Read Online Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind by Gavin Edwards - Free Book Online
Authors: Gavin Edwards
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honestly: “I got all red and freaked out.”
The Phoenix family relocated to the Northern California town of Murphys, in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. John and Arlyn took turns supervising River on the set and homeschooling the rest of the family.
Almost immediately, River’s veganism came into conflict with the production: he wouldn’t wear leather cowboy boots or a leather belt. After some wrangling, the costume department found plastic cowboy boots (and River went without a belt). But the incident provided fodder for the actors playing River’s six older brothers: they would razz him about his veganism and generally condescend to him. Twelve-year-old River didn’t know how to cope.
Cast member Terri Treas, who played Hannah (a bride), remembered, “He would burst out crying, which only made things worse. River had been isolated, and he did not have the social skills to know how to be with other boys. He had never had to go out and defend himself on the playground.” Unsure how to fit in, River spent most of his downtime on the set by himself, playing guitar.
The pilot episode was cowritten by Sue Grafton, later the author of the best-selling Kinsey Millhone series ( “A” is for Alibi, etc.). In keeping with her book titles, the brothers were named in an orderly alphabetic fashion: Adam, Brian, Crane, Daniel, Evan, Ford, and (River’s role) Guthrie. In the pilot’s opening scene, an extremely young River, wearing a baseball cap and a denim jacket, pops open a beer. An older brother confiscates it, telling him, “Hey, not until you’re fourteen.”
On-screen, River’s most obvious qualities were his soup-bowl haircut and his eager-to-please puppy-dog quality. His offscreen desire to be considered a peer of the older actors came through all too strongly. Where he really came to life was during the musical numbers, where he could play guitar and hop around on one foot.
A dinnertime scene:
RI VER PHOENIX: Pass the damn bread.
RI CHARD DEAN ANDERSON: Guthrie, watch your mouth.
RI VER PHOENIX: Pass the damn bread, please.
As the season progressed, River was astonished to get fan mail, and insisted on responding to each letter personally. He got to sing “Rock Around the Clock” while trapped during a cave-in, and to star in an episode where his character was abducted by gold prospectors. Stripping River to the waist in that episode may have been intended to make him seem more vulnerable, but it made him look like the star of an inappropriate Calvin Klein ad.
There was even an episode, “The Killer,” that played off River’s vegan beliefs: brought on a hunting trip, Guthrie finds himself unable to shoot a deer. By the end of the episode, he decides that he is willing to shoot a mountain lion to save his brother’s life. That episode’s featured song was a ballad about the mountain lion, rhyming “a warrior brave and bold” with “a wonder to behold.”
Judy Marvin, the owner of the property where the show was filmed, thought of River as “a sad little child.” And not just because of his failed efforts to fit in with American teenagers and adults, she said. He seemed “as if he had the weight of providing for his family on his little shoulders.”
The last new episode of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ran in March 1983—the show was on the air for twenty-two episodes and just one bride.
14
TV EYE
Rain, now eleven, decided her name was “kind of dreary” and changed it to Rainbow. The Phoenix family moved back to Hollywood, and River resumed the lather-rinse-repeat life of a working actor, even a teenage one: lots of auditions, lots of rejections, occasional breakthroughs. Over the next two years, he collected credits and gained experience.
River and Rain sang on Fantasy, an NBC daytime variety show that fulfilled the dreams of people who appeared on it, whether that meant paying for medical procedures or letting a teenager perform with a professional ventriloquist. Their
The Phoenix family relocated to the Northern California town of Murphys, in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. John and Arlyn took turns supervising River on the set and homeschooling the rest of the family.
Almost immediately, River’s veganism came into conflict with the production: he wouldn’t wear leather cowboy boots or a leather belt. After some wrangling, the costume department found plastic cowboy boots (and River went without a belt). But the incident provided fodder for the actors playing River’s six older brothers: they would razz him about his veganism and generally condescend to him. Twelve-year-old River didn’t know how to cope.
Cast member Terri Treas, who played Hannah (a bride), remembered, “He would burst out crying, which only made things worse. River had been isolated, and he did not have the social skills to know how to be with other boys. He had never had to go out and defend himself on the playground.” Unsure how to fit in, River spent most of his downtime on the set by himself, playing guitar.
The pilot episode was cowritten by Sue Grafton, later the author of the best-selling Kinsey Millhone series ( “A” is for Alibi, etc.). In keeping with her book titles, the brothers were named in an orderly alphabetic fashion: Adam, Brian, Crane, Daniel, Evan, Ford, and (River’s role) Guthrie. In the pilot’s opening scene, an extremely young River, wearing a baseball cap and a denim jacket, pops open a beer. An older brother confiscates it, telling him, “Hey, not until you’re fourteen.”
On-screen, River’s most obvious qualities were his soup-bowl haircut and his eager-to-please puppy-dog quality. His offscreen desire to be considered a peer of the older actors came through all too strongly. Where he really came to life was during the musical numbers, where he could play guitar and hop around on one foot.
A dinnertime scene:
RI VER PHOENIX: Pass the damn bread.
RI CHARD DEAN ANDERSON: Guthrie, watch your mouth.
RI VER PHOENIX: Pass the damn bread, please.
As the season progressed, River was astonished to get fan mail, and insisted on responding to each letter personally. He got to sing “Rock Around the Clock” while trapped during a cave-in, and to star in an episode where his character was abducted by gold prospectors. Stripping River to the waist in that episode may have been intended to make him seem more vulnerable, but it made him look like the star of an inappropriate Calvin Klein ad.
There was even an episode, “The Killer,” that played off River’s vegan beliefs: brought on a hunting trip, Guthrie finds himself unable to shoot a deer. By the end of the episode, he decides that he is willing to shoot a mountain lion to save his brother’s life. That episode’s featured song was a ballad about the mountain lion, rhyming “a warrior brave and bold” with “a wonder to behold.”
Judy Marvin, the owner of the property where the show was filmed, thought of River as “a sad little child.” And not just because of his failed efforts to fit in with American teenagers and adults, she said. He seemed “as if he had the weight of providing for his family on his little shoulders.”
The last new episode of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ran in March 1983—the show was on the air for twenty-two episodes and just one bride.
14
TV EYE
Rain, now eleven, decided her name was “kind of dreary” and changed it to Rainbow. The Phoenix family moved back to Hollywood, and River resumed the lather-rinse-repeat life of a working actor, even a teenage one: lots of auditions, lots of rejections, occasional breakthroughs. Over the next two years, he collected credits and gained experience.
River and Rain sang on Fantasy, an NBC daytime variety show that fulfilled the dreams of people who appeared on it, whether that meant paying for medical procedures or letting a teenager perform with a professional ventriloquist. Their
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