On November 24, 1993, Arlyn “Heart” Phoenix published an open letter in the Los Angeles Times on her son’s life and death. It read, in part:

“His friends, co-workers and the rest of our family know that River was not a regular drug user. He lived at home in Florida with us and was almost never a part of the “club scene” in Los Angeles. He had just arrived in L.A. from the pristine beauty and quietness of Utah where he was filming for six weeks. 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.

River made such a big impression during his life on Earth. He found his voice and found his place. And even River, who had the whole world at his fingertips to listen, felt deep frustration that no one heard. What is it going to take? Chernobyl wasn’t enough. Exxon Valdez wasn’t enough. A bloody war over oil wasn’t enough. If River’s passing opens our global heart, then I say, thanks dear, beloved son, for yet another gift to all of us.”

I am in tears, rest in peace beautiful soul.

"She’s this peaceful sweetheart, you know? But she’s also radical, unpredictable, and she knows how to move mountains if she wants to. She’s intelligently aggressive toward things she really digs." - River Phoenix

“‘There’s a River born to be a giver, keep you warm won’t let you shiver, his heart is never gonna wither come on everybody time to deliver.’ #giveitaway #happybirthdayRiverPhoenix #innovator #activist #actor #musician #giver #brother #friend thanks to #Rhcp for the lyrical homage, well said! And to all of us who admired him and wonder what we can do to make a difference… We can be #givers4river - we can give a smile, a hug, or a few kind words to someone who needs it. We can be a light in the darkness - a friend - a lover - a sister - a brother. We can grow our #giver until we forget all about the take, and spend every moment awake in #positivity #love #compassion #unity” - Rain Phoenix

I remember that time he was going to Germany (1991) and wore that jacket over and over, he had his own wardrobe he loved so much. 

His German sounded so lovely with that American accent, sounded funny but yet so unique ♥ He was unique in many ways and wanted to prove that being unique is the best way to be respected and even though he was aware that life itself is very short, he was trying to get the best out of life. with ups and downs..

riversyellowsunflower:

Kahil Dotay with River in 1990 at Club Gravity, where Aleka’s Attic would play and Kahil would tend bar & DJ.

'Kahil and River had a running gag of sorts. Whenever they'd see each other in public, which wasn't too often, River would point at Kahil and freeze in place until Kahil would repeat a certain phrase. As long as Kahil repeated the phrase, River would move or “dance” like a madman. “Although it was kind of Stupid, it was the whole basis of our relationship {smile}” '.   — Kahil Dotay on being silly with Riv

Pictures and story by Angie:
"It was a Friday night. March 1, 1991. The spring of my sophomore year in high school. I had spent years prior to this night combing magazine aisles for the latest issues of Bop! and Tiger Beat. I had collected pictures, decorated lockers and notebook covers and drew many a "River" with a heart dotting the "i" in his name. I saw his movies, watched all his t.v. interviews and even begged a movie theater manager for a poster of his WORST movie, all so I could have that gorgeous face to look at all.the.time. I was in lust.
My friend “G” & I set out for a local club downtown to see River’s band “Aleka’s Attic” perform at a benefit concert for our local food bank. The anticipation on the ride over to the venue had me in tears. Yes, I’m a crier. I was actually WEEPING at the thought of meeting my dream guy. That’s a 15 year old for ya!
So, we make it to the venue and there are people EVERYWHERE. Not suprising because this event was well publicized and (imagine that) I’m not the only fan of River Phoenix in my town apparently. The nerve of some people. So, I elbow my way into the cigarette smoke-filled room and try to get a place to stand, remotely close to the stage. The venue wasn’t huge, but nevertheless, it was hard to see the stage. The concert began and we were delighted to hear the very unique style of music that they performed. They had your typical guitar and drums, but they also featured an electronic violin and a trumpet. All the musicians were GREAT!
[The 2nd picture shows] River and his sister Rainbow singing a tune. River played lead guitar. Swoon! He was dressed so grunge that night. It was hot.
They performed several songs and then I watched while River was interviewed by a blonde reporter from the BBC. They sent a film crew all the way to my little town from England, just to film this little concert. I was SO jealous of that reporter. And she was totally macking all over River. Bleh.
The [1st picture] was a shot of the whole band with the bimbo reporter. And they were eating pie. Don’t ask me why. I remember it being for some stupid publicity something or other. I just knew River was staring right at me. Delusional.
So, after the concert, River came out into the audience to be with his stalkers peeps. I knew this was my chance! Carpe Diem! It was now or never. I had to go talk with him.
I made my way through the droves of people and spotted him sitting at a table fawning all over a girl who was 2 years ahead of me at my school. I know I turned green with envy as I saw him taking a drag off her cigarette and laughing close to her face. How could that hussy steal my man? I marched over to him and stuttered a “Hi! Great concert!” He looked up for 2 seconds and shot me a smirk. And then, I held out a piece of paper and asked for his autograph. He looks up again and says “I don’t do autographs.” As the tears started to well up in my eyes, I know that a look of horror must’ve come across my face. Did he really say that to me? But, I’m his future wife biggest fan.

I guess the look on my face and the thought of dashing the hopes and dreams of an innocent starry-eyed teenager were just too much for him. He took the paper, scrawled his initials and handed it back to me and that was it. I walked away, somewhat disillusioned, but with a piece of my guy forever.
And so, was it all I thought it would be? No. Am I glad I met him in person. Yes. Do I miss him? Terribly.

And that was the night that I met River Phoenix.”
I know there is a lot of bullshit out there but this story is definitely true - she even took pictures.
The part with her asking for an autograph while he was hanging out with some girl is just hilarious! Imagine the fun he had with all these teenage fans asking for autographs! xD
Although he did sign autographs sometimes (we have proof in this video ), the whole situation seems to have been annoying and awkward to him and I can totally understand why he didn’t want to be River Phoenix that night, but just Rio.
I think it’s hilarious though!! "I don’t do autographs" -> girl almost crying. Riv: Okay, okay, don’t cry, here.
xD

“Is that true? I feel so detached from the screen that I never get enough sense of someone to want to have sex with them. There are a few of them who are charming, but, no, I’d have to know someone for a long time before I did that. Our leading man/leading lady ideas are just so messed up. That’s why I define myself more as a character actor, not accepting the makeup that will make you look “right”. I want to see more different, interesting, real people onscreen. I could have more of a [laughs] sexual motive toward the screen if there were some real people up there. And there are a few, but not enough. I want to see more De Niros. I want to see more Spike Lees. I want to see more women, especially, up there.”

—	River Phoenix, 1991.Why do fans want to have sex with movie stars?

River with Calvert DeForrest and Frank Colangelo / PETA Benefit - Beacon Theater NY 1989

“Happy birthday (a day belated) to that beautiful soul called River Phoenix. He would have been 44 had his flame not dimmed so early. But while he burned brightly, I was blessed to cross his path several times, and he was every bit that delicate combination of earth-bound yet ethereal that can often weigh down those bestowed with greatness and purpose. And tragically, It proved too much to handle. I loved him as artist and human- and will PETA Benefit Concert in 1989 at the Beacon Theater in New York where River performed live for the first time with his band Aleka’s Attic- which was Seattle Alternative two years before ‘grunge’ was even a musical sub-genre. An unlikely lovely addition to the party was my dear late friend Calvert DeForrest (aka Larry “Bud” Melman) and his pal, character actor Frank Colangelo. Together we organized to bring attention to cruelty against gentle creatures. At the time, little did I realize dear River was the most fragile creature of all… and would be broken and gone a few years later. I miss him. I cherish him. “I’ll see ya when I see ya…” - Tim Sullivan

"I had gone down to Key West in 1987 to interview the whole Phoenix family who was down there since two of its children were filming a movie now long forgotten. It was called Russkies and Joaquin, who was still a chubby little boy, was in it when his name was still Leaf, not Joaquin. His sister Summer had a small part in it too. And Carole King was even in it - but that’s a whole other story. 

The real star of the family was then River and the two of us bonded during those four days I was down there. I also loved his mother. River was so sweet back then. So talented. So smart. Right before this photo he had pulled off his t-shirt and given it to me. “I want to give you the shirt off my back,” he said, smiling. I had this fedora from Paul Stuart on and gave it to him as a gift in return. And then gave him my black t-shirt to put on. 

I am thrilled to have just found this photo. I even teared up - for many reasons - when it fell into my hands just now from where I had forgotten I had stuck it inside this old Interview magazine. Thank you, universe.And, thank you, River for being so briefly and movingly in my life.” -  Kevin Sessums

leonmcgraw:

Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors (by Peter Bogdanovich, x)

”If you love someone, it’s worth walking a million miles to see them.  If you love animals, then it follows that you’ll watch out for them. (…) Animal rights aren’t separate from other social, environmental or political issues. What do art and science mean if the Earth is falling apart, if we feel no responsibility to give it space to breathe? We’re very selfish with this planet, and the way we use animals is one of the symptoms of our selfishness. But when you love animals, you feel at one with the little bit of nature that’s left on Earth.”

- River in an interview for Sassy Magazine

(Source: jphoenixbrasil.com, via standbyphoenix)

Some people find security in routine, but I could never live that way. That’s why I could never be on a television series; that would call for routine, for getting up in the morning at a certain time, going to work, going through the same thing, playing the same character.

— River Phoenix, Sky Magazine September 1988

"He was always pushing how far he could go. He’d go, ‘Can I say I feel like jerking off? Why can’t I say that? Why? Why can’t I say that?’ If you said, ‘Not so loud!’ he’d think that was a funny reaction, like you were paranoid. He’d get into shouting matches with people, where they were both screaming `You fucking moron!’ but he’d end up liking them. He liked people who didn’t let him get away with things."

- Gus Van Sant

(Source: standbyphoenix, via standbyphoenix)

Music and the environment are equally important issues in my life. I couldn’t choose between them.

— River Phoenix

Observer-Reporter - Mar 29,

Observer-Reporter - Mar 29, 1989

“His eyes made him the focus of energy in every scene, the centrifugal force so strong you didn’t even try to duel him for control. The off-center eye [Phoenix’s lazy right eye] read as madness, and the other read pure sanity. In a close-up, from one side he was the guy next door, and from the other he was absolutely insane.”

After River’s death and while in London, Dermot Mulroney ran in to one of River’s drug friends, a screenwriter, and slammed him against a wall. “This is how I feel about River’s death,” Mulroney said. “How do you feel?”

He told me he didn’t have a sense of humor until he was mine and that he never really got its logic, the surprise of the unexpected. You know: An elephant and a hippo, go into a bar, something is introduced, punch line. And he’d be like, ~Yeah, so what happened then?~

— Gus Van Sant

River’s profound understanding of this situation [in A Thing Called Love] mirrored his own often painful relationships with the women he’d loved and who’d loved him. I didn’t know her, the young woman he had been going with just before we began preparing our picture. But the first evening we spent together, he told me of the dismay he felt at having just been told by her that she had been unfaithful. Of course, he said, he had been unfaithful to her, and she had known it - but the other way around really bothered him. He went right on, however, to justify her behavior, to see it from her point of view, how she was protecting herself from the pain of his acts. I didn’t say much, and River talked out his ambivalent feelings in a very mature way.

— Peter Bogdanovitch on River Phoenix, possibly (probably) referring to his relationship with Sue Solgot  (via virgineunuchother)

(Source: desaparecidos, via griever4leon)

“River was always doing things like saying, ‘I just love you,’ and lunging to hug me, I’d freeze, maybe because my father used to grab my knee in a certain way. River didn’t like that, so he’d hug me again, and I’d freeze again, and he’d yell at me.” - Gus Van Sant

“When he was being aloof I’d impulsively try to trap him in an emotional gesture by hugging him, and he’d flip out of my arms, ten minutes later he’d sneak up and hug me from behind. He wanted it to be his spontaneity, and more creative—he’d sidewind you, but you would consider yourself hugged.” - Alan Moyle

"Greenbaum and River spent hours sitting on the trampoline in the backyard, figuring out songs. They ate at the Falafel King and worked out together at the Gainesville Health and Fitness Club. Going to the gym was novel for River. ‘I’ve got more of a musician’s build than a gymnast’s’ he said."

Me and River used to play together. We had sort of communication that was intense, on just two guitars. 
- John Frusciante

River was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He would make up his own characters and come up with these original funny imitations. He loved getting attention and make people laugh. 
- Josh Greenbaum

"Animal rights aren’t separate from other social, environmental or political issues. What do art and science mean if the Earth is falling apart, if we feel no responsibility to give it space to breathe? We’re very selfish with this planet, and the way we use animals is one of the symptoms of our selfishness. But when you love animals, you feel at one with the little bit of nature that’s left on Earth.” - River Phoenix

"River was a product of his own goodness.It was almost like he was too good to be on this earth. Like, everyone else steps over the homeless people. River could not step over a homeless person, he had to rehabilitate them and give them a life. And he was incredibly honest- one minute I’d want to club him because he was driving me crazy and then he’d say something that was out there. I’d be like, ‘I have to go to my room and recover from that statement’. On set he’d throw himself on you and say ’ I like you so much’ and you never meet people like that. But when I met Keanu I was like ’Oh my god, this is exactly like River" - Sandra Bullock

“River Phoenix was a good friend of mine. He was someone who I’ll always hold very close to my heart. He was someone that understood a lot of things about me that no-one else has ever understood about me…probably the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life." -Flea

"I would love to see what kind of choices he would be making now if he was still around, some of the characters that he would have played. I mean, to me he was like a rock star, you know, he had it all: he had the looks, he had a great name, he had an attitude, an energy, an excitement about him. He was instinctively like a, he was a rebel, you know? He was kind of Bob Dylan to me, at times, and he had a lot to say. And I’ve never seen too many interviews by him, but the ones that I saw were pretty electric, pretty… he was switched on, definitely.
[on which actors inspired him] Definitely River Phoenix is somebody that I thought, ‘This guy is very cool.’ I wanted to be like him when I was a kid.” - Jim Sturgess

Reeves is the first to arrive for dinner at Suite 55 in the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. He looks a bit dazed from a run-in with the paparazzi at a Hollywood screening. “I just stopped on my bike to ask the guard, like, what movie was playing,” he says. “And suddenly all of the guys around me are yelling ‘Keanu, look up!’” Did he? “No way, man. I beat it out of there. It was weird.” He grins, and then offers to grate some Parmesan cheese for the pasta, first asking what side of the grater to use. Soon Phoenix shows up. Immediately, he’s at Reeves’s side in the kitchen, peeling garlic. Within minutes, though, the two escape to the balcony. Phoenix lights up a Camel. He cocks an eyebrow: “Doesn’t figure, huh?” Then he exhales. “I know. I should quit.”

"The River Phoenix I will remember is the gentle young man I met three years ago at a grape boycott rally in front of a supermarket in Miami. He had already had a brilliant career as an actor, was on the cover of all the teen magazines and had just been nominated for an Oscar. His clothes looked fresh, his hair was creased—apparently from wearing a baseball cap—and he wore a small, St. Francis-style wooden cross around his neck.
I wondered what this Hollywood star was doing at a modest little rally in Miami on that day, with no sign of any young fans around, just a few dozen middle-aged do-gooders like myself. He had been fasting for the grape-picker cause, and he gave a little talk over a megaphone that ended with “God bless you.” He hugged a Mexican American next to him, to whom he passed along his fast.” - Richard Raleigh

“The agonizing thing is, I was witness to the greatness of a personality that never fully got to flourish. I will never see him play Hamlet, and he would have been one of the great ones. I wanted to see him do the most emotional work out there, and it still pains me that I never will. ” - Judd Hirsch

"I’ve got only very fond memories of River. We spent six weeks together in Utah, all day and every evening. I found him a remarkable young man and I can’t believe looking back that he was only 23 at the time. He was a very old head on young shoulders and was absolutely delightful, very committed and serious." - Jonathan Pryce

 ”I should see some of his films. I should, but in a way I just don’t want to spoil it, you know? I don’t want to let too much information into my head. I like the idea that the only Brando film I’ve seen is Streetcar Named Desire. One day I’ll see (some of these films) but I have to do a few more movies before I start getting involved in past things, because it probably can influence you very heavily.” - River Phoenix, about James Dean’s movies

"It’s just the expectation that you were going to work with him again. I recently thought of an upcoming project: Oh, there’s… No, there isn’t River. It’s his uniqueness that is gone. I think it was Billy Wilder who said when Ernst Lubitsch died, ‘Ach, no more Ernst Lubitsch films.’ They were just his films. Now it’s no more River Phoenix characters"  - Peter Weir

"The first thing that River said to me when we met was ‘I’m sorry, I took your role.’ I said ‘no, it’s quite alright’" - Mike Parker

River’s message on Bill Richert’s answering machine

“Hello, Bill. If you’re asleep, please, by all means, ignore this message. But, in fact, if you are awake, then you’d better not ignore me…I had the most amazing day. It was just beautiful, the things I learned, through the pain and misunderstanding, and through being displaced, discombobulated. I come out on my last day of work as a triumphant failure. I stand here; need not I die nor I need drink, for I know that my soul will keep. And, who’s to say he or she is the one, for I to know from where it has begun…Doctor Bill..Where am I coming from? Who cares? Do I need to know where they’re coming from to get along with them? No, I accept them. But, I come from a place that is foreign, a place where no other eyes see…The stuff is so vague…In case.

And, did you know that? There is. A wait. Not. No. Sure. But maybe. That doesn’t matter. All those words. All those broken phrases. They don’t mean anything. But, where was the point?

    [Then, through the speaker can be heard a little voice crackling, saying:]

      You have missed the point. But, don’t take it upon yourself. Don’t carry that weight. It’s not your fault…I would say that it’s safe to guess that people simply don’t understand.[Beep.]”

        “It’s sometimes hard to understand what he meant,” says Bill. But still, Bill relates that he [River] “understood”. 

"There was something gorgeous about us being old together. River will be missed — period. I mean now, more than ever, I wish I could talk to him." - Joaquin Phoenix

#river phoenix 

#tim sullivan 

#dark blood

"We moved around a lot. When I was four years old, I heard ‘Fire and Rain’ a lot. So we were in Mexico and I was playing with a flashlight that was going dead, and we couldn’t afford any more batteries. My father asked me to please stop, but I wanted to see how far I could push someone, so I kept on turning it on and off. He said, ‘Could you please stop this?’ with a stern voice and took it out of my hand, put it in the glove box and slammed it. I felt this tremble, this fear of authority, and I felt I understood that you have to respect people. That there was a reason behind it. That was the first concept of reality as far as relationships go. I saw that there was not just this world of vagueness that you can bounce off of." - River Phoenix

"Boy is someone in search for absolute, looking for solace in wide spaces. Someone surviving by eating rodents and snakes, drinking from rain and the blood of the animals he killed. I’m not eating any animal flesh and I don’t feel having the right to take the soul of any living creature. But the movie character, on his side, belongs to the natural food chain, like Native Americans or Inuit. He’s entitled to live on earth’s natural resources." - River Phoenix