Rob Lowe Opens Up About His Final Moments with JFK Jr.
John F. Kennedy Jr. is back in the headlines, more than a quarter-century after his death, with the first look of the upcoming TV show American Love Story, which will dramatize his romance with wife Carolyn Bessette.
Kennedy and Bessette died in a plane crash in July 1999, not even three years after their wedding. And one of last people with whom Kennedy worked, it turns out, was Rob Lowe, as the actor recounted in his 2011 autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends.
In an excerpt of the book shared by Oprah.com, Lowe recalls having an affinity for Kennedy, admiring his grace and charisma — even though, as he noted, one of Lowe’s girlfriends kept a picture of a shirtless Kennedy pinned to her fridge door.
“Maybe my lack of jealousy toward this particular pinup was tamped down by empathy for his loss of his father and an appreciation for how complicated it is to be the subject of curiosity and objectification from a very young age,” Lowe wrote. “That said, when my girlfriend and others would constantly swoon over him, when I would see him continually splashed across the newspapers, resplendent like an American prince, I wasn’t above the occasional male thought of: Screw that guy.”
Lowe recalled meeting Kennedy a couple of times. They first crossed paths at a mixer for Hollywood stars and politicians when they were both single men in their 20s. Years later, Lowe and Kennedy reconnected at a ski resort in Sun Valley, Idaho. At the time, Lowe was married to wife Sheryl; he said he gave Kennedy advice about “settling down” with the blonde woman he was with, who turned out to be Bessette.
Then, toward the end of the 1990s, Lowe’s career was in flux. But, he wrote, Kennedy came through for him in the run-up to the premiere of The West Wing, the show that would turn out to be Lowe’s major comeback.
Lowe’s agent told the actor that Kennedy had loved the pilot and had particularly latched on to Lowe’s character, Sam Seaborn. And, the agent added, Kennedy wanted to put Lowe on the September 1999 cover of his magazine, George.
In fact, Kennedy held firm to his decision even when Lowe’s bosses at The West Wing wanted the entire cast on the George cover instead: Kennedy had editorial control, and he only wanted Lowe. Eventually, the West Wing producers relented.
Lowe tried calling Kennedy to thank him, but an assistant told him Kennedy had just left for the airport, and would call him on Monday. That call never arrived, as Kennedy had been leaving to board the flight that crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing him, Bessette, and her sister.
Lowe says it was Sheryl who called him with the news of the tragedy. “At first, it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be happening,” he wrote. “John, his beloved wife, and her sister would surely be found in an embarrassing mix-up or miscommunication. They could not be gone. No one is that cruel. No God can ask that of a family. No one would so much as imagine the possibility of the horrific and arbitrary sudden nature of fate.”
View this post on Instagram
He also recalled the first table read for The West Wing, held days later, being “very quiet” as “people were numb.” Lowe wasn’t in the mood for the George cover shoot, but the magazine editor’s insisted, saying that cover story was Kennedy’s final editorial act. So Lowe posed for photos in The West Wing’s Oval Office set, joining “devastated” magazine staffers in the soundstage.
Lowe praised Kennedy — whose father, former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, he played in the 2013 TV movie Killing Kennedy. “I never knew him well. Many Americans also felt a connection to him without knowing him at all. In some ways, he was America’s son,” Lowe wrote. “But I will always be moved by John Kennedy Jr.’s steadiness in the harsh, unrelenting spotlight, his quest for personal identity and substance, for going his own way and building a life of his choosing. I will always remember his support and kindness to me and be grateful to him for being among the first to recognize that with my next project, The West Wing, I just might be a part of something great.”