Chad Lowe
Chad Lowe won a 1993 Emmy for Life Goes On, directed Beautiful Ohio, and now directs and produces 9-1-1: Nashville. His roles, marriages and family, sourced.
Dayton to Santa Monica High School
Chad Lowe was born Charles Lowe on January 15, 1968, in Dayton, Ohio. His mother, Barbara, was a teacher and writer, and his father, Chuck Lowe, was a lawyer. His parents divorced while Chad and his older brother, the actor Rob Lowe, were in elementary school. In 1976 their mother and her new husband, the psychiatrist Steve Wilson, moved the family to California.
The brothers went to Santa Monica High School, where the sons of their neighbor Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, were part of the same crowd. Chad studied acting and did not go on to college. He kept his ties to Ohio: in a 2007 interview with Larry King he mentioned playing golf the summer before with his father and a judge in Dayton.
Spencer on NBC at 16
Lowe's first lead came at 16, in the title role of the NBC sitcom Spencer, which ran from 1984 to 1985. He played a teenager who bristles at authority and talks his way out of trouble. The same year he had an uncredited part as a computer hacker in Oxford Blues and roles in the TV movies Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac and Silence of the Heart.
He spent the rest of the 1980s in television films and small features. The CBS Schoolbreak Special "No Means No" (1988), about date rape, earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination. He also starred in the action film True Blood (1989) and in the comedy Nobody's Perfect.
Jesse McKenna on Life Goes On
In 1991 Lowe joined the ABC family drama Life Goes On as Jesse McKenna, a young man living with AIDS and a friend of one of the family's daughters. The series was already known for casting Chris Burke, an actor with Down syndrome, in a central role. Lowe played Jesse until the show ended in 1993, and in 1992 he hosted the syndicated special Understanding HIV: Does Teen America Know the Facts?
The part won him the 1993 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, his only Primetime Emmy nomination according to the Television Academy's database. Viewers for Quality Television gave him its Q Award for the same role that year. He was 25.
Melrose Place, Quiet Days in Hollywood and Hilary Swank
The Emmy did not lead to larger film roles. Lowe worked through the 1990s in TV movies such as Candles in the Dark (1993) and Dare to Love (1995) and in independent features including Driven (1996) and Floating (1999). He had a recurring role as Carter Gallavan on Fox's Melrose Place in the 1996-97 season and played Dr. George Henry in three 1997 episodes of ER.
He began dating the actress Hilary Swank in 1992. The two appeared together in Quiet Days in Hollywood and married on September 28, 1997. Swank won Academy Awards for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby while his own roles shrank to guest spots. By January 2007, when he appeared on Larry King Live, they had divorced. On that program he spoke about his own sobriety: "I've been sober three years and eight months and we've just recently gotten divorced."
Beautiful Ohio and Reed Pollock on 24
Lowe started directing with two short films, The Audition (2000) and The Space Between (2002), both made with Swank. He directed an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2003 and episodes of Hack and Without a Trace. His first feature as director and producer was Beautiful Ohio (2006), adapted from a story by Ethan Canin, with William Hurt, Rita Wilson and Julianna Margulies in the cast. Swank helped produce it.
In the sixth season of Fox's 24 he played Reed Pollock, chief of staff to the character played by Peter MacNicol, after about two years without acting. "I had preferred directing to acting until this job on '24,'" he told Larry King. "So now it's pretty equal." He said he spent half his time chasing acting jobs and half chasing directing jobs. In 2007 he also began directing episodes of the Fox procedural Bones, and in 2010 he joined the cast of ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars.
9-1-1: Lone Star and the Nashville Spinoff
Rob Lowe starred as Captain Owen Strand on Fox's 9-1-1: Lone Star for all five seasons, which ended in February 2025. Chad played Owen's estranged and dying brother, Robert Strand, in seasons three to five, and directed several episodes of both Lone Star and the original 9-1-1. "I hired him on Lone Star. I think turnabout is fair play," Rob said in June 2025, after Chad became a co-executive producer and director of the ABC spinoff 9-1-1: Nashville.
Kim Painter and the Palisades Fire
Lowe married Kim Painter in Los Angeles in August 2010. The Hollywood Reporter gave the wedding year as 2019, but Variety and People both report 2010. The couple had three daughters, born in 2009, 2012 and 2016. In January 2025 the family's home in Los Angeles was destroyed in the Palisades Fire.
On September 29, 2026, People reported that the couple's second daughter had died at 13. The family asked for privacy and did not give a cause.
No Disclosed Figure for Lowe's Wealth
Lowe's income comes from acting fees, directing fees and producer credits, none of which are public. No financial outlet such as Forbes or Bloomberg has published an estimate of his net worth, and the numbers on celebrity net worth sites show no method or sources, so this article does not give a figure.
Sources
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