Actor River Phoenix, star of Stand By Me, poses during a 1988 Los Angeles, California, photo portrait session. Photo / Getty
Actor River Phoenix, star of Stand By Me, poses during a 1988 Los Angeles, California, photo portrait session. Photo / Getty
The actress who was dating River Phoenix at the time of his death, has spoken out in detail for the first time about what happened on the night the actor died.
Samantha Mathis, who had starred opposite Phoenix during the 1993 filming of The Thing Called Love — the actor's final role, told The Guardian she had buried what happened to the prodigiously talented Phoenix "for decades" because she was traumatised by his death but now felt now "the universe wanted me to talk about him".
Actor River Phoenix and actress Samantha Mathis film for the movie A Thing Called Love in 1993 in Los Angeles, California. Photo / Getty
In the interview, Mathis recalled having an uneasy feeling when she and Phoenix arrived at Johnny Depp's Viper Room on Los Angeles' famous Sunset Boulevard on October 31, 1993.
"I knew something was wrong that night, something I didn't understand," Mathis told the publication.
"I didn't see anyone doing drugs but he was high in a way that made me feel uncomfortable — I was in way over my head."
Phoenix, despite Mathis' urging that they should leave, wanted to stay at the club and "play music" with friends who included Depp, members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers.
"I knew he was high that night, but the heroin that killed him didn't happen until he was in the Viper Room. I have my suspicions about what was going on, but I didn't see anything.
"Forty-five minutes [after we got there], he was dead," Mathis recalled.
The exterior of The Viper Room the day after the death of actor River Phoenix. Fans have left flowers, candles and notes at the spot where he collapsed on November 1, 1993. Photo / Getty
The actress said she remembered coming out of a bathroom and seeing Phoenix involved in an altercation with another man that spilt out onto the footpath.
It was then Phoenix collapsed on the footpath and started having convulsions.
Mathis recalled Phoenix's siblings Joaquin and Rain rushing to help.
Joaquin's agonised call to emergency services — "Please come, he's dying, please" got wide play in the aftermath.
The actor was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai hospital from an overdose of cocaine and heroin.
Mathis says though friends of the actor had thought he was slipping into a serious drug addiction, she remembered his final year as happy, describing a period where the couple stayed with his family in Florida and Costa Rica.
"We just hung out with his siblings and got to be kids," she recalled. "He was so good at hanging out."
Mathis says she now remembers Phoenix as "sensitive and obsessive. He felt things on his heart very deeply."
Another former girlfriend Martha Plimpton said after he died: "He was just a boy, a very good-hearted boy who was very f***ed up and had no idea how to implement his good intentions."
Actor River Phoenix and actress Martha Plimpton attend the Fourth Annual American Cinematheque Award Honoring Steven Spieldberg on April 1, 1989. Photo / Getty
After he died, his mother Arlyn told Esquire magazine that her son "became more and more uncomfortable" with his fame.
"He often said he wished he could just be anonymous. But he never was. When he wasn't a movie star, he was a missionary. There's a beauty in that — the man with the cause, the leader — but there's also a deep loneliness."
WHERE TO GET HELP:
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