West Hollywood, Fall 1987
When I first arrived in West Hollywood in 1985, Rob Lowe was an androgynous prettyboy who took off his shirt a lot in Brat Pack classics like The Outsiders (1983), Class (1983), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Oxford Blues (1984), and St. Elmo's Fire (1985).
His fire faded a bit during the late 1980s, and his career almost fizzled out in 1988, after a tape surfaced of him and friend Justin Morritt having sex with two women in a hotel room the night before the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.
Such shenanigans didn't ruin his popularity with gay fans, or the belief that he was probably gay himself. Even though he, and his Brat Pack buddies, made some of the most horrifically homophobic movies of the 1980s. Even though he married Sheryl Berkoff in 1991 and had two children (Matthew and John Owen).
We still figured he was gay. Why else would he star in the gay subtext-filled Bad Influence (1990) and The Finest Hour (1992), as the psychiatrist treating the dead gay guy's sister in Suddenly Last Summer (1993), and as the mute, angelic, asexual Nick Stavros in The Stand (1994)? Why else would he appear at so many AIDS Walks and AIDS benefits?
Why else would half the guys in West Hollywood claim to have dated him?
During my 10 years in West Hollywood, I heard about a dozen "my date with Rob Lowe" stories. The one that sounds the most believable is from Mario, the wannabe actor who picked me up at the Different Light Bookstore.
The full post, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.