River Phoenix Girlfriend: Samantha Mathis, the actress who was dating River Phoenix at the time of his death in 1993, gave a long interview about that fatal night. The 48-year-old American actress speaks publicly about her relationship with Phoenix for the first time in an interview with the British Publication The Guardian headed ‘The secret narrative of lost star River Phoenix — 25 years after his death.’
Mathis, like Phoenix, died on the sidewalk outside Johnny Depp’s Sunset Strip eatery The Viper Room when he was barely 23 years old. She stated she had an unusual feeling as she and Phoenix walked into the club with his siblings, Leaf (now known as Joaquin Phoenix) and Rain. Mathis informed her they were heading to the club to play with some artists who wanted to play with him after dropping the kids off. “Is it all right?” she said, recalling what he had told her when they arrived. “I had a feeling something wasn’t right that night, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was,” she remembered. Despite the fact that I had not witnessed anyone doing drugs, he appeared to be high in a way that made me uncomfortable.
She didn’t know how long they were going to be in the Viper Room. As she recounted the final 45 minutes of his life, she sobbed. Mathis, who co-starred with Phoenix in the 1993 film The Thing Called Love, vividly recalls the events of that night. “Even though I knew he had been high all night, the heroin that killed him didn’t happen until he was in the Viper Room.” “I had my suspicions, but I couldn’t find any evidence to support them.” She said that they momentarily parted ways at a party when she went to the bathroom.
Behind the Story
When she left the club, it appeared like Phoenix was fighting with another man and that a security guard was attempting to remove them from the premises. She saw Phoenix collapsing and convulsing as she walked down the street. (mombrite.com) After she temporarily abandoned him to look for Phoenix’s brothers at the club, Joaquin dialed 911. “He’s having seizures!” says the narrator. “Please get over here; he’s about to pass out,” he pleaded in a call that was leaked to the public. By the time the paramedics arrived, Phoenix had died of a cocaine and heroin overdose.
Mathis stated that she had never spoken about her memories of that night in public, except with her therapist. After re-watching their film, The Thing Called Love, she was contacted by journalist Hadley Freeman for a piece for the Guardian not long after. “He seemed to be screaming out to me like the cosmos was urging me to,” she recalled. Phoenix, who went on to star in Little Women and American Psycho, also reminisced about her time with the actress, who played adult Amy in the latter. She claims he offered to smoke up with her after they met at a Los Angeles bar when they were both 19 years old.
“However, despite the cheesiness of it all, I knew I’d be with him one day.” We had a lot of chemistry and it felt like we were destined to be together.” She cried as she recalled the moments they had in Florida and Costa Rica, where they got to spend time with his siblings and simply be kids. “He had such a gift for socializing,” she remarked. When asked how she remembered him, Mathis characterized him as “sensitive and compulsive.” Actor: He was an actor who tried to shun all Hollywood threw at him in the hopes of using his celebrity for good, but he died at the age of 23.
Biography
R.J. Bottom, better known by his stage name River Phoenix, was an American actor and musician who lived from August 23, 1970, to October 31, 1993. Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix grew up in nomadic families, and Phoenix was their older brother. He demonstrated a natural knack to play the guitar despite having received no official training. He began his acting career in commercials at the tender age of ten. His first notable parts were in the films Explorers (1985) and Stand by Me (1986), a coming-of-age film based on Stephen King’s novella The Body.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for his role in Running on Empty as Danny Pope, the son of fugitive parents. In 1991, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in My Own Private Idaho, for which he received a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Phoenix won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead, and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, making him the youngest recipient of the latter award. Phoenix died at the age of 23 in the early hours of the following morning after overdosing on cocaine and heroin at The Viper Room in West Hollywood early on Halloween in 1993.
Phoenix collapsed and began convulsing as soon as Mathis went outside the club’s side entrance. Mathis and Phoenix met for the first time when they were both 19 years old and went on to work together in Phoenix’s final film, The Thing Called Love. Phoenix led a well-known clean lifestyle as a vegetarian and environmentalist. Mathis added that if he had died, he would have done the same thing. “He’d spend his leisure time doing anything from acting to directing to environmental preservation to hanging around.” What a brilliant concept!”
Honors and Rankings
A lot of lists have recognized Phoenix’s talent and career, placing him at the top of many. Actors like him were included in John Willis’ “Screen World,” a list of twelve “Promising Newcomers of 1986.” (2004). (2004). Channel 4 television in the United Kingdom ranked Phoenix at No. 64 on its “Greatest Movie Stars of All Time” poll. The results of the poll were tallied only by members of the acting and directing professions. Empire magazine’s “The 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time” list rated him at No. 86 in 1997.
On A&E’s Final 24 there is a dramatic simulation of his final hours and death, as well as an E! True Hollywood Story about his life and death. In Being Erica’s first season, episode 10 (“Mi Casa, Su Casa Loma”), he was dubbed “This century’s James Dean.” E! Television’s “101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment” ranked his death as the No. 16 most shocking incident. Among the “50 Most Stylish Men of the Past Half Century,” GQ magazine named Phoenix in 2010.
Samantha Mathis, River Phoenix’s lover, has come up for the first time about the actor’s death outside the Viper Room in 1993. Phoenix had previously appeared in films such as Stand By Me, Running On Empty, Indiana Jones 3, and My Own Private Idaho before his death. Mathis told The Guardian that she was aware that he was inebriated, but that the heroin that killed him “didn’t happen until he was in the Viper Room.”
