposite Dame Maggie Smith in a TV movie version of “Suddenly, Last Summer” by director Richard Eyre of London’s National Theatre. When Lowe asked why him, Sir Richard said, “I saw you in ‘Wayne’s World.’ ”
Arguably Lowe’s biggest success was starring in the television political drama “The West Wing” (which debuted in 1999) playing White House communications director Sam Seaborn.
The performance earned Lowe an Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe nods, but he decided to leave after four seasons amid rumors he was disgruntled over his pay and screen time.
“People ask why I left all the time,” he says. “It’s a bit like asking a couple why they divorced. There are two sides to it, and both are valid.”
Lowe writes in his first book that he bailed because he was the only actor on the show who hadn’t been given a raise. Also, creator Aaron Sorkin refused to promise his character future story lines.
Whatever the reason, it couldn’t have helped that instead of giving the cast cars, as NBC had done for other hit shows, an executive gathered “The West Wing” folks in a room one day and presented them with a single-serving espresso-maker. That was rented, no less.
“You make a flop and you move on,” Lowe says. “You make a hit and you move on even faster.”
The actor says he learned an important showbiz lesson from comedian Mike Myers: “Do not eat the ‘wish sandwich.’ ”
“Just because you have an idea or vision, it does not mean on any level that it’s going to happen,” he explains. “If it isn’t on the page, it isn’t on the stage.”
Lowe no longer picks projects based on potential; he judges by the script that exists and the talent involved.
Eating the so-called “wish sandwich” led him to sign up for “Dr. Vegas,” a short-lived 2004 drama about a house physician at a casino. Despite a promising cast that included a young Amy Adams, it became clear to Lowe that the show was not long for the world. Joe Pantoliano was having his assistant read him his lines through an ear piece, and co-star Tom Sizemore was clearly having substance-abuse problems.
One day, Lowe got a call from Sizemore, who was so desperate to get out of work that he spun a story about his girlfriend being decapitated and left in a dumpster.
“And — and — and — I can’t come in to shoot today ’cause I’m looking for her torso!” Sizemore wailed. “Aagh, Rob, she has no torso!”
Since then, Lowe has appeared in a varied assortment of TV movies, including the hit HBO biopic about Liberace, “Behind the Candelabra,” as well as the sitcoms “Parks and Recreation.” He recently left that show.
“What people don’t realize is that I was meant to do four weeks. I did four years,” he says. “With [co-star] Rashida Jones leaving, and we were a couple on the show, all these things fell into place for it to make sense [to leave].”
Lowe says his transformation isn’t all that remarkable to him, and he never spent much time trying to massage his image.
Despite leaving his own hard-partying past behind, Lowe still has respect for Charlie Sheen, with whom he’s been close since age 12.
“He lives the life he wants to lead, unapologetically,” Lowe says. “Charlie will say, ‘Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster? Let’s get on my private jet and go find it.’ That’s literally what he does. In an era where everyone is so PC and human-resourced out, that guys like that are still out there, I believe the world is better off for it.”
When asked if he has any advice for 2014 bad boy Justin Bieber, Lowe laughs.
“I don’t,” he says. “I couldn’t even begin to contemplate the level of scrutiny that exists today. It’s such a different world. There wasn’t social media or cameras on our phones.”
For his part, Lowe seems to be navigating just fine and stresses that he doesn’t miss his wild old days.
“Oh, God, no,” he says. “Being sober, I found all of the promises they tell you about and then some.
“If you had asked me at the height of my carousing what I’d wanted for my life, I’d have said, ‘To star in a Martin Scorsese movie,’ ” he explains.
“Well, guess what? I haven’t starred in a Martin Scorsese movie, but what I do have is a marriage that I love, two amazing children and a career that is more diverse than ever before.”
Up next is an NBC pilot called “The Pro,” in which Lowe plays a former tennis great working at a country club. He also appears in this summer’s Cameron Diaz-Jason Segel comedy “Sex Tape.” The actor says taking the part was a little wink to his past.
“I decided it was high time for me to actually get something good out of the sex tape,” he jokes.
Lowe Life
He’s survived alcoholism, a scandal with an underage girl, sex addiction, rehab, the Brat Pack, friendship with Charlie Sheen—and even starring in TV movies about real-life criminals Drew Peterson and Casey Anthony. So how did a churchgoing kid from Ohio end up a Hollywood legend? First he moved to Malibu…
