Phoenix/Haim/Brandis

Corey Haim River Phoenix Judd Nelson Anthony Michael Hall Rob Lowe Matt Dillon Corey Feldman Emilio Estevez Tom Cruise Leonardo Dicaprio Johnny Depp Patrick Swayze C. Thomas Howell Keanu Reeves Sean Astin Wil Wheaton Kiefer Sutherland Ralph Macchio Ilan Mitchell-Smith Robert Downey Jr Jerry O'Connell Matthew Broderick Joaquin Phoenix John Cusack

The River Phoenix I will remember is the gentle young man I met three years ago at a grape boycott rally in front of a supermarket in Miami. He had already had a brilliant career as an actor, was on the cover of all the teen magazines and had just been nominated for an Oscar. His clothes looked fresh, his hair was creased–apparently from wearing a baseball cap–and he wore a small, St. Francis-style wooden cross around his neck.

I wondered what this Hollywood star was doing at a modest little rally in Miami on that day, with no sign of any young fans around, just a few dozen middle-aged do-gooders like myself. He had been fasting for the grape-picker cause, and he gave a little talk over a megaphone that ended with “God bless you.” He hugged a Mexican American next to him, to whom he passed along his fast.

How strange to hear that he left us in the middle of the night in front of a Sunset Strip nightclub.

“It’s really designed, I think, to strip you and blend you. It’s like feeling like the invisible man. You just stand there, and you start disintegrating, and you can’t see yourself, and you just feel like you’re being absorbed into this big blob of glitter. I just can’t hang”

My Own Private Idaho (1991) // Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

jonathan brandis icons

i love him so much.