Died at 55
male
River Jude Phoenix (née Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993) was an American actor, musician, and activist. Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family, as the oldest brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix. He had no formal schooling, but he showed an instinctive talent for the guitar, and he played and sang on the streets for money. He began his acting career at age 10 in a handful of television commercials. He starred in the science fiction adventure film Explorers (1985) and had his breakthrough role in 1986's Stand by Me, a coming-of-age film based on the novella The Body by Stephen King. Phoenix made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing Danny Pope, the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (at age 18, he became the sixth-youngest nominee in the category), and My Own Private Idaho (1991), playing Michael Waters, a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother. For his performance in the latter, Phoenix garnered enormous praise and won a Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival as well as Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, becoming the second-youngest winner of the former. Phoenix fought heroin addiction and died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood in the early hours of Halloween, 1993, after unknowingly ingesting cocaine and heroin (a mixture commonly known as a speedball) at The Viper Room.
River Phoenix
Charlie Kelmeckis
for Charlie Kelmeckis in Perks of Being a Wallflower 1987
Suggested by heart16
The story begins with a quiet, sensitive, 15-year-old boy named Charlie writing letters about his life to an unknown recipient. He discusses his first year at high school, grappling with two traumatic experiences from his past: the suicide of his only middle-school friend, Michael, a year before and the death of his Aunt Helen (his favorite aunt) during his early childhood. Mary Elizabeth, a member of the group, invites Charlie to the school's Sadie Hawkins dance and he begins a desultory relationship with her. During a game of Truth or Dare, when dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room he kisses Sam; Mary Elizabeth storms out, the rest of the group shuns him and Patrick suggests that Charlie stay away from Sam for a while. His flashbacks return, and he goes back to seeing a psychiatrist. Patrick and Brad's relationship is discovered by Brad's abusive father. When Patrick is bullied by the football players at lunch the next day and Brad calls him a "faggot," he attacks him. Charlie breaks up the fight, again winning the respect of Sam and her friends. Patrick brings him to a park where gay men engage in sexual activity; he kisses Charlie impulsively and then apologizes, but Charlie understands that he is recovering from his romance with Brad.
