River Phoenix's Death
A few months after the film's completion, Rain flew to Los Angeles with her brother Joaquin to meet River during a break in his 14th project Dark Blood. On the evening of October 30, 1993, they set out, joined by River's good friend Samantha Mathis, for a night at the LA club The Viper Room, part owned by Johnny Depp. It would be the last evening Phoenix would spend with her brother; he died later that night from heart failure attributed to an overdose of heroin and cocaine, a concoction called a "speedball".
Not only did Rain have to deal with the loss of her older brother, but also the media circus that followed. Aleka's Attic, by that time consisting a different line-up, had been working on an album that River had been funding himself. The album was near completion and so Phoenix began the long task of mixing and producing the scraps of recordings. The album has never been released.
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