'Showbiz Kids': Wil Wheaton mourns River Phoenix's death, slams 'predatory people who didn't try to help him'
Wil Wheaton is a name that most people would have etched in their brains from their time spent on crushing on the teen heartthrob back in the '80s and '90s. He gained recognition for playing Gordie Lachance in the 1986 comedy-drama film 'Stand By Me', starring alongside fellow heartthrobs River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, and Kiefer Sutherland. But he is perhaps best known for his role in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', which catapulted him to international fame. Lest we also forget his eminent cameos in 'The Big Bang Theory'. HBO's new documentary, 'Showbiz Kids', provides an unvarnished glimpse into the lives of child actors in Hollywood. It also features interviews with many industry A-listers, who started their careers as mere children. Wheaton shares personal and honest accounts of his years as a young star in Hollywood, and how the tragic death of his friend River Phoenix is a painful subject that still haunts him.
Wheaton was the only one from his family that got into acting and has been a part of the industry since 1981. But his journey to stardom was not only marred by struggle but he has also endured loss and suffering that he deems no child should go through at such a young age. Starting off starring in commercials, he eventually got into acting after expressing his interest in doing films following a terrible experience with shooting a commercial with a director that verbally abused him. His first big break was in 'Stand By Me', where he met and became good friends with River Phoenix and his career only went uphill from there. However, things were far from sensational for him.
A couple of his gigs got him terrible reviews and many were brutal enough to criticize him to the point that critics may have likely forgotten he was merely a child. That took a huge toll on him, he revealed in the HBO documentary film. While he had a loving family, they often tended to pressure him and disregard his feelings. He gave up his childhood for Hollywood, but his family, particularly his parents, always failed to understand him when he was trying to express himself, his sense of loss, and coping with not having the things that he wanted or need. But it is the untimely and unfortunate death of his friend, River Phoenix in 1993, that shook him to his core. His loss still affects him to this day and Wheaton confessed to regretting not being in contact with him at the time.
Phoenix died of a drug overdose after collapsing outside the Viper Room, a club in Los Angeles owned by Johnny Depp. Hollywood went into a state of shock, and suffice to say the whole country mourned the death of a teenage heartthrob and a talented superstar. But Wheaton to this day laments his friend's passing and beats himself over for ceasing their communications years prior. In 2014, Wheaton appeared on Larry King and said that his first reaction to hearing of the actor's fatal drug overdose at only 23, was “Please don’t let this be true." The two had drifted apart around the time that Wheaton was in his mid-teens, and Phoenix was two years older to him. The 'My Own Private Idaho' actor had been experimenting with drugs, and Wheaton distanced himself from Phoenix hoping to reconcile when he would end his bad habits. But by the time Phoenix had died, Wheaton said they hadn't talked in years.
In a blog post dated March 2011, Wheaton wrote about the cast of 'Stand By Me' reuniting for the film's 25th anniversary and blu-ray release. When they all sat down to be interviewed, Rob Reiner, the film's director, was first to comment on Phoenix's absence. "It feels like there should be an empty seat here for River," Reiner had said, which Wheaton described as more or less a straight punch to his gut accompanied by years of suppressed grief. "People ask me about River all the time," Wheaton wrote in his blog. "He and I were close during filming, and for about a year or so after filming, but the sad truth is that he got sucked into a lifestyle that I just don’t have room in my life for, and we drifted apart." He added: "There is this monster in Hollywood that everyone knows about. It lurks just out of view, and occasionally it reaches up and snatches someone … and it got River."
When he died, Wheaton had been shocked and horrified but he was also not completely surprised. He hadn't felt a real loss at the time because "the River I knew and loved had been gone for a long time at that point." However, he felt sadness for his family and anger at the "predatory people who didn't try to help him". Wheaton had looked up to Phoenix for his talent in acting, loved his entire family, and he also divulged that he wouldn't know what would have happened to their relationship "if he hadn’t overdosed, if he ever would have come back from the edge, or if we would even have had anything in common." The one thing he cherishes in his lifetime is that when he was 13 and Phoenix was 15, he had found a friend in him. "That’s the person I knew, and that’s the person I miss," he added and expressed his feelings through the title of the blog post, 'Though I hadn't seen him in over twenty years, I knew I'd miss him forever.'