Ode to River

The other night I caught the second half of a show called The Final 24. they chronicled the last 24 hours of celebrities before their deaths. When River Phoenix died there was no tabloid tv to chronicle every last detail of his death and funeral for me..so here are some little known facts I was interested to learn:

• River's heavy drug use really only started during the filming of my own private idaho


• He had been sober for 4 months during the filming of the movie Dark Blood in Utah, he had been back in LA for 4 days when he died


• He took something called a speedball - a combination of cocaine and heroin


• He was at the club with his sister, girlfriend samatha mathis and brother joaquin


• He was supposed to perform that night with johnny depp's band - which included his good friend Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers


• Joaquin called the ambulance (they played the 911 call on the show - he sounded so young he was only a teenager at the time)


• Flea rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital...but he was already dead

River Phoenix was one of my first celebrity crushes...I remember suffering through my Own Private Idaho just to watch him and Keeanu (at 14 that movie was not my cup of tea...) The moment I learned of his death is one of those moments that I will never forget.

It got me thinking, if River hadn't of died...how many celebrities might not be where they are now? This year River would have been 37, around the same age as Brad Pitt...would River have succommed to the hollywood romantic commedy? Would he have given in and played a superhero in those comic book adaptations? Would Ed Norton have been in The Fight Club? Would Brad Pitt have been cast in Babel? Would Joaquin have played Johnny Cash in Walk the Line?

We'll never know...

me.