What is it about dying young that makes it so tragic? Maybe it’s because so many people who have died had so much to offer. And it’s not just actors, musicians, athletes, or other celebrities. It’s people who were studying to be doctors, engineers, lawyers or teachers. Sometimes, it’s someone in their 30s or 40s who still had a lot left they had to offer.
F. Scott Fitzgerald died at 44 with his book The Last Tycoon, left unfinished. It was completed by his friend, Edmund Wison. People think Edgar Allen Poe left “The Lighthouse” unfinished. Others say the abrupt ending was intentional. Either way, it left us wondering and wanting more. I believe every writer, poet or playwright should leave something unfinished. Life shouldn’t end when you’ve completed your bucket list.
John Candy was born on this day, Halloween, in 1950. And River Phoenix would die on this day in 1993. He was only 23. Just like Rudolph Valentino and James Dean, he died at the height of his popularity and just as his career was getting some footing. His first role had been in the sci-fi movie, Explorers, a movie I didn’t really like mainly because you can tell how unfinished it looks.
Then, he exploded in Stand By Me as Chris Chambers, the secretly tender tween from one of the bad famlies in the town of Castle Rock, Oregon. Even though he’s the de factor leader of a circle of friends who hang around in a treehouse smoking cigarettes and playing cards, he wants more than what people around him will expect. Alongside Wil Wheaton, Corey Haim and Jerry O’Connell, it remains one of the most authentic coming-of-age/teen angst movies ever made. Considering it was made by Rob Reiner, only known for comedy, and based on a short novella published by Stephen King, only known for horror, there have been very few movies made since then to compare. It’s set in 1959, but it could be set in 1989 or 1919 opr 2019.
Phoenix also appeared in The Mosquito Coast that year in 1986. It’s another movie I don’t really like but I understand what Peter Weir and Harrison Ford were trying to do with the movie. At 16, Phoenix had appeared alongside actors like Ford, Keifer Sutherland, Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, Dame Helen Mirren and Martha Plimpton, who he would end up dating briefly. Being directed by Reiner, Weir and Joe Dante was a wild combination that most young actors would like to have in their short resume.
In 1988, he made three movies, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (with co-star Matthew Perry who recently passed away), Little Nikita and his Oscar-nominated role in Running on Empty. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starred Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti as Vietnam War protestors who have been on the run since 1971 for bombing a napalm labatory. In many ways, his role as Danny Pope mirrored his own early life.
Born River Jude Bottom, his parents had joined the religious organization, Children of God, in 1973. It was known for being considered a cult along with allegations of child sexual abuse. Phoenix was reportedly raped by an adult at the age of four and then engaged in sex activity with other children within the organization as they lived in Venezuela. In 1977, the parents left and changed their surname to Phoenix as a symbol of the resurrection of their life.
Sadly, Phoenix was doing drugs almost as soon as his film career took off. Plimpton later said they broke up in 1989 due to his drug use. Gus Van Sant, who directed Phoenix as a gay prostitute in My Own Private Idaho, said implied in his book Pink, a roman a clef, Phoenix was an occassional drug user but was drank more alcohol. He would appear as a young Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. in the prologue of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but he would shift toward independent movies like Idaho and Dogfight in the early 1990s.
In 1992 he appeared alongside his Nikita co-star Sidney Poitier and Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Mary McDonell, David Strathairn and Ben Kinsley in Sneakers. Strangely, when he appeared in The Thing Called Love with Samantha Mathis, who he was dating at the time of his death, Dermot Mulroney and a yoing Sandra Bullock, marketing didn’t really emphasize his role as much. I’ve never seen the movie completely but Roger Ebert said you can clearly see the signs of the substance abuse in Phoenix’s appearance.
Ebert who was a recovering alcoholic himself wrote of Phoenix: “He looks ill – thin, sallow, listless. His eyes are directed mostly at the ground. He cannot meet the camera, or the eyes of the other actors. It is sometimes difficult to understand his dialogue. Even worse, there is no energy in the dialogue, no conviction that he cares about what he is saying.”
While a lot of people can point to Phoenix as just another young Hollywood star who got fame and money too fast and decided to push it as hard as they could, I say Phoenix drank and did drugs because of the abuse he suffered. Yes, he was young when it all happened but those memories stick. A college friend of mine resorted to cocaine use in his youth as the result of the sexual abuse he endured from a family member. I think if we had been responsive in the later 1980s or early 1990s toward victims of child sexual abuse as we are now, Phoenix might have gotten the help he needed.
However, you can’t blame for Plimpton for walking away. “When we split up, a lot of it was that I had learned that screaming, fighting, and begging wasn’t going to change him,” she said about 10 years after Phoenix’ death. “He had to change himself, and he didn’t want to yet.” When you’re 18-19, you think you’re going to live forever. The sadness is that Phoenix has been deceased much longer than he was alive.
On Oct. 30, 1993, Phoenix, who had been filming Dark Blood in New Mexico, returned to Los Angeles and had reportedly been doing cocaine and heroin with John Frusciante with the Red Hot Chili Peppers for about a week prior. He was at The Viper Room to perform in his band P, which also featured Johnny Depp, who owned the establishment. Mathis was with Phoenix, along with his brother, Joaquin, and sister, Rain. Mathis had said that Phoenix had mostly been sober around her but that night she knew he was on something.
Phoenix’s friend and musician, Bob Forrest, said Phoenix had tapped him on the shoulder saying he thought he had overdosed and wanted to get help, but that passed as Phoenix said he was feeling better. Mathis had gone to the restroom, but when she return, she saw Phoenix scuffling with another bar patron. She took him aside and they went outside where she asked him blunting. “What are you on?”
Shortly after this argument erupted, Phoenix began convulsing and fell to the ground. Joaquin made the infamous 911 call that played on just about every news broadcast of the incident. Rain tried to give him mouth-to-mouth as he had a cardiac arrest. Flea, who was also in the band P, heard about Phoenix and stopped performing, rushed off stage and went outside. He reportedly rode with Phoenix to the Cedar-Sinai hospital where around 1:51 a.m. Phoenix was pronounced dead. He had reportely taken a speedball (mixture of cocaine and heroin) that also containe morphine and Valium led to his death. It was reportedly dissolved in drink which is why the effects took longer.
Despite an urban myth that arose shortly after, Christina Applegate didn’t mock Phoenix’s convulsions. Friends and eyewitnesses said that she had observed Phoenix on the sidewalk and went inside to tell people for help. Scott Ian, of Anthrax, said Applegate as well as others were horrified and visibly upset. Eyewitnesses told Entertainment Weekly that many people, including Applegate, looked like “deer in headlights” unaware of what to do.
Phoenix had completed one movie before his death which was Sam Shepherd’s Silent Tongue. He had been hired to play writer Daniel Molloy in Interview With the Vampire. But Christian Slater was cast to replace him. (In an odd way, I used to confuse the two at first.) Upon hearing his death, Ford made the comment, that he “loved him (Phoenix) like a son.”
Phoenix’s death did little to change Hollywood where drug and alcohol use was and is still common. Perry wrote in his memoir Friends, Love and the Big Terrible Thing about his substance abuse problem. I haven’t read it, but I’m sure losing a friend and co-star like Phoenix affects you. Phoenix was also good friends with Keanu Reeves, who was filming Speed at the time. Jan de Bont said they had to adjust the shooting schedule to accommodate Reeves who was clearly shaken up by the death. Forrest said he got clean and sober himself following Phoenix’s death. Ebert would later criticize Depp for playing Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas basically making a mockery of excessive drug use.
If Phoenix had lived, he would have been one of the best actors working today. He would be getting the roles that went to Leonardo DiCaprio, Jared Leto and Edward Norton. DiCaprio and Leto cite Phoenix as an influence. DiCaprio went on to appear in Total Eclipse playing poet Arthur Rimbald who Phoenix was originally considered. He’d also appear in The Basketball Diaries as Jim Carroll, another role Phoenix was passionate about. What might have happened if we had took things more seriously 30-35 years ago?
Even though he only received one Oscar nomination, he could probably have had two or three wins under his belt. His reaction at the 1989 is heavily praised for how excited and happy he was that Kevin Kline won for A Fish Called Wanda. The two were about to film I Love You to Death and Phoenix greatly admired Kline. Phoenix’ mother, Arlyn, said she basically had to grab Phoenix and hold him down in his seat because he was wanted to run up to Kline to congratulate him on stage.
If you know of anyone who is struggling with drug or alcohol abuse or was the victim of sexual abuse as a child, please reach out to them. Joaquin said that his older brother would often lie about being asked about the Children of God. But since Joaquin was only 2-3 when the family left, he probably didn’t have the memories his older siblings had. It’s hard to bring that up among family and friends, nonetheless media who keep poking you about it.
What was your favorite Phoenix movie/role? Please comment.
Zane Says 