Famous Obits

His little brother called 911 while their sister tried to save him. River Phoenix spent his early childhood with his family in the Children of God, singing on street corners to help feed them. After the family moved to Los Angeles, he went from commercials to “Stand By Me,” played young Indy in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” and was nominated for an Oscar at 18 for “Running on Empty.” By his mid-teens, his acting was paying his family’s expenses, and he was the one who pushed his younger brother Joaquin back into acting. On October 31, 1993, he died of an overdose of cocaine and heroin outside the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip. He was 23. In 2020, Joaquin won the Best Actor Oscar for “Joker” and ended his speech with a lyric River wrote when he was 17. #riverphoenix #joaquinphoenix #standbyme #90smovies #hollywoodhistory