:: Lone Star State Of Mine ::
His beauty, gentleness, compassion, vulnerability and love is a gift for all eternity.
The Phoenix Family, 1993


River Jude Phoenix
1970 - 1993

I was dressed up like a model... told to pose in certain ways, to tilt my head, push my lips out, suck in my cheeks. And I'd be tired at the end of the day so I'd just give the damned photographer what he wanted. It was the most mortifying experience. And the photographs were the ugliest, the most contrived.
It wasn't me.
River Phoenix

River was what I've always called a real actor; he chose films for their appealing scripts, not because he thought they might make him millions or bring him fame. He sought to be true to himself, and always fought against the shallowness that continues to saturate Hollywood.

I heard rumours explode with lies
I saw children in tears cry and crowd around the site
of where you collapsed that day
where your last breath and word had been sighed,
where your heart had burst
where you had died.
I saw how they were lost in grieving
all half believing you were gone.
The loss and pain of it,
crime and shame of it.
You were gone.
It was such a nightmare raising:
How could we save him from himself?
Natalie Merchant

But the Hollywood lifestyle ultimately became too forceful to resist; the very influences he spoke out against when he first arrived in the film industry sadly, ironically, became the death of him, on October 31st, 1993.
He was 23.

No paparazzi; I want anonymity.
River's Final Words

But his legacy lives on.
His dedication to preserving this planet ~ from taking every opportunity to speak out on environmental issues, to buying hundreds of acres of rainforest to save them from destruction ~ echoes for all time. For he was not someone who did good in order to win the publics adoration, he did good because it was in his heart to. And that strength of character will last long after Hollywood's shallow memory of him has faded.

:: Lonestar State of Mine ::

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