american actor, born in 1974. Joe Dante's Explorers in 1985 marked Phoenix's feature film debut, followed by Rob Reiner's Stand By Me. He co-starred with Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast, and portrayed Indy (also Harrison Ford) as a young boy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

River was named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his starring role as a narcoleptic street hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991). In 1988, at age 17, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor following his role in Running on Empty.

A guitarist, Phoenix played in a band called Aleka's Attic, together with his sister Rain. Phoenix's final credit was a metaphysical Western, Silent Tongue, written and directed by Sam Shepard. He died in 1993, of a drug overdose in Los Angeles.