Katja, 09.11.2008 :

First of all I want to say, that this section is just my own opinion and thoughts about River. I cannot say if I am right, cause I never met him in person and it´s really difficult to  describe the personality of someone you don´t know when everything is based on books, articles, reports and interviews and especially to explain the connection you have to a "foreign" person, a person you had never known and also if he would be still alive you would have never known on a personal level. But I try my very best.  I guess we all know how the press, especially the yellow press is working (so maybe my opinion is totally wrong), as River once said "I try to lie as much as I can when I´m interviewed, cause I figure they´ll print the truth".

I have first seen River in the year 1986 when I was fifteen. I went to the cinema with some classmates to watch "STAND BY ME". During this time I became  "interested" in him (I do not like the expression "fan" very much, cause it has a bit of negativity for me, but unfortuneately my English is not so perfectly well, that I can express myself like I would have done it in German.) Surely, the reason I started to like him was because he was good looking (what a really childish and unimportant reason), but as I said before I was fifteen and started to read all I could find, mostly in German teen magazines like "Bravo", but today, 22 years later I know what they printed was "bullshit", only the things the little teenage girls like me wanted to hear. 
Sometimes when I take a look back at these times I get something like a bad conscience, cause today I know how he hated it to be a poster boy and to be dressed and look like that. But at this time, also me had posters on the wall, so it is a bit of my fault what happened years later ? Not really, but sometimes I think, I was in no way better then all other teenage girls who were "dreaming" of the prince on his white horse.....I guess this is something that will never change, even in 100 years girls in this age will have posters or something from famous people, actors or musicians on their wall, this is probably something of a growing up process  most people are going through.
When I was 15 I couldn´t really realize the meaning of "Stand by me". It´s about friendship and how important it is in life, no matter of the background you are from, today this is still one of my absolutely favourite movies and River, Wil, Corey and Jerry were totally brilliant in it, especially River and Wil. I guess I watched it about 30 times. This is not a movie with a lot of action, its mostly based on conversations, which are very touching.

When I became older I started to like River for other reasons then his look or just his acting, even if I still think he was one of best actors ever, at least as I can evaluate it. Even if he was that young he had a clear opinion in many important things like the nature, the ozon hole, animals, peace and that there is no reason to descriminate people just because there are different from you, which I surely never made. I am really impressed by one of Sky´s videos on YouTube where River was talking with his uncle on the phone at the age of 15. Normally most guys in River´s age were talking about girls, soccer,cars and so on, River did something else, surely I guess he was also talking about other things  as every other guy :-).

Here you can listen to the telephone call I am talking about. This Video is made by Sky, thanks for letting us link, Sky.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=0TfdoL2SZm0


So, as I heard of his death I was totally under shock, cause this was before the time of internet and other multi-media things started and so I didn´t know that he was taking drugs sometimes and having maybe troubles in his life. Today I can understand a bit why he chooses this way of escaping from reality especially if you read about the pressure he had and that in general he was a bit shy and maybe not made for the negative things the Hollywood fame take along..... Surely I don´t want to justify it, just wanted to say that it´s difficult to imagine how you would react yourself, if you are in the same situation, if you would have the life he had, if you have come from the same background he came from ? With a poor, maybe and hopefully happy childhood, with being a member of a sec as a kid, becoming very famous in a really young age, to be the bread earner of your family and later when becoming famous to be under the pressure of Hollywood, when you do not have a private life anymore and everybody wants to have a part of you (the reporters, colleagues who wants to shine bright next to you  and "so called" friends who wanted to have a piece of the famous cake for themselves and last but not least fans (like me ? :-( ). I think it´s a very difficult thing to decide whose a real friend, who is interested in you as a person/human being, who cares for you and on the other side the people who are simply interested in you because you are a movie star. 


There´s a song Natalie Merchant wrote for River where it´s said "I saw cameras expose your life, I heard rumors explode with lies". This is something really true and sad I think but probably this is the way Hollywood and fame are working and you have to deal with it.
Maybe he wasn´t made for this pressure, maybe he just wanted to have fun, like every guy/girl in his age or maybe trying to find his limit and went one step to far.  There are hundreds of maybe, we´ll never know the truth and the complete truth is only known by River himself and probably a few people who were really close to him.

I won´t remember River for his death or the way he died, it was just a tragical accident, but  I will remember him for the good things he did for people, for animals, for the fans through his acting, his carrying for the rainforest and lots more.

I wouldn´t call him an "angel" or a perfect guy, I like the way Martha Plimpton once described him by saying "He was just a goodhearted boy who had no idea how to implement his good intentions." In my opinion this is a really nice way to think of him.

No one on this earth is perfect, not me, not you and also River wasn´t perfect and didn´t want to be, I am sure. The thing is to like someone because he´s "NOT" perfect,  River made mistakes like everybody else all around this planet and I´m really thankful to have become interested in the person I think he was with all the good and bad qualities he had. He touched the heart and soul of so many different people no matter of age, gender and nationality. Everybody  will have his own reasons to like him, they could be competely different from mine and I guess there´s no right or wrong in the answer of this question. For a lot of people he wasn´t a human being, he was not from this planet, coming from outer space to save the world......But for me he was human in a really nice and lovely way.

It´s really impressing to see how he´s still loved and missed from so many, many different people from girls/boys who weren´t born to the time he lived yet,  or people who grew up with him and his movies like me. There are so many beautiful videos on YT dedicated to him, still 15 years later.....I guess he would be very proud, if he would be alive, cause one time he said "I DO NOT WANT PEOPLE TO FORGET ME" . All I can say is : Be sure, River, we will never forget you.....

When I saw Sue´s Video last week, it was really nice and touching to look at and to read it, because she wrote about him in a way I thought and hoped he was in real......

You can take a look on the video here if you want. Thanks again Sue, for letting us link. We wish you a great life and fun. God bless Katja & Esther

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldQIwwcw-w



As I told before, I didn´t know the real River and his real thoughts, just the things he let us (the people who become interested in him) know, so I don´t know if I am thinking in a correct way about him and as I said before, I cannot express myself so well in English......All I can say for sure is, that he was the only (famous) person who made and still makes a big impression on me, apart of my family and friends, but these are people who I know on a personal level and I´m really blessed by having the best parents,brother, sister in law, niece and friends on this planet......

When I think of the question what he would have done today if he would be still alive, it always comes through my mind that maybe he had finished his movie career years ago and went into music (so a little smile comes through my thoughts as I heard a few days ago that Joaquin quit acting to go into music, cause this is exactly what River would have probably done one day in my imagination.) and maybe today he would have had kids, his own family and would live somewhere in the country, far away from Hollywood, the pressure, acting, reporters and fans and lived  his own life in the way he wanted to live. A life he sadly wasn´t able to live during his lifetime.

Last but not least, I believe in a life after death. Not in the way that you were born again as a human being, but I believe that your soul is immortal and that River´s soul and spirit is somewhere in the universe and I am sure that he found his peace.

Written by Katja





Esther, 14.11.2008 : 

 The first time I recognized River I was still a kid. I don`t know my age, but I know that "Explorers" came in TV. I watched it with my parents and  later I saw it again and again, everytime it was shown. I loved the story and  Rivers character. He was so different from me, a little freak, and that  fascinated me. I wasn`t a real fan of him, maybe I was to young for that, but  I also watched and liked the movie "Stand by me". I saw it with the eyes  of a child and when I saw the movie again, years later, I had a different  view on it. It`s such a deep movie about friendship and losing innocence. The  last part fits somehow to Rivers life, I guess.
I didn`t realized his death 15 years ago. It was in 2005 when I have been in hospital and a friend called me, because she wrote a story about Kurt Cobain. Then we tried to figure out who lived at the same time and she mentioned River Phoenix. "Do you remember him?" I did, but not really well. Because I couldn`t look anything up in the internet, she told me everything she found out about him. Back home I started to "google" about him, bought all the books I could get and his films. I caught up everything I missed in the years before. Reading all the things about him made me think. As Katja wrote I don`t define him about his death or the posterboyface. What fascinates me and always will is the suffer that seems to lay under all the glamour. I wonder if he was lonely and happy with the life he lived. I guess he was a difficult character, not easy to handle, but with a deep heart and good soul.
Well, Katja wrote most of the things me too would say, so I end this with a thought: Everything changes, transforms from one form to the other, but nothing ever gets lost, so River will be always be there for those who think of him, you just can`t see him and in the end we all will be one again. 

Written by Esther