River Phoenix

 

He was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally Catholic, while Arlyn was born Jewish). By the time River was two, they were living in South America, where John was the sect's Archbishop of Venezuela. They later left the group and, in 1977, moved back to the United States, changing their last name to "Phoenix". They lived with River's maternal grandparents in Florida, and later moved to Los Angeles. River is the older brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix. His parents encouraged all of their children to get into movies and, by age ten, River was acting professionally on TV. Phoenix started doing commercials for Mitsubishi, Ocean Spray, and Saks Fifth Avenue, and soon afterward he and the other children were signed by Paramount Pictures casting director Penny Marshall. River and Rain were assigned immediately to a show called Real Kids as audience warm-up performers. In 1980, Phoenix began to fully pursue his career as an actor, making his first appearance on a TV show called Fantasy singing with his sister Rain. In 1982, Phoenix was cast in the short-lived CBS television series, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, in which he starred as youngest brother Guthrie McFadden. Phoenix arrived at the auditions with his guitar and promptly burst into a convincing Elvis Presley impersonation, charming the show producer. By this age, Phoenix was also an accomplished tap dancer. Almost a year after Seven Brides ended in 1983, Phoenix found a new role in the 1984 television movie Celebrity, in which he played the part of young Jeffie Crawford. Although only onscreen for about ten minutes, his character was central. Less than a month after Celebrity came the ABC Afterschool Special: Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia. Phoenix starred as a young boy who discovers he has dyslexia. Joaquin starred in a small role alongside his brother. In September, the pilot episode of short-lived TV series It's Your Move aired. Phoenix was cast as Brian and only had one line of dialogue. He also starred as Robert Kennedy's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. After his role in Dyslexia was critically acclaimed, Phoenix was almost immediately cast in a major role in made-for-TV movie Surviving: A Family in Crisis. He starred as Philip Brogan alongside Molly Ringwald and Heather O'Rourke. In October 1984, Phoenix secured the role of geeky boy-scientist Wolfgang Müller in Joe Dante's big-budget science-fiction film Explorers alongside Ethan Hawke, and production began soon after. Released in the summer of 1985, this was Phoenix's first major motion picture role. In October 1986, Phoenix co-starred alongside Tuesday Weld and Geraldine Fitzgerald in the acclaimed CBS television movie Circle of Violence: A Family Drama, which told a story of domestic elder abuse. This was Phoenix's last television role before achieving film stardom.

At 16, Phoenix had a significant role in Rob Reiner's popular coming-of-age film Stand by Me (1986), which made him a household name. Later that year Phoenix completed Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast (1986), playing the son of Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren's characters. "He was obviously going to be a movie star," observed Weir. "It's something apart from acting ability. Laurence Olivier never had what River had." Phoenix was next cast as the lead in the teen comedy-drama A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988). Phoenix starred in Little Nikita (1988) alongside Sidney Poitier. During this time, the Phoenix family continued to move on a regular basis, relocating over forty times by the time Phoenix was 18. Phoenix purchased his family a ranch in Micanopy, Florida, near Gainesville in 1987, in addition to a spread in Costa Rica. His sixth feature film was Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty (1988), for which 18-year-old River received National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and nominations for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award, becoming the sixth-youngest Academy Award nominee in the category. Phoenix jumped to his feet during the ceremony when Kevin Kline beat him to the Oscar for A Fish Called Wanda. "I had to stop River from running to hug Kevin," recalled his mother Arlyn. "It never crossed his mind that he hadn't won." That year he also portrayed a young Indiana Jones in the box-office hit Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade directed by Steven Spielberg. In 1991, Phoenix filmed an acclaimed independent picture called Dogfight co-starring Lili Taylor and directed by Nancy Savoca. In the romantic coming-of-age drama set in San Francisco, Phoenix portrayed a young U.S. Marine on the night before he is shipped off to Vietnam in November 1963. Taylor remarked that Phoenix suffered because he could not distance himself from his character: "He also hadn't gotten into any [drugs] – he was just drinking then, too. It was different ... That was actually a hard part for him, because it was so radically different from who he was. He was such a hippie, and here he was playing this marine. It actually caused him a lot of discomfort. I don't think he enjoyed that, actually, getting into that psyche." Phoenix met actor Keanu Reeves while Reeves was filming Parenthood with Phoenix's brother, Joaquin and girlfriend, Martha Plimpton; however, Phoenix had reportedly auditioned for Bill in Reeves' then-current film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure before the role was taken by Alex Winter. The two starred together for the first time (along with Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman and Joan Plowright) in 1990's I Love You to Death and again in Gus Van Sant's avant-garde film My Own Private Idaho. In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen praised Phoenix's performance: "The campfire scene in which Mike awkwardly declares his unrequited love for Scott is a marvel of delicacy. In this, and every scene, Phoenix immerses himself so deeply inside his character you almost forget you've seen him before: it's a stunningly sensitive performance, poignant and comic at once" For his role in My Own Private Idaho, River Phoenix won Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival. In addition, 21-year-old Phoenix received Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, becoming the second-youngest winner of the former. The film and its success solidified Phoenix's image as an actor with edgy, leading man potential. In that period Phoenix was beginning to use marijuana, cocaine and heroin with some friends.

Phoenix teamed up with Robert Redford and again with Sidney Poitier for the conspiracy/espionage thriller Sneakers (1992). A month later he began production on Sam Shepard's art-house ghost western Silent Tongue (which was released in 1994); he also was beaten out for the role of Paul by Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. He made a cameo appearance in Van Sant's Even Cowgirls get the Blues (1993), co-starring his sister Rain. Phoenix then starred in Peter Bogdanovich's country music-themed film, The Thing Called Love (1993), the last completed picture before his death. Phoenix began a relationship with co-star Samantha Mathis on the set. During the filming of the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast, Phoenix began a romance with his co-star Martha Plimpton. They dated from February 1986 to June 1989, also co-starring in the 1988 film Running on Empty. The relationship ended due to his drug use. Plimpton stated, "When we split up, a lot of it was that I had learned that screaming, fighting, and begging wasn't going to change him. He had to change himself, and he didn't want to yet." The two however, maintained a close friendship throughout the remainder of his life. Phoenix was an investor in the original House of Blues (founded by his good friend and Sneakers co-star Dan Aykroyd) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened its doors to the public after serving a group of homeless people on Thanksgiving Day 1992. Phoenix was a dedicated animal rights, environmental and political activist. He was a prominent spokesperson for PETA and won their Humanitarian Award in 1992 for his fund-raising efforts. In late October 1993, Phoenix had returned to Los Angeles, only there for one day, after flying back from one week in New Mexico and before that six to seven weeks in Utah to complete the three weeks of interior shots left on his last project, Dark Blood, a film that was finally completed in 2012 On the evening of October 30, 1993, Phoenix was to perform with the band P, which at the time featured his good friends Flea and John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, actor Johnny Depp, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers, and Al Jourgensen of Ministry at The Viper Room, a Hollywood nightclub partly owned at the time by Depp. His friend musician Bob Forrest claims that Phoenix and Frusciante arrived at the club together, where they would meet with Phoenix's girlfriend Samantha Mathis, Phoenix's brother Joaquin, and their sister Rain, along with Flea and Depp. After they arrived, cocaine was immediately passed around. During the performance by P, Forrest said that Phoenix tapped him on the shoulder to tell him he was not feeling well and that he thought he had overdosed. Forrest said to Phoenix that he did not think that he was overdosing because he could stand and talk. Nonetheless, he offered to take Phoenix home, but Phoenix declined, saying he was feeling better. A few moments later, Forrest said that a commotion erupted in the club and he went outside to find Mathis screaming as her boyfriend was lying on the sidewalk having convulsions. Joaquin called 911, but was unable to determine whether Phoenix was breathing. His sister Rain proceeded to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When the ambulance arrived, Phoenix was still alive and Flea went with him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. When Forrest arrived at the hospital, he saw Mathis standing in the hallway crying. Further attempts to resuscitate Phoenix at the hospital were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at 1:51 a.m. PST on the morning of October 31, 1993, at the age of 23. In 2018, Samantha Mathis said that she and Phoenix had originally only intended to drop off Phoenix's siblings at the Viper Room on the way to her house, but Phoenix decided to stay for a while after he was asked to perform with the band. Phoenix was due to begin work on Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire (1994) two weeks after his death. He was to play the part of Daniel Molloy, the interviewer, which then went to Christian Slater, who donated his entire $250,000 salary to two of Phoenix's favorite charitable organizations: Earth Save and Earth Trust. The film has a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits.