The 'Stand By Me' actor would have been 54 on Aug. 23.
River Phoenix's sister Rain is remembering her late brother on what would have been his 54th birthday.
The Stand By Me and My Own Private Idaho star died of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room nightclub on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood on Oct. 31, 1993. He was 23 years old. Two of his four younger siblings, Rain and actor Joaquin Phoenix, star of the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux, were also at the venue.
See her post below:
Related: Kiefer Sutherland reveals how he, River Phoenix, and a guitar may have inspired Stand by Me's title
In her post, Rain shared a quote attributed to her late brother: "We're all worth it man. We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies."
She captioned the post simply, "Happy Birthday River," punctuated with a blue heart.
Despite his youth, Phoenix was already an accomplished actor when he died. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a teen coping with his family's life as fugitives in Running on Empty (1989). He was also lauded for his work alongside Keanu Reeves in the Gus Van Sant movie My Own Private Idaho (1992), winning the year's Venice Film Festival award for best actor.
Related: River Phoenix: A Tragic Farewell
His family has publicly remembered him before. In 2023, his mother, Arlyn "Heart" Phoenix declared that he "was and still is our greatest teacher."
"The greatest pain I experienced in my life was the pain of natural childbirth and even tho quite different, the pain of my son's passing," she wrote. "But almost instantaneously on both occasions, the gifts that he brought were imbued in each of us and so we carry on celebrating his life for those 23 precious years."
Stand By Me director Rob Reiner also praised the late actor in a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Phoenix's death "shocked the hell out of me," Reiner said. "Wow. It upset me so much, but I had seen him a few years after Stand by Me, and I knew he had been taking drugs and stuff. I knew he wasn't living in the best place."
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Reiner referred to Phoenix as "a brilliant, brilliant young actor," who was "like a James Dean" in that he left behind so many great performances.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
