When I saw Stand By Me in '86, I was captivated by River's performance. Three years his senior, I was like - this kid is amazing! Plus I thought he was a cutie with his 'Chris Chambers' crew cut. Yes, I had a real crush on this young unknown actor.

I saw Mosquito Coast and Running On Empty in theaters which only deepened my appreciation of his natural talent. I also saw him in the third Indiana Jones film and some of I Love You to Death. I had wanted to see Dogfight when it came out but for some reason I didn’t get around to it until earlier this year and it was very good. There were parts in that where he really shined but putting all his scenes together I don’t think it was his best work. From what I’d heard about My Own Private Idaho I didn’t want to see it. I’m not into strange sad indie flicks. But out of curiosity after reading two Rio bios I saw that recently too. Good actor that he was he fit right in but again it’s not my kind of film. I don’t know why in the world I’ve never seen A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon or Little Nikita and whatever else. Someday…

I read Brian J. Robb’s and John Glatt’s biographies about him. I tend to think all biographies exaggerate at least a little. I mean, all these famous people’s lives take on mythic significance when they’re written about. Their problems are the worst; their joys are the most intense; their pranks are the wildest, etc, etc. The biographers are trying to sell their books. Anyway if memory doesn’t fail me, these two make River out to be nearly a raving lunatic towards the end of his life and I’m skeptical of some of the more sensational statements in these books. However I’ve made some assumptions that might be completely off the mark based on my dimming memory of these books. Let me know because here they are - presented in the form of a rant…

First of all, what was up with his parents?? It’s one thing to choose to be a homeless hippy but it’s quite another to choose poverty for your children. His parents leave the United States, take their children and go down in some third world country to starve and live without indoor plumbing. What were they doing to support the family besides sending River and Rain out to sing for their supper? Dreaming of a future utopia when the whole world could ‘get its tree worship on’ 24/7? Oh yes, they are so much more human and alive than the poor paper pushers to the north.

And did they really join a cult of pedophiles and permit their son to be molested by them? Are you kidding me?? Where’s a Dept of Health and Human Services when you need it? Heck, where’s the police?

Then the Phoenix parents decide to take their brood to Hollywood (of all places!) and pimp them there. I think mom got a job just long enough to get an idea about how the acting business worked and then – what does a hippy do when she has a job and several children to feed and shelter? Why, she quits her job of course and gives that responsibility to her underage eldest child! Who’s raising whom here?

I’ve read on this forum expressions of contemptuous blame on River for his addiction. Well, that’s one point of view. How about another? It goes something like this. River Phoenix wasn’t born in a vacuum of space and time. He didn’t wake up one day as a 21 year old leading a charmed life and say ‘hey, I’m going to do drugs because I can!’ No, he was purposefully raised in poverty; he was molested as a young child, with his parents’ permission or at least because of their putting him in harms way as they whimsically followed their golden calves; (his parents ‘sponsored’ at least one act of teenage fornication between him and a ‘friend’ in their backyard during the Stand By Me days;) he was taught that he was oh so very special because had a message (their message) to give the world through his acting career. And thus you have a ‘bare-footed’, sexually abused, parentally neglected, socially inexperienced child who’s never stepped foot in a classroom suddenly yanked from a life of eating roots from the ground in ‘the country’ and planted into the slick urban cesspool that is ‘Hollywood’ - to grow into manhood there and be the main breadwinner and cash cow for two wacky hippie deadbeats, their four other crumbsnatchers and eventually a bunch of leeches, otherwise known as ‘friends’, ‘nannies’ and ‘tutors’. In fact when River Jude was a young teenager some of these latter fine citizens introduced him to the very drugs that led to the creation of this forum. These were folks his warm, caring and wise parents trusted with his welfare of course. Yeah. Heck, maybe the elder Phoenixes gave him a blunt when he was five for all we know! Anything is possible with these people.

I think River Phoenix put on a good vegan, peace-loving, PETA supporting front [even while dad was doing more drinking and sulking than mentoring (but still not working!) and mom became kind of a druid stage mom.] Oh I’m sure he meant it, but his public persona covered the fact that he was very confused about who and what he was - because of all the above-mentioned mess. That confusion and maybe even a resentment towards his family he’d never dream of admitting even to himself, and maybe self-loathing became a pain he couldn’t bear and couldn’t share with his earthy Brady Bunch. He loved them, they seemed to love him and they were counting on him.

And they never taught him about the God you can depend on when even your mother or father fail you. If you don’t have God to help you through times of extreme distress, you’ll find another ‘god.’ Happens all the time.

River Phoenix’ parents ruined him by the harmful and misguided choices they selfishly made and which directly affected him. And that happens and will happen to a lot of other children that we’ll never hear about. He’s just one of many. Others can blame him completely for his drug addiction and death. I can’t.

Well your statements are really provokative but I must say i agree with most of them.

I also think that his parents are guilty and it's their responsibility to raise their children in a proper way. And I don't think they did very well(just my opinion). First of all for me it's irresponsible to have so many children when you don't have enough money to at least ensure a house and food for all of them without making them play music for money on the street!!!!

Then it's just SICK to join that group "Children of God" or whatever, and to let your kids get molested when they can't do nothing about it because they are 4-5 years old and don't know what's happening.

And I also think that all parents, whose children die of drug abuse share some of the blame. And especially when they are in contact with their kids. (because if your children live 2000 miles away from you, you can't find out, can you?). But if River's parents knew(and I'm sure they did, as well as his brother and girlfriend), it's their fault that they didn't make it stop. River had such a huge family and they could really have helped him...

That's just my opinion...

"ben e king" i want to appauld you for your incredibly valid and no bullshit obsevation of rivers life, its so refreshing to hear someone who make sense of it. i can see how his parents way of bringing him up may have conributed to his doing drugs as an adult, but i think in situations like this it is very difficult to deal out blame.

iliana- i wouldn't call rivers parents "sick" for joining the children of god. cults are cults because they draft people in who have lost there way and brainwash them...the phoenixies joined very early on therfore the cult was not even a "cult" yet. it had no reputation and as far as they (and everyone else at that time) were concered they were joining a group of people with a love for god who would spend their time living as christ did...very basic, poverty by everyday standards its true, spreding the word of god to others. they said in interviews when things started "getting creepy" they left, they had to be smuggled out. river said in an interview that he lost his virginity at 4, then in another fobbed it off as "a joke". i have no doubt he was abused but i am exteremly sure no parent would let that happen to a child if they knew. either that or the brainwashing tendencies the cult is famous for, the everyone-should-be-loved-and-make-love-regardles-of-age-sex-or-relation policy had already taken hold? but concidering the phoenixies went to such great legnth to get their kids out, concidering they became so disillusioned by their faith and returned to america because of it, i think they knew it was wrong and wanted to fix it.

also, as for it being "his brother and girlfriends" fault for not stopping him taking drugs? nonsense. you can ask someone to stop taking drugs....you can beg them....you cant make them. River had been a drug user for a long time before he met samantha- he was a drug user when he met her and hadn't changed for his previous girlfriends whom he had been with for YEARS so what was she supposed to do? his brother? river had been living away from his family for a long time and it is reported that this is when the majority of his heavy drug use took place, away from his family....as far as joaquin was concerned maybe he just had a joint now and again? i dont know. but again- IF joaquin did know everything (having lived the other side of the country from river, lived in costa rica and then back to the other side of the country) i doubt he could have made him stop.

i dont think i "blame" anyone - lots of people have fucked up childhoods and dont take copious amounts of drugs and die, lots of people have high pressure jobs in the public eye and come out relitivly unscaved, lots of people have parents who are bizarre and put too much pressure on them. granted, river's childhood might not have prepared him socially for the high life of hollywood but he didnt really spend that much time in the "glitz and glamour" of it all anyway. he was an adult, and an adult with more life expierence than some of us will ever have. river made bad choices, he CHOSE the "friends" he hung out with, he CHOSE to take drugs, because they were a relife? because they made him feel good? to get in with the "rock" crowd? whatever...he knew bad stuff could happen and he CHOSE to take the risk. thats not to say i blame river either, im sure he didnt think his recreational habits would one day (too soon) kill him. its just a messed up situation that hurt alot of people caused, in my opinion, by all round bad choices.

To rikki and Iliana:

I think he was a sensitive person; maybe intense – whatever this means. Maybe the kind of person he was just wasn't able to fight his addiction or admit to it in the situation in life he was in. Maybe there was something damaged in him such that he embraced that life style despite his publicly rejecting it. Maybe his family and real friends did try to help him but the way they were trying to help didn't work for him as it might with someone else. Whatever he needed to solve that problem, he just didn't get it in time.

Thanks for responding. I know my rant was harsh and I may be wrong about some of it. (At least I didn’t go into my unpleasant conjecture about The Strange One, Johnny Depp, but that’s whole other thread and probably a dead horse well beaten…) I never knew River Phoenix. I don’t know what he was really like. But I think actors still show some of their personality even when they're acting a role very opposite to themselves, so perhaps it’s safe to say we know River a little and what I knew I liked. He just seemed like the kind of person I’d like to talk to. Anyway, my venting was for me, no matter how much of it is true or makes any sense. Does it make any sense to still feel upset when I think about the death of a promising young actor who was close to my own age, a promising person whose adult life was just beginning and whose work I enjoyed so much? I guess we can psychoanalyze it and perhaps it’s already been done on this board and elsewhere a long time ago. I miss the peripheral part of my life that he was. He was a small part that wasn’t going to answer my questions about life or help me pass my trigonometry exams, but he was there. And now he’s not and hasn’t been for almost 13 years. It’s a loss for whatever he meant to each of us his fans, to his family (yes, I think parents loved him despite their grave errors), to the entertainment industry for all the great roles he could have brought to life if he chose; and a loss to himself for all the other things he could have done beyond age 23. Despite all that, my faith tells me he’s at a peace now that he never was in this life. So…I’ll just continue from time to time to enjoy what he did accomplish. There are many who weren’t able or just didn’t do as much in twice his lifetime.

Yes, I believe "intense" is a good word... And you are right, seeing his full potential would have been such a joy to everybody, I don't dare to think about it... His work and beliefs still inspire many, that is his gift. It still strikes me like now the moment I discovered River Phoenix: not the average. Somebody I would have really liked to talk to, indeed. Friends remember what a good listener he was, how he was truly interested in the person he talked to, even if he only knew her a little, what a witty scrutinity and natural curiosity he had for everything and how he tried to learn from everybody... He was special.

Be at peace, River Phoenix... You are loved and missed!...

And yes, he has accomplished amazingly many things in his young life.

ok wait....it is said that river was malested by the children of god cult...yet in his biographyies and books it is said that river had lost his virginity to a close family friend who was 18...so I'm a little confused..also...I think his parents did a great job raising him..he turned out to be a wonderful person (minus the drugs)....it was his choice to do those drugs....and snort cocain..his parents couldn't ALWAYS be there..he had to be a man and make good choices..and chose not to..that is why I"m mad at him!!!

ash- so the story goes, river claimed, in an interview, to have lost his virginity at the age of 4 in the children of god cult. he then took on a "second virginity", as you would if you had been molested so young, and lost that to the family friend blah blah. He later took back the "loosing his virginity at 4 thing" passing it off as "a joke". supposidly his press people and agent forced him into doing this -i suppose they did not want thier "goody goody" client being associated with child molestation? so they went the other way and had him, frankly, looking like a bit of a head-case having "lied" about being molested - like, who would??!! its all very sad x

Wonderful parents don't allow their children to be molested.

Exactly !!! I've always said that i think his parents have alot to do with f*cking his head up. From that kind of upbringing to being hollywoods golden boy, his head must have been mashed. With drugs so readily available its kind of enevitable that he could go down that path.

"Wonderful parents don't allow their children to be molested"

harsh- i've already said my piece on this on the 3rd post on this thread- please read it. x

No, not harsh...true. It did read your above post. I happen to believe his parents knew their children were being molested. JMO. Whether Rio was four or nine it is still molestation and his parents allowed it. They can't hide behind the stupidety of having joined a cult. That doen't make it okay by any means. And if I'm not mistaking, they were in that cult for a long time. Still, that's irrelavent. They knew so shame on them. Again, JMO.

thats a brave and ignorant statement. i think it's a shame on your part that you would choose to belive, without a shadow of a doubt, that a parent would know for a fact their children were being sexually abused and do nothing about it. are you a natural pessimist? or is it somthing you have just acquired over time?

I'm sorry that you don't like the reality of what happened. Although, in fairness, none of us truly know what happened and that includes you rikki. You called me "ignorant" and "pessimistic" simply because I stated what I believe (based on interviews, documentary footage, etc) to be true. In one documentary (can't recall which one) it was said that when Rio was nine he slept with a family friend age 18. It was said that it was done with his parents knowledge and consent. I'm simply stating what has been said to be a fact. IF it is true, then yes, his parents permitted him to be molested and did nothing. I'm not trying to slander his family, believe me, I don't even know them. I'm only adding to a discussion someone else started. And it is also a fact that his family belonged to a cult. We all know many cults (not saying all) do partake in sick activity such as child molestation. I'd have to go back and read your post to be sure but I believe even you said cults practice free love regardless of race-age-etc. River himself, said at one point, that he was 4 when he lost his virginity (is that even possible? I don't think so) but he said it. At 4 or even 9 parents shold be around enough to know something like that. Don't call people names because you don't like their point of view.

I am very open to what may have happened- i prefer to have the mentality that a parent would not knowingly let their child be raped, however, i also accept that they MAY have known. i call you ignorant because as you yourself said "none of us truly know what happened" yet you seem pretty set in your opinion and believe it is fact with statments such as

"they knew so shame on them" and
"im sorry you dont like the reality of what happened"

sticking JMO afterwards does not make your point of view any less ignorant.

i have never heard any information that river slept with the 18 year old family friend when he was 9 so cant really comment on that- any information i have heard/read about that episode in his life he was 15. if it is in fact true that 9 year old river went to his parents and said "i want to loose my virginity is that okay?" and for his parents to say "yeah son, we support you all the way-lets set it up" of course that is blatently wrong - but i really do think there was a mistake made there just because i have seen it documented so many different times by different people.

i dont mean to call you names- i agree with most of what you said in fact, i just think that we should be more open and give his parents just A BIT more credit because its a situation we all dont know much about. to say- his parents knew he was being raped and did nothing about it, fact full stop. is not right....JMO;)

I thought you said you never heard of him loding his virginity at 9 to a family friend? Yet, earlier you posted this: "ash- so the story goes, river claimed, in an interview, to have lost his virginity at the age of 4 in the children of god cult. he then took on a "second virginity", as you would if you had been molested so young, and lost that to the family friend blah blah."

So it's been said enough that even you've heard it. That is part of which I draw my opinion from. But you are correct in that there is no proof that they knew so I should restate my opinion (which I have in the above post) to include the words, "if" and "allegedly". For that I apologize. But my opinion has not changed.

"does not make your point of view any less ignorant."

Nor yours.

this is the last post im gonna make on this thread cos i dont want it getting stupid-

first of all my "family friend blah blah" statement was refering to him loosing his "second virginity" when he was 15 as, as i had stated, this was the only story i (and i thought everyone else) was aware of. i knew nothing about the "him being 9" thing until you brought it up.

second of all- "does not make your point of view any less ignorant."

Nor yours.

can you call someones opinion "ignorant" when they are willing to accept both sides of a story being possible? ermmmm.......

Okay, possibly I misspoke about him being 9 yrs old but I swear I heard that somewhere. I thought it was here but maybe not. After thinking about it perhaps I did jump to conclusions. It isn't fair to say his family knew and I tried to retract that as soon as I said it by adding the "if" part. In my own experience there are parents who know a child is being molested and do nothing about it. However, River's parents did leave the cult and there is no evidence he was molested at all. So, you're right rikki, I should have thought that statement out a little more. I know his parents loved him deeply and would never intentionally cause any of their children harm. They've suffered a terrible loss (one I've endured as well having lost my brother) and they deserve more respect than what I've shown. I apolgize to anyone I offended. That was truly not my intent. I was only adding to an already ongoing discussion. I don't always think before I speak so I'll shut my big mouth now.

i know...i said i wasn't gonna post anymore but i have to say, respect to you ekoostik.....and dont "shut your big mouth" everyone is entitled to an opinion. x