CHAPTER
16
With the disappointing performance of these last two movies, the rocket ride suddenly and dramatically slows. The heady and exhilarating g-forces that have buffeted, stimulated, and medicated me for years have quieted and I look to fill the void.
I’ve thrown myself into politics. In the middle of a thirteen-state tour, I find myself in Minnesota, about to do an early-morning live TV interview for presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.
I’ve been traveling with and for the Massachusetts governor off and on for the last eight weeks. I’ve come to love the unique blend of backbreaking campaigning and passionate policy strategy by day and hard-charging nightlife when the day is done. The staff, the advance team, and the traveling press corps can be like a band of marauders in the name of “The Great American Experiment.” And while today’s road adventures pale in comparison to campaigns of yesteryear, there are still enough of the old-guard hacks around to keep the dream alive.
We’ve all come out for a freewheeling convention where Jesse Jackson stole the show with his classic “Keep Hope Alive” speech and almost-spoiler candidacy. There is also tremendous drama surrounding the choice for vice president. Will it be Jackson? Will it be the young buck Al Gore? Will it be an unknown? Unlike today’s long-form infomercial conventions, where everything is carefully scripted and nothing left to chance, the Atlanta convention of 1988 was probably the last of its kind in that there was some actual chaos and drama.
Downtown one night I was standing with a group from our delegation at the doors of a nightclub. The doorman was hassling me hard for an ID, which I had left in my jacket in the car.
“Dude, you need proper ID to get in. No one under twenty-one allowed,” said the guy.
“But, you know it’s me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you know I’m over twenty-one?”
“Sorry, need your ID. No exceptions.”
Geez, these guys are like the Gestapo! I cursed as I schlepped back to find my jacket.
Finally in the club, I was approached by two girls who wanted me to join them back at their place. This being most twenty-four-year-old guys’ dream scenario, I suggested we reconvene at my suite. Having just received the third degree from the doorman, it never occurred to me that there could be anyone in the club who wasn’t of age.
As the three of us left, I had no idea that this romp would set in motion events that would ultimately, through a painful, long, and circuitous path, lead me to greater happiness and fulfillment than I could have ever hoped for.
And now, sitting for my morning-show interview in Minnesota, I feel the unmistakable saltiness that is the precursor to a live on-air vomit. As they count down to air, I quickly grab a wastepaper basket and hide it at my feet.
“Three, two … Goood morning, Minneapolis! Today we are talking to Rob Lowe, who’s in the Land of Lakes for Michael Dukakis! Good to see you, Rob. How ya doing?”
I vomit into my shoes. The food on the road and the grueling after-hours’ agenda is taking its toll in every way possible. I try for moderation, but my whole life, I’ve only known one gear: full speed ahead. Outrun loneliness, outrun feeling “different,” and outrun the shock that dreams coming true don’t change your feelings. And like anything with the accelerator stuck, I am bound to crash. But not quite yet.
Although it’s probably just a coincidence, after I’m done in Minnesota, Dukakis goes up three points, statewide.
Back on the campaigning plane, or “Sky Pig,” as it was called, I witness something that no one should see. Walking to the front compartment, I see the would-be commander in chief having his makeup applied. It is like stumbling into a hot-dog factory: You like hot dogs, you know terrible deeds go into making them, but nothing prepares you when you actually see it. A lot of male candidates wear makeup these days, but that doesn’t make it right; it really should be a Screen Actors Guild union violation.
I like the governor and his family a lot. Like an unfortunately large number of would-be leaders I have known, Mike Dukakis is much more engaging in private. However, his running mate, the legendary Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen, turns out to be the
real
star of the ticket. He and I travel throughout Texas together and he is mobbed like Mick Jagger wherever he goes. Even hot young coeds lose their minds for the seventy-year-old senator. He is brave and romantic; every time we fly, he reaches out to hold his wife B.A.’s hand. They have survived two plane crashes together and they still keep going. One night, at some terrible Motel 6, I’m with the traveling staff, watching him debate Dan Quayle. “You’re no Jack Kennedy” remains one of my favorite moments in television history.
The last presidential debate took place in Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. Sitting with the high command, we all know it’s over for our guy after the very first question. Bernard Shaw of CNN opens the debate with:
“Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
There are gasps at the question’s premise and audacity. Then, you can feel the silence filling the room like methane. With the right answer from the candidate, it will explode and everyone knows it. Dukakis whiffs.
Instead of saying, “Well, first of all, I’m offended by your premise,” or coming up with a forceful rejoinder to Shaw’s provocative bushwack, he’s lethargic and passionless about his wife being raped and murdered. If he had said, “As you know, Bernie, I am against the death penalty in all circumstances. That said, if someone were to harm my wife, you’d probably get to use it on me,” the guy might’ve been president on the women’s vote alone!
Back at the scene of the crime, I address the fourteen thousand people packed into the historic UCLA arena. It is less than twelve hours away from the polls opening on election eve, and the place is rocking. Even in a campaign that is clearly behind, in the last moments everyone believes (or at least hopes) that a miracle is at hand. When Dukakis takes the stage, there is a last gasp of optimism.
Later, flying down the entirely closed 405 freeway, I get my first taste of the majesty (and convenience) of life at the threshold of the presidency. The armored limo, the decoy, the war wagon, the staff cars, the follow vans, the press vans, the ambulance, and the phalanx of thirty motorcycle cops providing red-light running escort and protection. The trip from UCLA to LAX should take twenty minutes on a good day. We are on the plane in twelve.
At 3:45 a.m. we land in an Iowa cornfield. Temporary floodlights illuminate the large crowd that has assembled at this ungodly hour to offer support at this final campaign stop.
As the governor speaks for the last time, I see frost on the cornhusks, vapor rising off the crowd as people listen in the cold. I watch a man raise his small son up onto his shoulders and I remember scurrying under a barricade to meet George McGovern so many years ago. Now I’m grateful to have been able to experience firsthand the emotional, bunker-mentality altruism that marks all campaigns. On my left, I see one of Dukakis’s inner circle, a large, tough Boston Irish Catholic. He is wiping away tears.
We land in Boston before sunrise on election eve. I go to the hotel to make live, drive-time radio pitches to get out the vote. By midafternoon I’m with the rest of the campaign at headquarters for the potential victory rally.
If anyone has ever wondered what comedian Al Franken did to earn a seat in the Senate, they obviously were not among the thousand people watching the results come in at Dukakis campaign headquarters. Franken, saddled with the single worst job on the planet, works relentlessly, alone on the ballroom stage, to keep up the room’s fading spirits. But the crowd can read the writing on the wall, and in the hour and a half Al vamps, he gets maybe three laughs. The Democrats should have given him a Purple Heart; instead, years later, they brought him to D.C.
Michael Dukakis is a profoundly decent, earnest man. He is a personification of the possibilities open to the families of immigrants to our great country. I admire him very much. Now he is onstage, humbled and gracious in a crushing, decisive loss. I’m standing in the wings just offstage. After today, it will be time to go back to other pursuits, but nothing will offer the same satisfaction as trying to help change the country, even in a peripheral role.
Dukakis is wrapping up his concession. The crowd is on its feet; there hasn’t been this much emotion in this campaign in months. Michael waves a final farewell and the room explodes. He stands there, taking it in. He’s not an emotional man, but it almost looks like there are tears in his eyes. A final wave and he walks offstage. He stops when he sees me and offers his hand. “Thanks, Rob. I’m sorry I let you down.” And I can see that this time, indeed, the emotion is real.
* * *
Months have gone by with no decent movie offers. There are always bad ones, however, like the offer to shoot a sex-filled romantic comedy in Italy, for which I would be paid a fortune and given a Ferrari, or the half million dollars for ten days’ work, to do a remake of
Heidi
(Charlie Sheen would do it instead)
.
The poor performance of my last two movies has put me in a predicament: too famous to be new and not enough box-office mojo to get the big movies, at least not at the moment. Anyone can run a career when the going is good. But it’s in the down times, the quiet times, that long-term careers are really made. You need to find ways to stay in the conversation, to be current and to reinvent yourself.
It sounded like a good idea at the time. Would I like to participate in the opening of the 1988 Academy Awards? Without hesitation, I said yes. Mistakenly, I take this as an honor, if not a duty. After all, I’m from Ohio; if someone asks you nicely, you do it. Particularly if it’s the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!
I’m invited to the home of the man who will be producing the broadcast, veteran Hollywood showman/producer Allan Carr, who has made some very big movies, including one of my all-time favorites,
Grease
. He also, however, produced a movie version of
Sgt. Pepper’s
without the Beatles and wore a caftan. In retrospect, perhaps I should have known better.
The pitch is simple, an elaborate musical number in the style of the famed Copacabana will open the show. A who’s who of old-time Hollywood stars will participate, including the biggest box-office queen of her era, Snow White. The gag will be that her date stands her up and I will gallantly come to her rescue. We will then sing a silly, fun duet to the tune of Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.” Did I mention that no one was on drugs when they came up with this idea?
The great Marvin Hamlisch will be in charge of the music, and other numbers will feature members of “young Hollywood,” like Patrick Dempsey and Christian Slater, tap-dancing and swinging around on ropes. Figuring that the plan is to add fun and levity to Oscar night, I sign on as well.
Every star can make a bad movie or TV show. If you are lucky, you may get to stay in the business long enough to make several. But very few get to participate in a train wreck in front of a billion people.
There are ominous signs from the beginning. During rehearsals it becomes clear that some of the older Hollywood legends cannot walk unassisted. So the grand procession is scrapped and they are placed at tables where all they have to do is wave. Snow White is played by a sweet but inexperienced actress with a very high falsetto. The plan is for her to walk the audience and sing to Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, and others. However, when the big night arrives and she is faced with the living, breathing, actual stars, her voice jumps up two more octaves to a tonal range that could bust a dog’s eardrum (to make matters worse, it will later be discovered that Allan Carr and the Academy have forgotten to get clearance from Disney to use Snow White in the first place). By the time I make my entrance, live, in front of a billion people, she has that thousand-yard stare common to all performers who are going into the tank. We’ve all been there, I know the look. I look deep into her eyes, trying to get her to focus on me and steady her nerves. We start our bit together and it seems to be going well.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see the great director Barry Levinson in the middle of the audience. He has made
Diner
. He has made
The Natural
and is about to win two hundred Oscars tonight for his new movie,
Rain Man
. There is nobody hotter or more important on the planet. I see him very clearly now. His mouth is agape. He almost looks ashen. He turns to his date, his face a mask of shock and disgust. Even in the middle of singing a duet I can very clearly read his lips as he says, “What the fuck is
this
?” Bravely, I soldier on. I tell myself, who cares what he thinks—he’s just an acclaimed artistic-genius writer and director about to be anointed King of Hollywood, you can’t please everybody.
I leave the stage, not having a real sense of how it went over, Levinson’s reaction notwithstanding. I make my way to the greenroom, deserted at this early part of the show except for an elderly lady with flame-red hair. She is sitting in a corner alone.
“Young man,” she says. “I had no idea you were such a good singer. Please come sit with me.”