Hollywood’s worst Halloween: The night River Phoenix died

“He’s having seizures! Get here, please. I think he took Valium or something. Please, he’s dying!” The voice on the 911 call on the night of Halloween, 1993, was Joaquin Phoenix. A few meters away, the life of his older brother, the actor and singer River Phoenix, ended. For eight minutes, their sister Rain tried to revive him at the doors of The Viper Room, then the trendiest place in Los Angeles, owned by Johnny Depp. Crying at his side were actress Samantha Mathis, River’s girlfriend, and Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist with whom the actor was scheduled to play that night.

The paramedics were unable to revive him. He was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:51 a.m. He was 23 years old, but he was already a generational icon destined to mark an era. A couple of weeks later, the autopsy determined that he had died as a result of a drug overdose that included cocaine, heroin, morphine, ephedrine, marijuana and Valium.

In the world before the internet, news reached everyone at a different pace. Some found out on Teletext, others from the radio. Everyone had to deal with their disbelief alone. The next day the news confirmed what seemed like another horror story from Halloween night. That same night another legend had died in Rome: Federico Fellini. Their asymmetrical resumes were featured in the newspapers the next day.

The magazine Fotogramas said farewell to him with the headline “River Phoenix, a 23-year-old legend.” Three years earlier he had appeared on a cover and a coveted foldout that called him “a sex symbol for the 1990s.” He seemed like the future. His filmography was broad, but he shined in each of his roles. It is impossible not to surrender to his melancholic interpretation of a narcoleptic hustler in My Private Idaho (1991), Gus Van Sant’s masterpiece that he filmed with his friend Keanu Reeves and for which he received the Cup Volpi in Venice. Many locate the beginning of his drug problems in the film: to prepare for their roles, both Keanu and River mixed with prostitutes and experimented with drugs. The film intersperses scenes of real addicts, although most of them did not make it past the editing room, many were recovered by James Franco, a declared fan of the actor, in his tribute My Own Private River.

What happened that night has been surrounded by mystery, despite the many witnesses. But one name is always mentioned: John Frusciante, the guitarist of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The most reliable story is that of Gavin Edwards in the book Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind. Picking up Samantha Mathis’ version, he states that “a guitarist friend gave him a cup and said, ‘Hey, Riv, drink this, it’ll make you feel fabulous.’ River didn’t know what was in it, but since he had taken this friend to rehab twice, he could guess that it wasn’t ginger ale... There was a mix of cocaine and heroin in the drink. River immediately felt bad. ‘What you give me? What the hell is here?’ he shouted. To calm down he took some Valium. He then vomited on himself and on the table. Then he collapsed in his chair, unconscious.”

Nothing happened as quickly as it should have. It took Joaquin more than half an hour to call the ambulance “at the suggestion of a doorman.” The police were not the best publicity for a trendy club. Nor did anyone warn the paramedics about what he had actually consumed.

In 2018, Mathis gave an interview to The Guardian on the occasion of the tragedy’s 25th anniversary. She did not mention Frusciante or “a guitarist,” only “a man.” She was certain, though, that River was not an addict. In the last year of his life, she says, “we just hung out with his siblings and got to be kids. He was so good at hanging out.”

River’s mother also thinks that the actor’s drug use was sporadic. She reflected this in a letter written to the Los Angeles Times: “We feel that the excitement and energy of the Halloween nightclub and party scene were way beyond his usual experience and control. How many other beautiful young souls, who remain anonymous to us, have died by using drugs recreationally? It is my prayer that River’s leaving in this way will focus the attention of the world on how painfully the spirits of his generation are being worn down.”

His first great love, the goonie Martha Plympton, who had broken off the relationship after three years due to the actor’s dependency and unwillingness to give up drugs, did not agree. “He’s already being made into a martyr. He’s become a metaphor for a fallen angel, a messiah. He wasn’t. He was just a boy, a very good-hearted boy who was very fucked-up and had no idea how to implement his good intentions,” she told Esquire in 1993. “I don’t want to be comforted by his death. I think it’s right that I’m angry about it, angry at the people who helped him stay sick, and angry at River.” She has never spoken again about the man with whom she shared three years of his life.

The actor was an atypical figure even in a world as prone to eccentricity as cinema. Born in a log cabin in Madras, Oregon, he was the first child of a hippie couple who had met while hitchhiking. They named him River after Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Then came his four siblings: Rain, Leaf (now Joaquin), Liberty and Summer. When River was three years old, they joined a Christian religious sect called The Children of God and became missionaries. They abandoned it when they began to be aware that behind that apparent spiritual communion there was only prostitution and child abuse. The leader of the sect ended up taking refuge in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands years later.

To help the family, River, who had always had a gift for music, played on the street with Rain. When the family returned to Los Angeles, his mother began working at NBC, and all the siblings began to participate in the network’s children’s productions. River got his big opportunity with Explorers (1985) by Joe Dante, which served to show his talent (and that of Ethan Hawke) to the world. Stand By Me (1986) went farther. During filming, he lost his virginity and started smoking marijuana. In The Mosquito Coast (1986), by Peter Weir, he played part of a family as unconventional as his own and met Harrison Ford, who recommended him to play his younger version in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

During the filming of The Mosquito Coast, he fell in love with Martha Plimpton, with whom he also worked in Sidney Lumet’s thriller A Nowhere Place (1988), which gave him his first Oscar nomination. That year, they were the most dazzling couple on the red carpet, a strange habitat for him, a hippie who used to go barefoot and became a strict vegan after his brother Joaquin was traumatized by seeing how fishermen killed fish. He was also a strong defender of the environment. As with all reluctant stars, Hollywood was eager to commodify him.

There was a painful attempt to transform him into a mere teenage idol in Jimmy Reardon (1988), where a very young Matthew Perry debuted. But Phoenix was not interested in that type of film. He wanted risk, and above all he wanted to make music, his true passion. At 10 years old he played with Rain to earn a few dollars to eat, and at 20 they were both part of Aleka’s Attic, a band that was more important to him than his film career. When his agent found the script for That Thing Called Love (1993), the story of a taciturn country musician trapped in a love triangle, he offered it to him so he could combine his two passions. During filming he fell in love with his co-star Samantha Mathis. Mathis was dating actor John Leguizamo at the time, but after the first week of filming she called Leguizamo to break up with him.

His addictions were an open secret. The production company requested daily reports on his state of health. In addition to meeting his partner, that little film helped him make one of his last great friends. River had never heard of director Peter Bogdanovich. He didn’t like the industry, but he did like movies, and no one knew more about movies than Bogdanovich. After filming, the director organized a screening of The Grapes of Wrath at his home. Phoenix was enthusiastic, and wanted to have movie screenings more regularly. But they never got together again. That Thing Called Love was Phoenix’s last completed film.

When he died, he was about to start filming Interview with the Vampire. His replacement, Christian Slater, donated his entire salary to two of Phoenix’s favorite charities, Earth Save and Earth Trust. He also had pending projects with Gus Van Sant, including playing a young Andy Warhol in a biopic. Leonardo DiCaprio became his natural heir and was left with two roles that River had almost closed, Diary of a Rebel and Total Eclipse. In Hollywood rumor mills, it was said that when James Cameron started production on Titanic, he had dreamed of River as Jack Dawson.

“I grew up revering River Phoenix as the greatest actor of my generation, and all I ever wanted was the chance to shake his hand,” DiCaprio told Esquire while promoting Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). He ran into him one night at a party and was about to greet him, but River disappeared from DiCaprio’s sight. “Where did he go?” DiCaprio asked. Someone answered: “The Viper Room.”

His Explorer co-star Ethan Hawke also recognizes River’s enormous influence on life. “My first screen partner overdosed on Sunset Boulevard. He was the brightest light, and this industry chewed him up, and that was a big lesson for me. If I had to give just one reason why I never moved to Los Angeles, it would be that I think it’s too dangerous for an actor like me to be in that kind of climate,” he confessed.

But no one represents his legacy better than his brother Joaquin Phoenix. Not inclined to talk about his personal life, he has said that he has always felt indebted to his brother, because he helped him rediscover his love for cinema after the first rejections from the industry. River forced him to watch Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull over and over again and encouraged him not to give up. When he had his first child with actress Rooney Mara, he named him River, his tribute to an older brother who was also a mentor, telling him, “one day you are going to act again, and you will be more famous than me.”

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