Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe

rehearsal I “step” on one of Eileen Brennan’s lines (which means that I start talking before she’s done with her line) and she gives me a withering look. I will never make that mistake again. I watch as she navigates the role of “star.” One day she reads the latest script and goes ballistic, demanding the producers and writers come to the set for a script meeting. We are sent to our makeshift classroom as a very heated and tension-filled meeting goes on outside. It will be years before I properly appreciate the pressure she is under and how necessary it is for the star to fight every day (if they can) for the best writing possible. Eileen didn’t win many of those battles on A New Kind of Family , as most actors don’t, and I’m sure the show suffered for it. Most actors are very good judges of what “works,” and yet they are always at the mercy of writers or producers, who can label them “difficult” or “divas.” Meanwhile, if the show flops, it’s always the star who takes the most blame. Which is not to say that there aren’t moronic actors out there who will ruin Citizen Kane if given half the chance. But in general, I’ve learned, an actor who’s made it to a certain level knows what works for him or her better than anyone else.
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    A New Kind of Family was filmed before a studio audience of about two hundred people. They were tourists and folks off the street who were by turns excited and bored by the endless filming from seven thirty to midnight each Friday. When they could no longer be counted on to laugh at the jokes, a man would throw candy at them, which they would devour, and then they would cackle like hyenas, high on sugar.
    A sit-com is basically a filmed play. You even have a curtain call (although unlike with a play, it comes at the beginning before you film). Even though it was my first big job, I had done enough theater to make me comfortable in front of the camera. We filmed six episodes leading up to our actual air date, and in early September 1979, our show debuted at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night on ABC. I was too unsophisticated to realize that we had been put in the “death slot” opposite the number one show in all of television, CBS’s ratings juggernaut 60 Minutes .
    They crushed us. I mean it was a bloodletting. There were lots of tense long faces the next week as we prepped our next episode. I was too young to understand the pressure. I was living my dream.
    It’s Friday night. The studio audience is full. The Doobie Brothers’ “I Keep Forgettin’” is blasting over the PA system. This is the week we will turn it around. This is the show we will kill it . It is also the first episode we’ve taped since our show’s debut. I come out for my preshow curtain call and the crowd erupts. They go absolutely bat-shit crazy. Up until this point, I’ve been greeted with midlevel, warm applause, so I’m stunned. I look around, not sure that this ovation is for me. Maybe the actual star, Eileen Brennan, is standing behind me. But she’s not.
    The cameras roll. I enter. Bedlam. I hear for the first time in my life that particular, unique, high-pitched, piercing, hissing, sonic screech that is the sound of screaming teenage girls. We play the scene. Every time I open my mouth the girls go ape. Just last Friday I was happy if I got a big laugh. This Friday, after one show on the air, I can’t get one laugh because my new fans won’t shut up! It is a stark lesson in the power of television.
    Eileen Brennan, being a consummate comedienne and veteran actress, is having none of this. I can see in her eyes that she’s livid. I hope she’s not pissed at me; I’m just trying to get through the scenes. Finally, it’s over and no one knows quite what to make of what has just happened. For my part, I’m at once shell-shocked, embarrassed, and (in truth) loving every minute of it.
    As Clark and I arrive for work the next day, I head off to the makeshift classroom