That's the thread that weaves through Last Night at the Viper Room, author cheap cosplay costumes Gavin Edwards' insightful biography of River Phoenix, marking the 20th anniversary of the actor's death.
What separated River from the scores of other young, talented artists who get bulldozed by the Hollywood machine is that he could have been the success story of the ages — a boy with a bizarre childhood who overcomes sexual abuse and poverty and grows into one of the hottest leading male acts of his generation, alongside Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise.
He was also a hell of an actor. "I think he was the best. Is. Was. Is the best of the young guys. I'm not just saying that now – I said that before he died," Brad Pitt said in an interview. "He had something I don't understand."
Had he lived, River could have secured a place in Hollywood royalty. He might have played Jack Dawson in Titanic or found fame through his fearless roles. Instead he died as the result of speedballing, a combination of heroin and cocaine, in front of a West Hollywood nightclub on Oct. 31, 1993, at the age of 23.
Edwards left no stone unturned in his research; he talked to River's friends, friends of friends, fans, River watchers, family and colleagues, and pieced together a complex timeline.
Born on a peppermint farm to hippie parents, River and his four siblings grew up in extreme poverty as members of the Children of God, a religious cult that encouraged kids as young as three to have sex. In the eyes of some, his parents' actions could be called child abuse. River said in one interview that he was sexually active when he was 4. But along with his younger siblings — Summer, Rain (aka Rainbow), Liberty and Joaquin buy cosplay costumes (aka Leaf) — and parents John and Arlyn (aka Heart), they were a loving, tight-knit family.
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