Born: River Jude Bottom August 23rd 1970~~First of the five children his parents had together.
River began his career at a young age on the television show "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". He followed this with an array of made for televsion movies and an After School Special. At one time he also made a guest appearance on the popular 1980's sitcom "Family Ties".
River's film debut was in 1985's "Explorers" which was followed by the successful coming of age movie by Rob Reiner (based on the novella "The Body" by Stephen King)--"Stand by Me"--and a star was born.
His career continued to grow and with 1988's "Running on Empty" River was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as a Golden Globe nomination again for Best Supporting Actor. As he moved further into adulthood he took his acting to a new level with "My Own Private Idaho", co-starring with Keanu Reeves and being directed by Gus Van Sant. The movie, in which he played a male hustler and had an onscreen kiss with his co-star Reeves, was not a box office succes but drew much critical acclaim as well as awards from the Independent Spirit Awards, National Film Critics Awards and others.
River's love of music grew into a band, of which his sister Rain was a part of, called Aleka's Attic. While some of the band's songs are "out there" to be heard on the internet there is no official release of the band's album "Never Odd or Even". The band was very important to him and he spent a lot of time singing, playing the guitar and writing songs. The one release of an Aleka's Attic song, "Across the Way", was on PETA's "Tame Yourself" album.
His further movie projects would never reach the heights of the earlier ones with "Dogfight" being released in only two theaters before going to a video release and "The Thing Called Love"--in which he portrayed an aspiring country music songwriter and got to sing on camera--being touted as the most financially unsuccessful movie of 1993. The last movie of his that was released, "Silent Tongue", suffered a similar fate (even though it co-starred Richard Harris) and was a box office disaster.
Outside of his acting career he was known as a devout vegan and was thoroughly involved with PETA as well as with trying to protect the dwindling rainforests.
His movies, his music, his humanitarian efforts--they all gained for a River a huge following of fans. But all the attention was seemingly overwhelming as it was said that River planned to leave acting and the Hollywood life after finishing a movie called "Dark Blood".
He did leave acting, though it wasn't after completing that movie.
River passed away on October 31st, 1993. He never married and did not have children.
some technical info (such as the awards and some movie info) for this biography is coming from IMDb.com
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