Rob Lowe got his start as an androgynous prettyboy in Brat Pack classics like The Outsiders (1983), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), and St. Elmo's Fire (1985).
He did the "Yank skewers the pretentions of stuffy Brits" thing in Oxford Blues (1984).
.We all figured that Rob was gay. Why else would he infuse his movies with so much buddy-bonding amid the 1980s homophobic slurs? Why else would half the guys in West Hollywood, including my friend Mario, claim to have dated him?
Then something happened that changed Rob Lowe's life and career forever. During the Democratic National Convention in 1988, Rob and his friend Justin Morrow filmed themselves having sex with two women. It was blurry and grainy, but you could see Rob fully aroused. (Photos after the break)
Hollywood insiders figured that his career was over, but Rob managed to capitalize on his new aura of danger in Bad Influence (1990), luring a yuppie (James Spader) onto the Dark Side while showing us his butt again. And in
By 1994, Rob had bounced back enough to play Nick Andros, one of the "good guy" survivors of a plague that destroys the world, in an adaption of Stephen King's The Stand (1994).
Today Rob is a fixture on television, for audiences who never heard of his sex tape, or don't care. He has starred in The Grinder, Code Black, Wild Bill, 911 Lone Star, and Unstable. No gay characters, but we still can see an occasional butt.