Rob Lowe remembers friend Charlie Sheen

As actor and former Brat Pack bad-boy Rob Lowe remembers it, his high-school classmate Charlie Sheen has long had an eye for the odd and conspiratorial.

Remembering his old pal as "a wonderful mix of nerd . . . and rebel" in "Stories I Only Tell My Friends," his new memoir excerpted in the May Vanity Fair, Lowe says Sheen was in Santa Monica High's A/V Club and even then a "conspiracy-theory freak" who would "debate everything from the likelihood that the moon is hollow and whether the Trilateral Commission killed JFK to the authenticity of the lunar landings."

Lowe, 47, who came from humbler beginnings, spent time hanging out at Charlie's place, where dad was "Apocalypse Now" star Martin Sheen"At my house we are still saving money by not buying desserts," Lowe writes."At Charlie's house, it's never-ending Häagen-Dazs, brand-new BMWs, a lagoon pool with underwater tunnels, and a lit, professional-grade, basketball .

And he notes he and Sheen, now 45, were competitive party boys in their early 20s. "We competed to see who could play harder, then show up for work and still kick ---- ," Lowe said of making "Masquerade" in 1987 while Sheen shot "Wall Street." "The verdict: Charlie by a nose."Lowe also recalled that he snagged his career-making role as Sodapop Curtis in "The Outsiders" after Tom Cruise, reading for the part, simply stopped mid-audition and told director Francis Ford Coppola, "This just isn't working for me.' "