Jill Greenberg
As actors often do, Rowe started out terribly earnest. After a brief stint at community college, the Baltimore-area native attended Towson University, where he studied acting and voice. "I had a beard and was all righteous in the craft," he smiles. His first real job came as a standing player with the Baltimore Opera, in 1990--a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle, "a horrible crucible of misery, which lasted for 18 hours over four nights." One Sunday night, he and a castmate decided, as they frequently did, to head out for a beer during intermission. Dressed as Vikings. The bartender, who was also an actor, had QVC on the TV. "They were doing a talent search in our area," says Rowe. "He was prepping for it." Rowe was at once repulsed and fascinated by the spectacle of QVC, and recalls "railing against the decline of American civilization and the role of home shopping in it." But the serious actor was also a starving actor. And the gig looked easy. "The guy was just trying to sell pots and pans. At least it was honest." Somebody bet him $100 that he couldn't get a callback, so Rowe crashed the audition the next day and was hired on the spot, for $50,000 a year plus bonuses. He was stunned. "I had gotten out of school five years earlier, and had no money at all. I was a completely full-of-shit actor, just trying to figure it all out." He jumped at the job.
QVC taught Rowe the ins and outs of live TV and how to talk off the cuff on just about anything. "There was no training," he recalls. "Nothing." Working the ultimate graveyard shift--3 a.m. to 6 a.m.--Rowe was left alone to hawk thousands of different products pretty much however he wanted. "Basically, I just made fun of the products and the callers. I was a complete anarchist." He was selling lava lamps, Hummels, and other nonsense, and falling in love with the occasional hand model.
Then came the business with the nun doll. He had just returned from a weekend getaway involving the beach, a case of Dos Equis, and one of those hand models, when a Sunday-evening emergency call arrived from the studio: The prime-time host was ill. Eager to prove his mettle, Rowe rubbed the weekend from his eyes and headed into work, only to find a display of collectible girlie dolls waiting for him. "There were dozens of little hobbits," he recalls, still sounding vaguely offended some 18 years later. "Little pixies from another time, just sitting there like these little Victorian whores. I thought it was a joke."
He was about to be humiliated in his first shot at prime time. "I'd already called everyone I knew to watch." The producer tried to calm him down, but in his panic, Rowe just reverted to his usual shtick. He picked up the first doll, Rachel--"a nightmare in crushed velvet"--by the hair and plopped her in his lap. "I think I described her as 'soulless, a little creepy but kind of hot,' and as 'a runaway from Little Women,'" he says now, rubbing his head. The crew on the set was dumbstruck. But, Rowe says, "I was really encouraged because the little whore sold out in record time."
Then someone handed Rowe a 2-foot nun doll named Sister Mary Margaret. "If you wound her up, she played 'Climb Every Mountain,' which I thought was hysterical." Rowe had four minutes to kill but ran out of material in 30 seconds, including the time he spent having her spank him with a ruler. Then he tried to crank up her music feature. "I've already announced that she plays music, and I'm squeezing her hand, looking around her neck, but I can't figure it out." When the technical director finally cut away to a display version of the same doll, Rowe, in desperation, turned the little sister upside down in his lap and peeled down her garment. He finally found the crank "in the small of her back, but it's really sort of in her ass." Unfortunately, the technical director cut back to Rowe without warning: "Suddenly, I see myself live on the monitor, with Sister Mary Margaret's face in my crotch, my hand on her ass, and her habit around her neck. And the damn thing is playing 'Climb Every Mountain.'" Rowe froze in horror, then made an unfortunate gesture not suitable for prime time. "It was not good."
By the time he got home, his answering machine was jammed. "The 47th message was my boss, inviting me not to come back," says Rowe. But an outcry from viewers earned him a second chance. "I was always on double supersecret probation," he says. And he rarely made it off the graveyard shift. He lasted three years.
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Recent Comments | 12 Total
February 8, 2008 at 11:00am by Robert Safian
Mike Rowe is appearing at the Border's bookstore in Westwood California tomorrow, Feb 9, at 1pm to sign copies of the magazine and of the new Dirty Jobs DVD. All are welcome!
February 12, 2008 at 7:26pm by Andrew Wilson
Good article. Fascinating character morphed out of a seemingly ordinary lad.