Robert Hepler Lowe (born March 17, 1964) is an American actor. He became famous after appearing in popular 1980s movies that included other members of the Brat Pack, such as St. Elmo's Fire. Lowe is also known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and as Senator Robert McCallister on Brothers & Sisters.

Biography

Early life

Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia to Charles Lowe, a lawyer, and Barbara Hepler, a teacher; the two divorced when Lowe was young and have since re-married. He has a brother, actor Chad Lowe, and two step-siblings. Lowe was baptized into the Episcopalian church, though his maternal grandparents were Methodists.[1] He was raised in a "traditional midwestern setting"[1] in Dayton, Ohio and on the Westside of Los Angeles, attending Santa Monica High School, where one of his classmates was fellow Brat-Packer Emilio Estevez. He was voted "most spirited" in high school.Career
Lowe's early roles included such hit films as The Outsiders (where he played Sodapop), St. Elmo's Fire, and About Last Night. Lowe was one of the most popular members of the Brat Pack, partially because of his good looks, which made him a popular actor with many.
Lowe is perhaps best known for playing Sam Seaborn in the television series The West Wing from 1999-2003. When the show premiered, Seaborn was considered the lead, and the pilot centered on the character. But the acclaimed cast of the show — including Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford, Martin Sheen (whose President Bartlet was initially scripted as a small role) and Stockard Channing (whose First Lady was initially scripted as a guest role) — meant that Sam Seaborn could no longer be considered the lead character.
While he reluctantly accepted his demotion, Lowe and series creator Aaron Sorkin soon found themselves at odds over the network's meddling with the show, most notably the network demanding changes in the Sam Seaborn character. Eventually, Lowe left the series, not long before Sorkin and director/executive producer Thomas Schlamme unceremoniously quit over a dispute with NBC - a move which saw the show's style change greatly, resulting in decreased ratings and mostly negative reactions from critics and fans. During the final season of The West Wing, Lowe returned to his role of Sam Seaborn, appearing in two of the final four episodes.
After leaving the show, Lowe was star and executive producer of a failed NBC drama, The Lyon's Den (2003). In 2004, he tried again in a series entitled Dr. Vegas, but it also was quickly cancelled. Also during 2004, Lowe participated in a photo shoot by the renowned fashion photographer Ben Fink Shapiro. In 2005, he starred as Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in a London West End production of Sorkin's play A Few Good Men, the first time the two had worked together since The West Wing. Although Lowe had expressed unhappiness about his decreased role on that show at the time of his departure, he has now repeatedly said that any animosity between them is over and that he was pleased to be working once more with Sorkin, whose talents as a writer Lowe highly regards. Lowe passed on the role of Dr. Derek Shepard of Grey's Anatomy, which eventually went to Patrick Dempsey.[2]
Despite his two cancelled TV series and flops like View From the Top and the made for tv movie Perfect Strangers during his post-West Wing run, Lowe found success in the TV miniseries genre. 2004 marked his return to this genre since 1994's The Stand which was based on Stephen King's book of the same name. In 2004, Lowe starred in the TNT remake of the Stephen King miniseries 'Salem's Lot which was the highest rated cable program of that summer and the highest ratings TNT original programming had at the time. In 2005, Lowe starred in the miniseries Summer Girls on the Lifetime network which was based on the Lunann Rice novel of the same name. The series premiere received the highest ratings for a movie premiere in Lifetime history. In that same year, Lowe filmed his critically acclaimed role as super movie agent in the 2006 independent film Thank You for Smoking. In 2006, he filmed The Perfect Day for TNT, in which he took a pay cut to film in New Orleans in order to help the hurricane ravaged area. That same year, Lowe filmed Stir of Echoes: The Dead Speak, the "sequel" to the 1998 Kevin Bacon thriller Stir of Echoes.
In 2006, it was announced that Lowe would join the cast of Brothers & Sisters for a guest run of several episodes. In January 2007, ABC announced that Lowe would be staying on "Brothers and Sisters" as a "special guest star" for the rest of season 1 after Lowe's initial appearance on the show in November 2006 brought the best ratings and demographic showing for the show since its series premiere. Soon after ABC announnced an early season 2 renewal for "Brother Sisters" in March 2007, Lowe announced he would be returning for the show's second season which is due to premiere in the fall of 2007.
In June, 2006 he was the guest host for an episode in the third series of The Friday Night Project for the United Kingdom's Channel 4.

Sex tape controversy

In 1988, Lowe was involved in a sex scandal over a videotape of him having sex with two females, one of whom was sixteen, in Atlanta while attending the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Lowe has asserted that he did not know that the second girl was underaged, and it was confirmed that the two had met at a bar, which the girl entered by lying about her age.
Further complicating the issue was another part of the same tape that leaked at the time, showed Lowe, a young American model called "Jennifer", and "Justin Morris" having a menage-a-trois in a hotel room in Paris. This part of the original tape was made commercially available and was sold as one of the first commercially available "celebrity sex tapes", lending a black eye towards Rob Lowe's public image.
Lowe's career was damaged by the scandal, and he later entered a rehabilitation clinic for alcohol and sex addiction. Eventually, his career rebounded and Lowe mocked his own behavior during two post-scandal appearances as host of Saturday Night Live.

Personal life

Lowe makes his home with his wife Sheryl Berkoff and two children, Edward Matthew Lowe (b. 1993) and John Owen Lowe (b. 1995), in Montecito, California.
Lowe was the first male spokesperson for the 2000 Lee National Denim Day fundraiser which raises millions of dollars for breast cancer research and education. His grandmother and great-grandmother both suffered from breast cancer, and his mother succumbed to the disease in late 2003.
Lowe is a founder of the Homeowner's Defense Fund, a Santa Barbara County non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to local control of land use planning and transparency in government.[3] The average price of tract homes in Santa Barbara in early 2006 is $1,100,000, which has motivated some to propose denser housing on existing lots. At the same time Lowe opposes new housing for others, he has sought to build a 14,260 square-foot mansion for himself on an empty lot in Montecito, California.[4] Lowe's protest over the appearance of the address of the empty lot in the Santa Barbara News-Press precipitated a mass resignation of senior employees at that newspaper on July 6, 2006,[5] and was a proximate cause of the Santa Barbara News-Press controversy. Lowe is a registered Democrat. [1]

Selected filmography

• Schoolboy Father (1980)
• Class (1983)
• The Outsiders (1983)
• Oxford Blues (1984)
• The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
• St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
• Youngblood (1986)
• About Last Night... (1986)
• Square Dance (1987)
• Masquerade (1988)
• Bad Influence (1990)
• Wayne's World (1992)
• The Stand (1994)
• Tommy Boy (1995)
• Frank & Jesse (1995)
• On Dangerous Ground (1996) (TV)
• Contact (1997)
• For Hire (1997)
• Hostile Intent (1997)
• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
• The West Wing (1999-2003, 2006)
• Atomic Train (1999)
• Proximity (2000)
• The Specials (2000)
• The Christmas Shoes (TV Film) (2002)
• Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
• View from the Top (2003)
• Framed (2003)
• 'Salem's Lot (2004)
• Beach Girls (TV Miniseries) (2005)
• Thank You for Smoking (2006)
• Brothers & Sisters (2006 -)