Acting Career
In Los Angeles, Arlyn Phoenix was working for a casting agent at NBC. She secured her talented brood a meeting with top kids' agent Iris Burton, who was so charmed by the family that she agreed to take on all five Phoenix children. In 1980, Phoenix began to fully pursue his work as an actor, making his first appearance on a TV show called Fantasy singing with his sister Rain. In 1982, River was cast in the CBS short-lived TV series, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, in which he starred as the youngest brother, Guthrie McFadden. River, who arrived at the auditions with his guitar, promptly burst into a convincing Elvis Presley impersonation, charming the show producer.
Almost a year after Seven Brides ended in 1983, River found a new role in the 1984 made-for-TV movie Celebrity, where he played the part of young Jeffie Crawford. Although he was only on screen for about ten minutes, his character was a central role. Less than a month after Celebrity came the ABC Afterschool Special: Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia. River starred as a young boy who discovers he has dyslexia. Joaquin starred in a small role alongside his brother. In September, the pilot episode of the short-lived TV series It's Your Move aired. River was cast as Brian and only had one line of dialogue. He also starred as Robert Kennedy's son, Robert Kennedy, Jr. in the TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. After River's role in Dyslexia was critically acclaimed, he was almost immediately cast as a major role in his next made-for-TV movie, Surviving: A Family in Crisis. River starred as Philip Brogan alongside Molly Ringwald and Heather O'Rourke. Halfway during the filming of Surviving, Iris Burton contacted him about a possible role in the film Explorers.
In October 1984, River was informed that he had been cast as the geeky boy-scientist Wolfgang Müller in Joe Dante's large-budget science-fiction film Explorers and production began soon after. Released in the summer of 1985, this was River's first major motion picture role. In October 1986, Phoenix co-starred alongside Tuesday Weld and Geraldine Fitzgerald in the acclaimed CBS television movie Circle of Violence: A Family Drama, which told the tragic story of domestic elder abuse. This was Phoenix's last television role he filmed before achieving feature film stardom. He had significant roles in Rob Reiner's coming of age picture Stand by Me (1986) which first brought Phoenix to public prominence; Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast (1986), where Phoenix played the son of Harrison Ford's character; A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988); and Little Nikita (1988) alongside Sidney Poitier. During this time, the Phoenix family continued to move on a regular basis and moved over forty times by the time Phoenix was 18. After completing his sixth feature film, Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty (1988) the family made their last move to Micanopy, Florida, near Gainesville, Florida in 1987. In early 1989, Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (as well as for a Golden Globe) and received the Best Supporting Actor honor from the National Board of Review for his role in Running on Empty. That year he also portrayed a young Indiana Jones in the box-office hit Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 1989 reportedly Phoenix wanted the role of Neil Perry, the main character of Dead Poets Society, but the role was instead given to Robert Sean Leonard.
Phoenix met actor Keanu Reeves while Reeves was filming Parenthood with Phoenix's brother, Joaquin. The two starred together for the first time (along with Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman and Joan Plowright) in 1990's I Love You to Death and again in Gus Van Sant's avant-garde film My Own Private Idaho. In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen praised Phoenix's performance: "The campfire scene in which Mike awkwardly declares his unrequited love for Scott is a marvel of delicacy. In this, and every scene, Phoenix immerses himself so deeply inside his character you almost forget you've seen him before: it's a stunningly sensitive performance, poignant and comic at once". For his role in My Own Private Idaho, Phoenix won Best Actor honors at the Venice Film Festival, the National Society of Film Critics and the Independent Spirit Awards. The film and its success solidified Phoenix's image as an actor with edgy, leading man potential. Just prior to My Own Private Idaho, he filmed an acclaimed independent picture called Dogfight co-starring Lili Taylor and directed by Nancy Savoca, in which Phoenix portrayed a young U.S. Marine on the night prior to his being shipped off to Vietnam in November 1963. Phoenix teamed up with Robert Redford and again with Sidney Poitier for the conspiracy/espionage thriller Sneakers (1992). A month later he began production on Sam Shepard's art-house ghost western Silent Tongue (which was released in 1994); he also was beaten out for the role of Paul by Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. He then appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's country music-themed film, The Thing Called Love (1993), the last completed picture before his death.
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