Book ~ "Stories I Only Tell My Friends" (2011) Rob Lowe

From Amazon ~ A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

I don't dislike Rob Lowe but I can't say I'm a big fan either ... he's okay.

But I like reading celebrity stories, though, so that's why I read this.

It's okay, not great.

We learn a lot about Lowe's upbringing ... divorced parents, uprooted to California and trying to fit in with the surfer guys, mentally ill mom, living in the same 'hood as the Sheens, etc. And there's a lot about how he met his wife, Sheryl, that they have been together for 20+ years and have two kids, and that he went through rehab in 1990.

What's missing are the details of the scandalous life he led when he was younger. He had a long relationship with Melissa Gilbert which involved cheating and a miscarriage. I'd read was pissed that she only warranted a couple paragraphs in Lowe's book while she wrote chapters about him (I've never liked her, BTW). The video scandal when he was with two girls (one of them underage) got a paragraph. If you didn't know it happened, you wouldn't realize the impact it had. So he has really sanitized his story. It's his book so I guess that's his right. So it you are looking for something juicy, this isn't it.

I've never seen The Outsiders , St. Elmo's Fire or About Last Night ... but now that I know the stories behind them, I'll check them out.