Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind
Page 25
Much love to my far-flung family, especially my parents, my brothers Julian and Nick, my Aunt Lis, and my cool Texas in-laws, Alex and Cynthia and Big Al. And even more love to my sons, Strummer and Dashiell, who are too young to read this book now, but who may pull it off the shelf someday. And infinite amounts of love to my wonderful wife, Jen Sudul Edwards, who offered trenchant commentary on my early drafts, provided emotional support when I was wrestling with the manuscript, kept the household running when I was wandering around pulling out my hair, and, as always, inspired me to achieve things that I didn’t know I was capable of doing.
Finally, thanks to River Phoenix for all the cool things he did; I’m sorry I never got to meet him. “Love conquers all,” River said once. “Even the assholes that don’t want it.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Lisa Bernhard, “Let It Flow,” Rolling Stone, October 17, 1991 (issue no. 615).
Louis Black, “Dogfight,” Austin Chronicle, March 27, 1992.
Iain Blair, “The Rise of River Phoenix,” Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1988.
—— , “River Phoenix—Rising Fast,” Playgirl, August 1988.
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Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift: A Biography, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
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Grace Catalano, River Phoenix: Hero & Heartthrob, Bantam, 1988.
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—— , “The Thing Called Love,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 1994.
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Tad Friend, “River, with Love and Anger,” Esquire, March 1994; also available on byliner.com as “The Short, Happy Life of River Phoenix.”
Ilene Froom, “ ‘Rock Against Fur’ Concert,” available on myriverphoenixcollection.com, 2002.
Cal Fussman, “What I’ve Learned: Johnny Depp,” Esquire, January 2008.
—— , “10 Essential Lessons from Leo DiCaprio,” esquire.com, 2010.
Oliver Gettell, “River Phoenix’s Final Film, ‘Dark Blood,’ Finally Comes to Screen,” Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2013.
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John Glatt, Lost in Hollywood: The Fast Times and Short Life of River Phoenix, Donald I. Fine, 1995.
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Gayle Guthman, “The Big Top Comes Down, but Memories of the First Hernando Fiesta Will Linger,” St. Petersburg Times, May 1, 1979.
—— , “The Phoenix Children, River and Rain, Are Natural Musicians,” St. Petersburg Times, May 19, 1979.
Christopher Hampton, “The Long Brief Encounter,” Sunday Telegraph (UK), April 6, 1997.
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Will Harris, “Random Roles: Martha Plimpton,” Onion A.V. Club, April 3, 2012.
Ethan Hawke, “I Am Ethan Hawke—AMAA [Ask Me Almost Anything],” reddit.com, posted June 5, 2013.
Chris Heath, “Johnny Depp: Portrait of the Oddest as a Young Man,” Details, May 1993.
—— , “The Next Big Thing,” Empire, April 1994.
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Hermann Hesse (as translated by Hilda Rosner), Siddhartha, Bantam, 1971.
Bill Higgins, “The L.A. Riots at 20: Edward James Olmos Remembers ‘All-Out War’ in Hollywood,” Hollywood Reporter, April 27, 2012.
Hal Hinson, “Little Nikita,” Washington Post, March 18, 1988.
Barney Hoskyns, Montgomery Clift: Beautiful Loser, Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.
Shawn Hubler and Steve Hochman, “ ‘Designer Drug’ Enters Hollywood’s Fast Lane,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1993.
Rebecca Johnson, “Young Man River,” Mademoiselle, August 1993.
Iain Johnstone, Tom Cruise: All the World’s a Stage, Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.
Celeste Jones, Kristina Jones, and Juliana Buhring, Not Without My Sister, HarperElement, 2007.
Tom Junod, “The Moment Leonardo DiCaprio Became a Man,” Esquire, May 2013.
Dave Kehr, “Kasdan Goes Slumming in ‘I Love You,’ ” Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1990.
Christina Kelly, “Does River’s Dog Eat Meat?: And Other Burning Questions,” Sassy, October 1989.
—— , “I Saw River Phoenix Brush His Teeth,” Sassy, June 1991.
Rita Kempley, “Sneakers,” Washington Post, September 9, 1992.
Dana Kennedy, “River’s Edge,” Entertainment Weekly, November 12, 1993.
Peter Keough, “Youthful Idealism Keeps River Phoenix Running,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 25, 1988.
Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman, Scar Tissue, Hyperion, 2004.
Steve Kokker, “Cry Me a River,” Face, October 1995.
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Eric Larnick, “ ‘Stand by Me’ at 25—The Stars’ Oral History of Their Beloved Classic,” moviefone.com, March 25, 2011.
Don Lattin, Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge, HarperOne, 2008.
Barry C. Lawrence, In Search of River Phoenix: The Truth Behind the Myth, Wordsworth, 2004.
Shelley Levitt, “River’s End,” People Weekly, November 15, 1993.
Sidney Lumet, Making Movies, Vintage, 1996.
Andrew MacDonald, “River Deep,” Face, July 1989.
Janet Maslin, “The Screen: Explorers,” New York Times, July 12, 1985.
—— , “ ‘Running on Empty,’ A Family Underground,” New York Times, September 9, 1988.
Todd McCarthy, “Review: ‘Silent Tongue,’ ” Variety, February 3, 1993.
Cole McFarland, “Phoenix Rising,” Animals’ Voice Magazine, February 1989.
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rnia: An Island on the Land, Peregrine Smith, 1973.
Denis Meikle, Johnny Depp: A Kind of Illusion, Reynolds & Hearn, 2004.
Holly Millea, “Ghost in the Machine: Now You See Johnny Depp, Now You Don’t,” Premiere, February 1995.
Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud, New Directions, 1949.
Elvis Mitchell, “Joaquin Phoenix,” Interview, October 2012.
Marc Mohan, “Interview: Gus Van Sant on ‘Promised Land’ and More,” Oregonian, December 22, 2012.
Andrew Morton, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, St. Martin’s Press, 2008.
Nardwuar the Human Serviette, “Nardwuar the Human Serviette vs. Corey Feldman,” Skratch, July 1999.
Tom Nordlie, “The Girls in the Band,” Gainesville Sun, July 1990; archived on web page http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/Staff/d-harris/chix.html for “The Fabulous Mutley Chix.”
James Robert Parish, Gus Van Sant: An Unauthorized Biography, Thunder’s Mouth, 2001.
Susan Peters, “One Big Hippy Family: River Phoenix and Company Move into Hollywood,” Life, August 1987.
Nathan Rabin, “Interview: Wil Wheaton,” Onion A.V. Club, November 20, 2002.
Susan Reed, “The Child of Flower Children, Actor River Phoenix Rises from a Strange Past to Blossom in Stand by Me,” People, September 29, 1986.
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Roberta and David Ritz, “Strange Days,” Us, October 1995.
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—— , “Tarantino and Juliette,” Details, February 1996.
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—— , “A Hero by Any Other Age,” Starlog, October 1989.
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NOTES
While this book isn’t meant to be a scholarly tome, I want readers to be able to check out its sources—so each quotation in the main text gets a citation in the following notes, referring to the book or magazine in the bibliography from where it came (or to an interview that I conducted). Where it seems particularly illuminating, I also provide references for other information. I refer consistently to River’s mother below as Heart Phoenix, because that was the name she was using when I interviewed her.
I am in debt to all my sources, but I am particularly grateful for the biographers of River who came before me, especially Tad Friend, John Glatt, Barry C. Lawrence, and Roberta and David Ritz, and to Chris Snyder for his very entertaining book about working with Iris Burton. If you are interested in more information on any particular chapter, pursue the notes: wanting to know more about the history of Southern Californian religions, for example, will take you to Carey McWilliams’s book. But if you want to read just one other piece of writing about River Phoenix, I recommend you track down Michael Angeli’s 1991 profile from Movieline, which is a vivid portrait of River living in Florida just before the release of My Own Private Idaho, full of talent and charm. (Compiling the bibliography was bittersweet because of all the great magazines that aren’t around anymore, especially Movieline, Premiere, The Face, and Sassy.)
INTRODUCTION
“I think he was the best”: Heath (1994). “River was one of those people”: Hawke. “He was the kind of guy”: Wade Evans, as quoted in Friend. “His eyes made him”: Friend. “He had very long hair”: Abramowitz et al. Patricia Arquette: author interview with Richmond Arquette (2013). “there was a specific road”: Van Buskirk. “The guy was having a good time”: Millea.
PART ONE
1. SKYLARKING
Author interviews with William Richert (2013) and Ione Skye (2012).
2. THE SEARCHERS
“I just wanted to be loved”: author interview with Heart Phoenix (1997). “I wasn’t thrilled”: Glatt. “I ran away from home”: Glatt. “It’s very interesting”: Catalano. “gift from God”: Glatt. “I just instantly saw,” “Maybe you didn’t need”: Boyd. “We were flower children”: Reed. “They were a rather strange lot”: Lawrence. “The river has taught me”: Hesse. “three and a half hours”: Lawrence. “When the baby came out”: author interview with Heart Phoenix (1997). “The book Siddhartha talks about”: Lawrence. “Why don’t you receive me?”: Guthman (May 19, 1979).
3. DEAR GOD
“There will be no billion-dollar tax bill”: Reitman. Details of Miscavige lifestyle: Reitman, Wright. Aimee Semple McPherson: Epstein. History of California cults: McWilliams. Pentecostal movement: Robeck. The Source Family: Aquarian with Aquarian.
4. ONE NIGHT AT THE VIPER ROOM
“Would you give me,” “I can get”: Ebner.
5. SUFFER THE CHILDREN
“One dark night”: Chancellor. “come-union”: Ward. “Christian sex cult”: Glatt. “It was not until I kicked over”: Chancellor. “We have a sexy God,” “revolutionary sexual freedoms”: Ward. Treatment of the children of the Children of God: See, for example, Jones, Jo
nes, and Buhring. “There was a big effort”: Walters. “Like most cults, you were cut off”: Zuckerman. “When I was five”: author interview with Rose McGowan (2007). “Their whole thing”: Zuckerman. After River’s family left the Children of God, the cult changed its name to the Family.
6. FOLLOW THE LEADER
Used stereos and TV sets: Lattin. “We’ll blow like Krakatoa”: Chancellor. Drunk cowboys shooting: Wangerin. Rain’s birth date has sometimes been erroneously reported as being in March 1973, but the November 21, 1972, date is correct according to the “Texas Birth Index 1903–1997” provided by the Texas Department of State Health Services. “We moved around a lot”: Keough. “Archbishop of Venezuela and the Caribbean”: Some sources have the title as “Archbishop of South America”; John may have had both titles at various points. “The kids grew up going out”: Boyd. “They were devoted parents”: Ritz and Ritz. “We did it because we needed money”: Catalano. “It was what God told them”: Lawrence. “I’ve been through some pretty desperate times”: Catalano. “What greater way”: Chancellor. “The guy running it got crazy”: Glatt. “He may have been a sexual pervert”: Glatt. “They tried to evangelize and entertain”: Lawrence. “I got the feeling”: Ritz and Ritz. “While they were definitely poor”: Lawrence. “When a journalist would come”: Author interview with George Sluizer (2013). “Is there anything you did”: Dolce. Glatt printed an expanded version of the exchange that included River saying, “I didn’t want those young vaginas and different body parts that were in my face to make me perverse when I was older.” After the interview was printed, River claimed he had been joking. “Yes, yes, yes”: Lawrence. “Happy? Well, it was interesting”: Blair (August 1988).
7. ANOTHER NIGHT AT THE VIPER ROOM
“You know, these people sure do party strange”: author interview with Richmond Arquette (2013).
8. MEAT IS MURDER
“An airplane is not the only way”: Lawrence. “the crew discovered us”: Angeli. “These weren’t bad people”: Kelly (1989). “It was the first time that I really saw”: Weisenthal. “I tell my kids to celebrate the Earth”: Author interview with Heart Phoenix (1997). “ultravegetarianism”: Friend. “It was hard to give up dairy”: Weisenthal. “Every child starts out loving animals”: Kelly (1989). “Vegetarianism is a link to perfection”: Weisenthal. “Hello, I’m River Phoenix”: PETA PSA and outtakes available online on sites including YouTube.