his legacy. Nor would he have wanted the other extreme. When 250 people gathered for the family's memorial service under a huge live oak tree at the base of the Phoenix property, the tenor of many of the remarks from the Klingons was, as Suzanne Solgot puts it, "River's in heaven, blah blah blah, it was his time, blah blah blah." "You would have thought he was ninety and had died in his sleep," says Martha Plimpton. "The people who were saying this felt tremendous guilt that they had contributed to his death." After hearing yet another speaker say, "River needed to go, and he's free now," Bradley Gregg, who'd played Phoenix's elder brother in Stand by Me and who became like an actual brother to him, leaped to his feet and shouted, "River didn't have to die to be free!" Not everyone heard, so he shouted again, "River didn't have to die to be free!" Gregg's wife, Dawn, added a clarion, "Wake up, wake up!" her tears soaking the baby she held in her arms.
© 1994 Hearst Corporation
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