While working in Hollywood, he would usually stay at the St. He had also just recently signed on to star with Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire. He also strengthened his resolve as a staunch environmentalist and strong activist for the rights of animals.īut as the mid '90s approached, Phoenix was back in the Hollywood game working on a film called Dark Blood. He would go on to form a band called Aleka's Attic with his sister Rain, in which he sang, played guitar, and wrote songs. He would give up his acting gig and move back to Gainesville, Florida to reside with his family. Still others resigned themselves to the idead that Phoenix was past the point-of-no-return and would never be the same again.īy the time 1990 rolled around, River Phoenix had had enough. Others speculated it was just his way of lashing out against the unorthodox way in which he was raised. Many felt River Phoenix's about-face was because of a deep-seated dislike of the difficult world of Hollywood and filmmaking. But his typical behavior had begun to change, and people wanted to know why. Phoenix even once publicly denounced drugs like cocaine, heroin, and alcohol. He was a very devout vegetarian, refused to wear leather clothes and jackets, and who so cared for the now diminishing rain forests in Costa Rica, he began buying up large swaths of it to protect it from encroaching development. He was once known for his innocence and wholesomeness. I shut myself out and freak."įollowing a string of appearances in such well-known films as Indiana Jones, Sneakers and My Own Private Idaho, friends and professionals began to observe major changes in Phoenix's personality. in fact, if I see my face on the cover of a magazine I go into remission. The Hollywood hype machine left a bad taste in the actor's mouth leading him to once proclaim, "I've kept my ego and my happiness completely separate from my work. But River accepted his rising star reluctantly, happy that he could help his family by bringing home a paycheck.Ītypical of the existing Hollywood fete set, Phoenix was shy, somewhat reclusive and held a disdain for the spotlight. Set in the jungles of the South Atlantic, the film's plot carried remarkable similarities to River Phoenix's atypical upbringing, having been reared in a log cabin in rural Oregon. He would follow the success of that film with a turn in The Mosquito Coast (1986) in which he starred with Harrison Ford as the son of a man anxious to take his family back to a primitive life. But it would be the huge box-office success and eventual cult following of Stand By Me in in 1986, based on a Stephen King novella, that would launch the young actor's appeal into the stratosphere. Having broken into show biz with TV's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers that ran during the 1982-83 season, River Phoenix would follow up with his feature-film debut as a somewhat bookworm-ish kid in Explorers (1985).
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