River Phoenix

Personal Info

Known For Actor

Gender Male

Birthday 1970-08-23

Deathday 1993-10-31 (23 years old)

Place of Birth Metolius, Oregon USA

River Phoenix

Biography

River Jude Phoenix (né Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993) was an American actor and musician. Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family, as the older brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix. He had no formal schooling, but showed an instinctive talent for the guitar. He began his acting career at age 10 in television commercials. He starred in the science fiction adventure film Explorers (1985) and had his first notable 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 died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood in the early hours of Halloween, 1993, having overdosed on cocaine and heroin (a mixture commonly known as speedball) at The Viper Room. Description above from the Wikipedia article River Phoenix, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Actor

2024
Joaquin Phoenix: An Actor of Extremes

as Self - Actor (archive footage)

2020
Showbiz Kids

as Self (archive footage)

2014
Too Young To Die: River Phoenix

as Self (archive footage)

2012
Dark Blood

as Boy

2012
My Own Private River

as Michael "Mike" Waters (archive footage)

2012
Too Young to Die

as Self (archive footage)

2005
The Phoenix Portal

as Wolfgang Müller / Michael "Mike" Waters (archive footage)

2000
1996
This Road Will Never End

as Self (archive footage)

1994
Truth or Dairy

as Self (archive footage)

1993
The Thing Called Love

as James Wright

1993
Silent Tongue

as Talbot Roe

1992
Sneakers

as Carl

1991
Dogfight

as Eddie Birdlace

1991
My Own Private Idaho

as Michael "Mike" Waters

1991
1990
1988
Running on Empty

as Danny Pope

1988
Little Nikita

as Jeff Grant

1986
The Mosquito Coast

as Charlie Fox

1986
Stand by Me

as Chris Chambers

1985
Explorers

as Wolfgang Müller

1985
Surviving

as Philip Brogan

1985
Robert Kennedy & His Times

as Robert Kennedy Jr.

1984
1984
Celebrity

as Jeffie - Age 11

1982
Family Ties

as Eugene Forbes

1982
1982

Crew

1994