River Phoenix
Acting
Born 1970-08-23
Died 1993-10-31
Metolius, Oregon USA
39 credits
Read biography
River Jude Phoenix (née Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993) was an American actor, musician, and activist.
Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family, as the oldest brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix. He had no formal schooling, but he showed an instinctive talent for the guitar, and he played and sang on the streets for money. He began his acting career at age 10 in a handful of television commercials. He starred in the science fiction adventure film Explorers (1985) and had his breakthrough role in 1986's Stand by Me, a coming-of-age film based on the novella The Body by Stephen King.
Phoenix made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing Danny Pope, the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (at age 18, he became the sixth-youngest nominee in the category), and My Own Private Idaho (1991), playing Michael Waters, a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother. For his performance in the latter, Phoenix garnered enormous praise and won a Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival as well as 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.
Phoenix fought heroin addiction and died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood in the early hours of Halloween, 1993, after unknowingly ingesting cocaine and heroin (a mixture commonly known as a speedball) at The Viper Room.
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Filmography
Family Ties
Hotel
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Stand by Me
Interview with the Vampire
Sneakers
My Own Private Idaho
It's Your Move
Explorers
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
The Mosquito Coast
Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford
Running on Empty
Robert Kennedy & His Times
I Love You to Death
Little Nikita
Dogfight
The Thing Called Love
Celebrity
Too Young to Die
101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment
A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon
Showbiz Kids
Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy
Circle of Violence: A Family Drama
Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand by Me
The Making of ‘Sneakers’
Silent Tongue
Dark Blood
Surviving
My Own Private River
Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia
Truth or Dairy
Joaquin Phoenix: An Actor of Extremes
The Phoenix Portal
Evolution's End?
Flea Master Session
This Road Will Never End
Final 24: River Phoenix
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