“Run after love and peace will follow”, it is with these words that Joaquin Phoenix paid homage to his deceased brother, River, during the last Academy Awards ceremony. Last January on the show 60 minutes, the star of Joker had confided for a long time about this trauma, the mourning process, and this impression of still feeling the presence of the disappeared. And for good reason, 27 years after this death by overdose, the story of River Phoenix remains the epitome of the tragic Hollywood destiny.
Born in 1970 in Oregon, River (a reference to the “river of Life” in the novel Siddhartha of Hermann Hesse) grew up at the age of 2 in the sect Children of God with his five brothers and sisters: Rain, Summer, Liberty, Jodean and, of course Joaquin. On paper, it promotes free love, but years later its followers will evoke cases of pimping, pedophilia, forcible confinement. River Phoenix said in interviews that he too was sexually abused. The eldest member of the family, he sang on the street with his sister Rain to support his loved ones.
River Phoenix et Joaquin Phoenix
The revelation of “Stand by Me”
In 1977, the Phoenix left the sect and settled in Los Angeles, where the young boy found himself at the age of 10 propelled into the world of show business. He connects small roles, but it is his performance in Stand by Me of Rob Reiner, at 15, which unleashes the talent of the adolescent. “When he came to audition, it was obvious that he had an incredible talent. He could play instruments, he was smart and brilliant, he could really do anything “, confides the director to The Guardian. With his aptitudes and his physique of ephebe, reminiscent of a young Leonardo DiCaprio or of Timothée Chalamet, River Phoenix knows a dazzling success. The one we nicknamed the “James Dean vegan” is chaining collaborations with demanding filmmakers: Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones and the last crusade, 1989), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, 1992, alongside Keanu Reeves) or Sidney Lumet (At the end of the race, 1989).
Too much cocktail
But River Phoenix also succumbs to the sirens of Hollywood life. “This place, Los Angeles, is poisonous, especially for someone who grew up in an isolated part of the world – in an idyllic world – and who comes here. It’s a city of excess, “said his agent to Washington Post. According to the book Running with Monsters written by his friend Bob Forrest, River spent the days before his death taking drugs in a hotel room with John Frusciante, guitarist Red Hot Chili Peppers. “The routine was the same. First smoke crack or a shot of cocaine directly in the veins to have these 90 seconds of euphoria. Then inject heroin to go back down and be able to have a conversation for a few minutes before resuming the cycle. ”
The last night
The evening of his death, October 30, 1993, he first went to a party at Silver Lake, where one of his fans, Leonardo DiCaprio, was also found. “I saw him climb a staircase. It was almost like a scene from Vertigo (from Alfred Hitchcock, editor’s note), because I saw something in his face – I had never met him but I had always dreamed of it – and he was walking towards me and I froze a little. And then the crowd got in my way and I looked back and he was gone, “he told the magazine Esquire. Then the actor ends up at the Viper Room club with his brother Joaquin Phoenix, his sister Rain, his girlfriend Samantha Mathis, Johnny Depp and two members of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (John Frusciante and Pepper Flea). He then drinks a speedball – heroin and cocaine dissolved in alcohol -, gets sick, and is evacuated to the sidewalk where he overdoses. He died shortly after arriving at Cedars Sinai Hospital. Broke in full glory, the actor will leave his loved ones grieved, but his death will also mark the actors of his generation, as Rob Reiner confided to The Guardian : “This was probably a warning. Because Leo (DiCaprio, editor’s note) never fell into drugs ”.
–
