NEW YORK -- Growing up, Rob Lowe took his stepfather's advice to work the phones for then-Senator Howard Metzenbaum and -- no joke -- sell Kool-Aid to raise money for George McGovern.
Now he's again following the lead of his stepfather by supporting Habitat for Humanity. At an event here Monday, Lowe unveiled handprints painted by him and other celebrities that will be auctioned off to support the organization's rebuilding efforts in Haiti.
Lowe, who told The Huffington Post that Habitat for Humanity is "the gold standard in do-gooding charitable organizations," added that he "learned through all this that Ellen DeGeneres has three hands" and called Kristen Johnson's inclusion of a semi-naked photo of herself an "unfair bid."
Three dozen sets of handprints -- by everyone from Calvin Klein to Katie Couric, Ethan Hawke to Naomi Watts -- are up for sale. The celebrities were sent two blank canvases and a couple small cans of Valspar paint. The rest was up to them.
The always-dapper Lowe called his own style "simple and understated," and said he didn't want to compete with the designer Jonathan Adler, who put geometric prints over his own handprints. And surely no one could compete with the hands of Darth Vader sent in by James Earl Jones.
But Lowe, who said he ran into "West Wing" writer Aaron Sorkin over the weekend in New York, had some other exciting news to share for fans of the show: His reunion with Richard Schiff on the set of "Knife Fight," the political thriller set for release next year, went especially well.
"It's like two people who sing different harmonies," he said, referring to Schiff's portrayal of Toby Ziegler and his own of Sam Seaborn on "West Wing." "We just work really well together."
Asked what Seaborn's handprint would've looked like, though, Lowe could only say, "Sam has terrible handwriting. But he would have obsessed over it."
You can bid on all the items here. To see images of some of the handprints, click through the slideshow below:
