Rob Lowe

Rob Lowe has been married to former makeup artist Sheryl Berkoff since 1991. They have two sons, Matthew Edward Lowe and John Owen Lowe. Berkoff later worked as an interior designer and founded Sheryl Lowe Jewelry.

An undiagnosed bout of mumps during infancy left Lowe deaf in his right ear. He began drinking heavily as a teenager and entered rehabilitation in 1990 after developing problems with alcohol and drugs. He has remained sober since then and has credited recovery and a daily Transcendental Meditation practice with helping his well-being.

Lowe began acting professionally as a child, including a 1976 appearance as an errand boy in a production of Sherlock Holmes at Wright State University. He made his television debut as Tony Flanagan in the short-lived sitcom A New Kind of Family from 1979 to 1980. His performance as Sam Alden in the 1983 television film Thursday's Child earned him his first Golden Globe nomination.

His feature-film breakthrough came in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983), in which he played Sodapop Curtis alongside Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell and other young actors. He followed it with Class, The Hotel New Hampshire, Oxford Blues, St. Elmo's Fire and About Last Night....

Lowe became associated with the Brat Pack, a group of young actors linked to 1980s coming-of-age films. His other early credits included Square Dance, which brought a second Golden Globe nomination, and Masquerade. In the 1990s, he appeared in Wayne's World, Tommy Boy, Contact and the Austin Powers films.

Lowe returned to television prominence in 1999 as Sam Seaborn, the cerebral deputy communications director in Aaron Sorkin's political drama The West Wing. The role brought him nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. He shared Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series with the show's cast in 2000 and 2001.

He briefly returned as Sam Seaborn during the show's final season and reprised the role in A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote in 2020. He also worked with Sorkin on a 2005 West End production of A Few Good Men, playing Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee.

After The West Wing, Lowe led the short-lived series The Lyon's Den and Dr. Vegas, then joined Brothers & Sisters as Senator Robert McCallister. He became a regular on Parks and Recreation after first appearing as Chris Traeger in 2010. Traeger was an intensely optimistic city manager in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, and Lowe returned for the series finale and a 2020 special.

He played Dean Sanderson, a washed-up actor who attempts to become a lawyer, on the comedy The Grinder from 2015 to 2016. The performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination. He subsequently appeared in Code Black, voiced Simba in The Lion Guard, and starred as Chief Constable Bill Hixon in the British series Wild Bill.

In 2020, Lowe began playing Captain Owen Strand in the Fox procedural drama 9-1-1: Lone Star. The series concluded with its fifth season in 2025. He also starred with his son John Owen Lowe in the Netflix workplace comedy Unstable, playing biotech entrepreneur Ellis Dragon, and served as a co-creator and executive producer.

Lowe published his first memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography, in 2011, followed by Love Life in 2014. He also wrote and directed the short film Desert's Edge and made his television directorial debut with the 2018 remake of The Bad Seed.

His documentary Madness in the Hills, about the 2018 Southern California mudslides, premiered on Peacock in 2020. He hosted the Fox competition series Mental Samurai from 2019 to 2021 and began hosting the podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe in 2020. In 2021, he launched Parks and Recollection, a Parks and Recreation recap podcast with writer and producer Alan Yang.

Lowe began hosting the trivia game show The Floor in 2024 and signed a production deal with Fox after the network renewed the series. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015 and the Horatio Alger Award in 2018.