Acting

38

Man

23 Aug 1970

Metolius, Oregon USA

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River Phoenix

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.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

24 May 1989

Stand by Me

8 August 1986

My Own Private Idaho

1 February 1991

Sneakers

9 September 1992

The Mosquito Coast

26 November 1986

Explorers

12 July 1985

Running on Empty

9 September 1988

I Love You to Death

6 April 1990

Family Ties

22 September 1982

The Thing Called Love

27 August 1993