31, 1993, the star told his young sister and brother to go have fun listening to Depp play The Viper Room. Phoenix, meanwhile, would blow off opportunities like “Reality Bites,” which did so much for Ethan Hawke’s career, and then accuse his agency of hiding scripts from him.įinally, he agreed to star in “Interview with the Vampire,” and another movie, “Dark Blood.” But he promised his dad that once those movies were done, so was he. ![]() John believed Hollywood was corrupt and evil and wanted River to quit. His father, John, had moved to Costa Rica, where the two would fight about the father’s drinking and the son’s career. After he stumbled through one scene repeatedly, his eyes unfocused, his agent and then his mother flew in to baby-sit him on location.īy then, his mother had changed her named to Heart and was managing his career. And while Phoenix was new to using “it did not take him long to go from, you know, a casual user to having an intense drug problem.”īy the time he made his last movie, “The Thing Called Love,” Phoenix was an obvious casualty. One production assistant, Matt Ebert, says there was “rampant heroin use” on the set. Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, River Phoenix and Jerry O’Connell in a scene from the movie “Stand By Me”. On Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho,” where he and Keanu Reeves played street kids hustling gay men for money, Phoenix took the role seriously enough to research hard drugs. There were some parallels to his own life. ![]() He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in 1988’s “Running on Empty.” He played the son of a fugitive family living underground. His stand-out movies included “The Mosquito Coast” with Harrison Ford and a role as young Indiana in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Then 18, DiCaprio idolized Phoenix, whose industry cred had only risen when he played a street hustler in “My Own Private Idaho.”Ĭorey Feldman, his co-star on “Stand by Me” - where the young actors, including Wil Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell, were obsessed by sex - says that Phoenix referred to it as his “second virginity.” The girl was a family friend and they went to both sets of parents to get their blessings first.īut while Phoenix asked permission to have sex, and even as his siblings followed him into the business, most notably Joaquin, River remained the family bread-winner. The children were sent into the street to sing or go hungry. They became itinerants, always drifting south when they finally came to rest in the Children of God commune in Caracas, Venezuela. His parents, Heart (Arlyn) and John, joined the Children of God cult when River was a toddler. DiCaprio was only just getting started, Tom Cruise was willing his way to big-screen stardom and Brad Pitt had just been anointed a star after beating out Phoenix for the lead role in Robert Redford’s “A River Runs Through It.” But the core story is that of River Phoenix, who surely had one of the most unusual childhoods of any kid come to Hollywood. ![]() Depp, who had friends in common with Phoenix, had it unhinged and sent to the Phoenixes in Florida.Įdwards layers “Last Night at The Viper Room,” with context threading a synopsis of Hollywood at the time throughout. Only later did Depp learn that it was Phoenix who had died outside his club. Phoenix’s girlfriend, Mathis, was futilely banging her head against the wall Joaquin kept insisting everything was fine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |