Early Life
Summer Phoenix was born in Winter Park, Florida. Her mother, Arlyn Sharon (née Dunetz), was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents from Hungary and Russia. Her father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California. In 1968, Phoenix's mother left her family and moved to California, meeting Phoenix's father while hitch-hiking. They married in 1969 and joined the religious cult the Children of God, working as missionaries and fruit pickers in South America. Phoenix has four siblings: two brothers, actors Joaquin (Leaf) and the late River, and two sisters, Rain and Liberty.
She attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, but left before graduating to pursue a career in film.
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