River Phoenix
River Jude Phoenix was an American actor. The older brother of actor Joaquin Phoenix, he was known as a teen actor before taking on leading roles in critically acclaimed films and becoming one of the preeminent acting talents of his generation. Phoenix's numerous accolades include the Volpi Cup and the Independent Spirit Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award.
Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family as the older brother of Rain, Joaquin, Liberty and Summer Phoenix. He began his acting career at age 10 in television commercials. His early film roles include Explorers, Stand by Me and The Mosquito Coast. Phoenix then made a transition into adult-oriented roles, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Sidney Lumet drama Running on Empty. He earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance as Michael Waters, a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother, in the Gus Van Sant drama My Own Private Idaho.
He died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood, California, in the early hours of Halloween 1993, having overdosed on cocaine and heroin at The Viper Room.
Early life
River Phoenix was born on August 23, 1970, in Madras, Oregon, the first child of Arlyn Dunetz and John Lee Bottom. He had four younger siblings: Rain, Joaquin, Liberty and Summer, as well as a paternal half-sister, Jodean. Phoenix's parents named him after the river of life from the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha, and he received his middle name from the Beatles' song "Hey Jude". In an interview with People, Phoenix described his parents as "hippieish".His mother, Arlyn, was born in New York to Jewish parents whose families had emigrated from Russia and Hungary. His father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California, of English, German and French ancestry. In 1968, Phoenix's mother travelled across the United States. While hitchhiking in California, she met John Lee Bottom. They got married on September 13, 1969, less than a year after meeting.
Phoenix's family moved cross country when he was very young. Phoenix has stated that they lived in a "desperate situation." Phoenix often played guitar while he and his sister sang on street corners for money and food to support their ever-growing family. Phoenix never attended formal school. Screenwriter Naomi Foner later commented, "He was totally, totally without education. I mean, he could read and write, and he had an appetite for it, but he had no deep roots into any kind of sense of history or literature." Filmmaker George Sluizer claimed Phoenix was dyslexic.
Children of God cult
In 1973, the family joined the religious cult known as the Children of God. His family settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where the Children of God had stationed them to work as missionaries and fruit gatherers.According to Vanity Fair, Phoenix was raped at the age of four. In an interview with Details magazine in November 1991, Phoenix stated he lost his virginity at age four to other children while in the Children of God, but he had "blocked it out." In 2019, his brother Joaquin would claim that River was joking, saying, "It was literally a joke, because he was so tired of being asked ridiculous questions by the press." Although Phoenix rarely talked about the cult, he was quoted in an article published in Esquire in 1994 as having said, "They're disgusting, they're ruining people's lives." Arlyn and John eventually grew disillusioned with the "Church" and left the cult in 1977.
Acting career
1980–1985: Early work and acting background
Back in the United States, Arlyn began working as a secretary for an NBC broadcaster and John as an exteriors architect. Talent agent Iris Burton spotted River, Joaquin, and their sisters Summer and Rain singing for spare change in Westwood, Los Angeles, and was so charmed by the family that she soon represented the four siblings.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. Halfway through the filming of Surviving, Iris Burton contacted him about a possible role in the film Explorers.
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.
1986–1993: Breakthrough and final projects
Phoenix had a significant role in Rob Reiner's popular coming-of-age film Stand by Me, which made him a household name at 16. Filming started on June 17, 1985, and ended in late August 1985, making Phoenix 14 for most of the movie. The Washington Post opined that Phoenix gave the film its "centre of gravity". Phoenix commented: "The truth is, I identified so much with the role of Chris Chambers that if I hadn't had my family to go back to after the shoot, I'd have probably had to see a psychiatrist." Later that year, Phoenix completed Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast, 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." During the five-month shoot in Belize, Phoenix began a romance with co-star Martha Plimpton, a relationship which continued in some form for many years. Phoenix was surprised by the poor reception for the film, feeling more secure about his work in it than he had in Stand by Me.Phoenix was next cast as the lead in the teen comedy-drama A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, but was disappointed with his performance: "It didn't turn out the way I thought it would, and I put the blame on myself. I wanted to do a comedy, and it was definitely a stretch, but I'm not sure I was even the right person for the role." Also in 1988, Phoenix starred in Little Nikita 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, for which the 18-year-old Phoenix 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. "I had to stop River from running to hug Kevin," recalled his mother Arlyn. "It never crossed his mind that he hadn't won". In 1989, he portrayed a young Indiana Jones in the prologue of the box-office hit Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford.
Phoenix was photographed by Bruce Weber for Vogue and was spokesperson for a campaign for Gap in 1990. He starred with Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, Joan Plowright and Keanu Reeves in the 1990 comedy film I Love You to Death. Phoenix had met Reeves while Reeves was filming the 1989 film 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.
He co-starred with Lili Taylor in the acclaimed independent picture Dogfight, 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 —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 reunited with Keanu Reeves to co-star in Gus Van Sant's 1991 avant-garde film My Own Private Idaho. In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen praised Phoenix's performance as gay hustler Michael Waters: "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". He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival. In addition, the 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. His critically acclaimed performance helped bring queer cinema to a mainstream audience. The film and its success solidified his image as an actor with edgy, leading man potential. In that period, Phoenix was beginning to use marijuana, cocaine and heroin with some friends.
Around this time, Phoenix was approached by George Lucas to reprise his role of a younger Indiana Jones for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a spin-off television series produced by the ABC that served as a prequel to the Indiana Jones films. However, Phoenix declined to reprise the role due to having started his career in different sitcoms and struggled hard to get out from the television medium, not being willing to return to it. The role of a younger Indy was eventually filled by Corey Carrier and Sean Patrick Flannery, respectively.
He teamed up with Robert Redford and again with Sidney Poitier for the conspiracy/espionage thriller Sneakers. A month later, he began production on Sam Shepard's art-house ghost western Silent Tongue. He was beaten out for the role of Paul by Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Phoenix then starred in Peter Bogdanovich's country music-themed film, The Thing Called Love, the last completed picture before his death. He began a relationship with co-star Samantha Mathis on the set.