River Phoenix is best remembered by many for his performance as a young version of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the hat tilt transition from Phoenix to Harrison Ford hinted at the huge potential for Hollywood stardom. Yet his filmography suggests that he was something more than just a potential new action hero, with performances demonstrating a nuance and diversity, from the son on the run in 1988's Running on Empty, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, to the gay hustler in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho in 1991. Phoenix had once said, "I don't see any point or any good in drugs that are as disruptive as cocaine. I never tried heroin. I tried alcohol and most of the others when I was 15, and got it out of the way finished with the stuff." Yet by the early 1990s all of that had radically changed. Was this turnaround a product of cynicism, caught up in the tough and competitive world of filmmaking? Or was it a rebellion against his unusual upbringing in the controversial Children of God Christian missionaries in Venezuela? Speculation aside, River Phoenix continued to use drugs as he drifted away from acting to concentrate on music and environmental activism, until the fateful night in Los Angeles's Viper Room club in 1993. After partying with his siblings Rain and Joaquin and his girlfriend Samantha Mathis he began to vomit after a severe reaction to an exotic form of heroin. As he was taken outside, he reportedly said to the doorman, "I'm gonna die, dude." At 1.51 A.M. on Halloween morning he was pronounced dead, just 23 years old.
