River Phoenix

Recently I watched A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, a terrible River Phoenix movie that I love in a way that only a girl who was a teenager during River's short movie career can. It reminded me of being fifteen and being sooooooo in love with River. The scene in Stand By Me where he breaks down crying while telling Gordy the whole story about getting busted for stealing the milk money? It's almost too much raw emotion to handle.

I've always been completely fascinated by the whole Phoenix family, but particularly smitten with River. He was my first big Celebrity Crush (not counting this thing I had for Howard Cosell when I was really little - don't ask). When he died in 1993, I was truly saddened even though he was an actor and not someone I knew personally. We'll never get to see him create a brilliant new character in another movie (like Devo in I Love You to Death) and that's a shame.

Speaking of Stand By Me, I take comfort in the words of Chris Chambers (River) when Gordie (Wil Wheaton) asks him if he's weird: "Yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird."