Stories I Only Tell My Friends By Rob Lowe

The title of Rob Lowe’s autobiography – Stories I only Tell My Friends – has an incredibly appropriate undertone to it. As opposed to his philosophy on life or meditations on how his career progressed, the book is a collection of anecdotes from the Bratpacker's fractured career. Some of the stories are charming, like the home movies he made with Sean Penn and Emilio Estevez as teenagers, and some are salacious insider celebrity stories, like his passionate affair with Princess Stephanie of Monaco.

Lowe's candor with the details of his private life and the many ups and downs of his career is equally matched with his ability to talk warmly and fondly about almost every experience he has had in Hollywood. For all the people he has known and surrounded himself with, there isn't one piece of this book where he talks negatively about anyone, except maybe the idiots that made fun of him in high school. After all, though, who doesn’t want to use fame or success to stick it to the people that were snotty to them in high school?

beginning this book, we were anxious to get through his stories about childhood and breaking into the business as a teen in order to get to what we thought would be the good stuff; the descriptions of becoming dreamboat speechwriter Sam Seaborn on The West Wing. But Lowe actually doesn’t discuss his most famous role until practically the end of the book, and what surprised us is that the stories along the way were interesting and honest.

The tales of Hollywood are fascinating, but more interesting are the personal experiences. The book begins with him discussing marriage and settling down with J.F.K. Jr. and ends with him spending time with his sons. He is grateful to have a career as an actor, but the book reveals that he considers it to be nothing more than a job and one that he tries to not define his life around.

Where a lot of celebrities use the space in an autobiography to talk about themselves, Lowe goes into detailed description about his co-stars and celebrity friends. The name-dropping does get a little tiresome after awhile. He seems to flawless run-ins with famous people constantly; Daryl Hannah at dinner, Janet Jackson telling him “I’m going into music,” a blind date with Sarah Jessica Parker. He makes it all sound like coincidence and the bragging about how many famous friends he has is a bit cringe worthy. But his childhood memories are priceless. Martin Sheen jumping out of the bushes in full get up as Capt. Willard from Apocalypse Now on Halloween? Amazing!

Rob Lowe’s autobiography portrays him as simply a likeable guy. He’s made good movies and bad ones. He opens up about being an alcoholic, a Hollywood playboy and making dicey decisions regarding his livelihood. While giving good insider dirt, he also honestly tells stories that you can imagine being shared over dinner. Albeit, stories that might be shared over caviar and champagne in his mansion in Malibu.