79. Rob Lowe

If you've watched Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire, About Last Night, The West Wing and Parks and Recreation, you know he's got some acting chops. As it turns out, he's also a skilled writer with an intimate voice and a gift for setting a scene. Maybe that shouldn't have surprised me, coming from a guy who cites David Niven as his model memoirist. A raconteur without good stories is just a guy who talks a lot, but Rob's whole life is made of tales that you'll inhale like Häagen-Dazs - some with disbelief, some with laughter, and all with sympathy that might surprise you. He figures anyone can write about being on a hit show, so you might find it more interesting to hear what it's like to be on one that's going down the toilet.

There's the one about the casting director who begged him not to give up on his lifelong dream of acting until his 18th birthday - the very day he was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders. Or the one about bumping Tiananmen Square off the front pages before e