Remembering River Phoenix

River Jude Bottom was born on August 23, 1970 in Madias, Oregon. His parents named him River Phoenix after the river of life from the novel 'Siddhartha' and Jude from the Beatles song 'Hey Jude'. River's mother was working for as a casting agent for NBC and was able to secure a top agent for her five children, River, Joaquin, Rain, Liberty and Summer Phoenix. In 1980 River started to pursue his acting career on a full time basis with appearances on TV before being cast in the short lived TV series “7 Brides for 7 Brothers”. This was followed by several TV movies before his first film appearance in Joe Dante's “Explorers” in 1984. His most remembered role in “Stand by Me” came next in 1986. In 1989 he received an Academy Award Best Actor nomination for his role in “Running on Empty”. He then won the Best Actor award at The Venice Film Festival for his performance in “My Private Idaho”. He appeared in only one Euro-western “Silent Tongue” as the insane Talbot Roe before his death on October 31, 1993 in Hollywood, California from a drug overdose. Today we remember the life cut short of River Phoenix on what would have been his 40th birthday.