Meet Lois Robbins —The Actress Dishing About Her Boob Job Regret And Daddy Issues
Robbins is confessing everything in her new one-woman show off-Broadway.
Instagram Lois Robbins is one of those actors whose face you recognize, even if her name doesn't ring a bell. The actress has been working in film and television since the 1980s, and she had recurring roles on multiple daytime soap operas. Now she has a new one-woman show running off-Broadway, where she talks about her childhood, her career, and her love life.
The new show, titled L.O.V.E.R. started in L.A. and moved to a New York theatre in August. Robbins wrote the show herself and she describes it as an adult woman's coming of age story. In it, she discusses her own sex drive, her terrible first marriage, her daddy issues and even how she feels about her breast implants.
Who is Lois Robbins? Read on for all the details.
1. Getting candid about sex
Robbin's new one-woman show "portrays one woman's confessions of what goes on behind closed doors and between the sheets," according to Playbill.com. Robbins describes it as "Recounting her sexual history from childhood to adulthood, she discovers that her most important relationship is the one she has with herself."
She told the New York Post that the show is about 75% autobiographical and she doesn't shy away from talking about the most intimate subjects. She grabs audiences right off the bat with her opening line, saying “I’ve been having orgasms since I was 3 years old.” From there she goes on to talk about her sexual experiences with different men over the course of her life and the romantic mistakes she made along the way. She is able to reflect on her past with a sense of perspective now. She's been married to her husband for 32 years and she says that he's the best sex she ever had because they trust one another so completely. "Good sex is based on trust," she tells audiences. "And it isn’t between your legs, it’s between your ears.”
2. Poor little rich girl
In L.O.V.E.R., Robbins talks about her struggles as a young actress in Hollywood. Unlike her friends, who waited tables to pay the bills between gigs, her father was supporting her. While that might seem like a blessing, Robbins said it put pressure on her in a different way. "I always walked into auditions with the sense that they were going to think that I didn’t need the job,” she says. “I felt like I had to hide who I was and pretend I was a struggling actress. I had a lot of shame associated with having privilege."
She goes on to say "Having money is complicated and not having money is complicated. They both have their issues.”
Her new show is playing off-Broadway until November.
3. A working actress
The privilege and the shame didn't hold her back, however. Starting in the early 1980s, Robbins was working steadily as a TV and film actress, with recurring roles on daytime soaps. Her bio on her website says: "Ms. Robbins has starred in productions at the Eugene O’Neil Theater Center, Goodspeed Opera, Trinity Repertory, Studio Arena Theater, Rubicon Theater, Schoolhouse Theater and Roundabout Theater. She has also graced the silver screen in Town and Country, The Screamaker, Hudson River Blues and Motherhood. She is best known for her roles on daytime television including One Life to Live, Loving, Ryan’s Hope and All My Children. Her additional television credits include guest shots in: Sex And The City, Law & Order, Kingpin, Once And Again, Law & Order SVU, and Blue Bloods. Lois’ most recent television work was the recurring role of Penelope on Younger."
4. Bad relationships with men
Robbins freely confesses that her problems with men started with her father, who was a wealthy real estate professional in New York. “My childhood, while it looked perfect on the outside, wasn’t perfect at all,” Robbins tells the New York Post. “[My father] was quite successful, and my parents were into their social life and off doing other things. I was left alone a lot. It was lonely. My father was also combustible. It was either, ‘Sweetheart, the world is your oyster’ or, ‘You’re a spoiled rotten brat.’ It depended on his mood.”
She claims she had a lot of "daddy issues" when she headed to L.A. as a teen to start an acting career. That led to some less than perfect romantic relationships, including one with a guy she nicknamed "One-ball Charlie." Charlie's anatomical deficiencies aside, he also had some missing ambition. He proposed marriage to Robbins but let her know that he expected her to use her family's money to take care of him. Wisely, she turned down his proposal.
She ended up in a marriage to a man from a prominent Hollywood family, which made her feel insecure. He referred to her as a Jewish American princess and she felt overwhelming pressure to live up to his expectations of her. After divorcing him, she met her current husband on a blind date. The two have been married for over 30 years.
Robbins and her husband.
5. More than a handful is wasted
One of the more personal issues Robbins tackles is the subject of her own breasts. She confesses to the audience that she felt pressure from her first husband to get breast implants. Years later, a cancer diagnosis and the scarring from that procedure led to complicated health issues. The cancer was treated successfully but she wishes she had taken a different approach to her boobs before that. “If I have one regret in life it was getting those implants,” she says. “I did it because I had zero self-esteem. I was adorable and I should have stayed exactly the way I was with my beautiful champagne glass breasts. More than a handful is wasted anyway.”
6. No spoilers, please
Robbins says she initially considered writing the play as a memoir but a psychic in L.A. suggested she put it on stage. The show premiered in L.A. before moving to a limited engagement off-Broadway run. Robbins told the website Broadway Box that there are parts of the show that really hooked the audience in, saying "There’s one moment that I’ve been told not to give away; but I can promise you, there’s a moment actually at the beginning of the play that everyone leaving the theatre says, 'Oh my god, I will never look at that thing the same way again!'"
L.O.V.E.R is running at the Pershing Square Signature Center Off-Broadway until November.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.