Lowe looking to hit new highs with lower-case ‘dr. vegas’

Last season, Rob Lowe starred as a lawyer in an NBC drama called “The Lyon’s Den,” but his character wasn’t named Lyon. This fall, he’ll star in CBS’ new medical drama “dr. vegas,” though his name won’t be Vegas, either.

In the new drama, set to air Fridays at 10 p.m., Lowe plays Dr. Billy Grant, the in-house doctor at a high-end casino in Las Vegas. Playing his boss is Joe Pantoliano, who occupied the same time slot in the short-lived CBS series “The Handler” last year.

Also starring are Amy Adams as Billy’s nurse practitioner, and Sarah Lancaster (“Everwood”) as a blackjack dealer and student.

“It’s loosely based on the life of the guy who was the house doctor at Caesar’s Palace for 40 years,” Lowe says. “I’m just shocked that, in all the years of TV, nobody had done this. Like ‘ER,’ at any moment, anybody can walk through the doors, any story can happen.”

The pilot was filmed at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Casino and Spa, just off the Las Vegas Strip, but the series will be shot primarily in Los Angeles. It’s produced by Warner Bros. Television, which also does Lowe’s earlier series, “The West Wing.”

“We’ll go to Vegas probably more often than we went to Washington, D.C., on ‘The West Wing,’ ” Lowe says. “But if you can reproduce the West Wing of the White House (on a soundstage), you can definitely reproduce a casino.

“Warner Bros., I have to say, knows how to make quality, beautiful shows. Out of all the studios in town, they get that you gotta spend money to make money.”

One thing Lowe likes about his new character is that he’s not perfect.

“I have a gambling addiction that you don’t know how deep it runs,” he explains, “and what the fallout in my life has been, but you know that I’m not with my daughter anymore. You know that I’m a great guy, smart, great at what I do, funny, but I’m a guy with some issues, which was also really appealing to me.”

One immediate bonus of Lowe’s new job was getting to see The Who in concert. The British supergroup closed the show at the CBS upfront presentation to advertisers at New York’s Carnegie Hall on May 19, by performing the songs chosen as the themes of the “CSI” franchise: “Who Are You?” for “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”; “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” for “CSI: Miami”; and “Baba O’Riley,” the theme for the newest spin-off, “CSI: New York.”

Moonves had promised a surprise early in the presentation.

“I guessed it halfway through the show,” Lowe says. “People were like, ‘No way! There’s no way in hell!’ I said, ‘I know how much they pay for the Who songs. It’s The Who.’

“So I went to the back of the auditorium with Ray Romano and Patty Heaton and my cast. The fire marshals were trying to get us to move. Then CBS security got really nervous, because we had to be at a meet-and-greet.

“It was unbelievable. They go, ‘You gotta move right now.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, when you move Ray Romano, and he goes, I’ll be right behind him.’

“I got to stay. They were fantastic.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Andy Griffith is 78. Singer Pat Boone is 70. Actor Morgan Freeman is 67. Actor Rene Auberjonois (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”) is 64. Guitarist Ron Wood (Rolling Stones) is 57. Actor Jonathan Pryce is 57. Country singer Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn) is 51. Actress Lisa Hartman Black is 48. Model Heidi Klum is 31. Singer Alanis Morissette is 30.