Which 1986 Peter Weir movie and based on a Paul Theroux novel starred Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix?
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Peter Lindsay Weir, AM (; born 21 August 1944) is an Australian film director. He was a leading figure in the Australian New Wave cinema movement (1970-1990), with films such as the mystery drama Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), the supernatural thriller The Last Wave (1977) and the historical drama Gallipoli (1981). The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multi-national production The Year of Living Dangerously (1983). 

After the success of The Year of Living Dangerously, Weir directed a diverse group of American and international films covering most genres—many of them major box office hits—including the Academy Award nominated films such as the thriller Witness (1985), the drama Dead Poets Society (1989), the romantic comedy Green Card (1990), the social science fiction comedy-drama The Truman Show (1998) and the epic historical drama film Master and Commander (2003). For his work on these five films, Weir personally accrued six Academy Award nominations as either a director, writer or producer.

Early life and career

Weir was born in Sydney, the son of Peggy (née Barnsley) and Lindsay Weir, a real estate agent.  Weir attended The Scots College and Vaucluse Boys' High School before studying arts and law at the University of Sydney. His interest in film was sparked by his meeting with fellow students, including Phillip Noyce and the future members of the Sydney filmmaking collective Ubu Films. After leaving university in the mid-1960s he joined Sydney television station ATN-7, where he worked as a production assistant on the groundbreaking satirical comedy program The Mavis Bramston Show. During this period, using station facilities, he made his first two experimental short films, Count Vim's Last Exercise and The Life and Flight of Reverend Buckshotte.

Weir then took up a position with the Commonwealth Film Unit (later renamed Film Australia), for which he made several documentaries, including a short documentary about an underprivileged outer Sydney suburb, Whatever Happened to Green Valley, in which residents were invited to make their own film segments. Another notable film in this period was the short rock music performance film Three Directions In Australian Pop Music (1972), which featured in-concert colour footage of three of the most significant Melbourne rock acts of the period, Spectrum, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and Wendy Saddington. He also directed one section of the three-part, three-director feature film Three To Go (1970), which won an AFI award.

After leaving the CFU, Weir made his first major independent film, the short feature Homesdale (1971), an offbeat black comedy which co-starred rising young actress Kate Fitzpatrick and musician and comedian Grahame Bond, who came to fame in 1972 as the star of The Aunty Jack Show; Weir also played a small role, but this was to be his last significant screen appearance. Homesdale and Weir's two aforementioned CFU shorts have been released on DVD. Weir's first full-length feature film was the underground cult classic, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), a low-budget black comedy about the inhabitants of a small country town who deliberately cause fatal car crashes and live off the proceeds. It was a minor success in cinemas but proved very popular on the then-thriving drive-in circuit. 

The plot of "Cars" had been inspired by a press report Weir had read about two young English women who had vanished while on a driving holiday in France, and this film, along with the earlier Homesdale, set the basic thematic pattern which has persisted throughout Weir's subsequent career - virtually all of his feature films  deal with people who face some form of crisis after finding themselves isolated from society in some way - either physically (Witness, Mosquito Coast, The Truman Show, Master and Commander), socially/culturally (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Dead Poets Society, Green Card) or psychologically (Fearless).

Weir's major breakthrough in Australia and internationally was the lush, atmospheric period mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), made with substantial backing from the state-funded South Australian Film Corporation and filmed on location in South Australia and rural Victoria. Based on the novel by Joan Lindsay, the film relates the purportedly "true" story of a group of students from an exclusive girls' school who mysteriously vanish from a school picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. Widely credited as a key work in the "Australian film renaissance" of the mid-1970s, Picnic was the first Australian film of its era to gain both critical praise and be given substantial international theatrical releases. It also helped launch the career of internationally renowned Australian cinematographer Russell Boyd. It was widely acclaimed by critics, many of whom praised it as a welcome antidote to the so-called "ocker film" genre, typified by The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Alvin Purple.

Weir's next film, The Last Wave (1977) was a supernatural thriller about a man who begins to experience terrifying visions of an impending natural disaster. It starred the American actor Richard Chamberlain, who was well-known to Australian and world audiences as the eponymous physician in the popular Dr. Kildare TV series, and would later star in the Australian-set major series The Thorn Birds.  The Last Wave was a pensive, ambivalent work that expanded on themes from Picnic, exploring the interactions between the native Aboriginal and European cultures. It co-starred the Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, whose performance won the Golden Ibex (Oscar equivalent) at the Tehran International Festival in 1977, but it was only a moderate commercial success at the time.

Between The Last Wave and his next feature, Weir wrote and directed the offbeat low-budget telemovie The Plumber (1979).  It starred Australian actors Judy Morris and Ivar Kants and was filmed in just three weeks.  Inspired by a real-life experience told to him by friends, it is a black comedy about a woman whose life is disrupted by a subtly menacing plumber. Weir scored a major Australian hit and further international praise with his next film, the historical adventure-drama Gallipoli (1981). Scripted by the Australian playwright David Williamson, it is regarded as classic Australian cinema. Gallipoli was instrumental in making Mel Gibson (Mad Max) into a major star, although his co-star Mark Lee, who also received high praise for his role, has made relatively few screen appearances since.

The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multi-national production The Year of Living Dangerously (1983), again starring Mel Gibson, playing opposite top Hollywood female lead Sigourney Weaver in a story about journalistic loyalty, idealism, love and ambition in the turmoil of Sukarno's Indonesia of 1965. It was an adaptation of the novel by Christopher Koch, which was based in part on the experiences of Koch's journalist brother Philip, the ABC's Jakarta correspondent and one of the few western journalists in the city during the 1965 attempted coup. The film also won Linda Hunt (who played a man in the film) an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film was produced by Jim McElroy, who with his brother Hal McElroy had also (co-)produced Weir's first three films, The Cars That Ate Paris, Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave.

Filmmaking in the United States

Weir's first American film was the successful thriller Witness (1985), the first of two films he made with Harrison Ford, about a boy who sees the murder of an undercover police officer by Mafiosi and has to be hidden away in his Amish community to protect him. Child star Lukas Haas received wide praise for his debut film performance; Witness also earned Weir his first Oscar nomination as Best Director, and was his first of several films to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, it later won 2 for Best Film Editing & Best Original Screenplay.

It was followed by the darker, less commercial The Mosquito Coast (1986), Paul Schrader's adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel, with Ford playing a man obsessively pursuing his dream to start a new life in the Central American jungle with his family. These dramatic parts provided Harrison Ford with important opportunities to break the typecasting of his career-making roles in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series. Both films showed off his ability to play more subtle and substantial characters and he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his work in Witness, the only Academy Awards recognition in his career. The Mosquito Coast is also notable for an impressive performance by the young River Phoenix.

Weir's next film, Dead Poets Society, was a major international success, with Weir again receiving credit for expanding the acting range of its Hollywood star. Robin Williams was mainly known for his anarchic stand-up comedy and his popular TV role as the wisecracking alien in Mork & Mindy; in this film he played an inspirational teacher in a dramatic story about conformity and rebellion at an exclusive New England prep school in the 1950s. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Weir, it later won for Best Original Screenplay and launched the acting careers of young actors Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard. It became a major box-office hit and is one of Weir's best-known films to mainstream audiences.

Weir's first romantic comedy Green Card (1990) was another casting risk. Weir chose French screen icon Gérard Depardieu in the lead—Depardieu's first English-language role—and paired him with American actress Andie MacDowell. Green Card was a box-office hit but was regarded as less of a critical success, although it helped Depardieu's path to international fame, and Weir received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.

Fearless (1993) returned to darker themes and starred Jeff Bridges as a man who believes he has become invincible after surviving a catastrophic air crash. Though well reviewed, particularly the performances of Bridges and Rosie Perez—who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress—the film was less commercially successful than Weir's two preceding films. It was entered into the 44th Berlin International Film Festival. 

After five years, Weir returned to direct his biggest success to date, The Truman Show (1998), a fantasy-satire of the media's control of life. The Truman Show was both a box office and a critical success, receiving positive reviews and numerous awards, including three Academy Award nominations: Andrew Niccol for Best Original Screenplay, Ed Harris for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Weir himself for Best Director.

In 2003 Weir returned to period drama with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe. A screen adaptation from various episodes in Patrick O'Brian's blockbuster adventure series set during the Napoleonic Wars, it was well received by critics, but only mildly successful with mainstream audiences. Despite another nomination for Best Picture and winning two Oscars—for frequent collaborator Russell Boyd's cinematography and for sound effects editing—the film's box office success was moderate ($93 million at the North American Box Office). The film grossed slightly better overseas, gleaning an additional $114 million.

Weir wrote and directed his next film, The Way Back (2010),  which, as another historical epic, was well received critically but was not a financial success.

Personal life

On 14 June 1982, Weir was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to the film industry.  He resides in Sydney with his wife Wendy Stites. They have been married since 1966.

Filmography

Feature films 

Short films 

*Count Vim's Last Exercise (1967) – 16mm b/w, 15 mins – writer, director
*The Life and Flight of the Reverend Buckshotte (1968) 16mm b/w, 33 mins – writer, director
*Three to Go (1969) (segment "Michael") – 16 mm, b/w, 30 mins – writer, director
*Stirring the Pool (1970) – 16mm, colour, 10 mins – director
*Tempo (1970) – writer
*Homesdale (1971) – 16 mm, b/w, 50 mins – writer, director
*Three Directions In Pop Music (1971) – 16mm, colour, 10 mins – director
*Incredible Floridas (1972) – 35mm, colour, 12 mins – director
*Whatever Happened to Green Valley? (1973) – 16mm, 50 mins – director

Awards and nominations Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10, 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best-known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). He has published numerous works of fiction, some of which were adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name.

He is the father of British authors and documentary makers Marcel Theroux and Louis Theroux, the brother of authors Alexander Theroux and Peter Theroux, and uncle of the American actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux.

Early life

Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the son of Catholic parents; his mother, Anne (née Dittami), was Italian American, and his father, Albert Eugene Theroux, was French-Canadian.  His mother was a grammar school teacher and his father was a salesman for the American Leather Oak company.   Theroux was a Boy Scout and ultimately achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

Theroux was educated at Medford High School, followed by the University of Maine, in Orono (1959–60) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he obtained a B.A. in English in 1963.

After he finished his university education, Theroux joined the Peace Corps in 1963 as a teacher in Malawi. A new program, the Peace Corps had sent its first volunteers overseas in 1961.  Theroux helped a political opponent of Prime Minister Hastings Banda escape to Uganda.  For this Theroux was expelled from Malawi and thrown out of the Peace Corps. He was declared persona non grata by Banda in Malawi for sympathizing with Yatuta Chisiza.  As a consequence, his later novel Jungle Lovers, which concerns an attempted coup in the country, was banned in Malawi for many years. He moved to Uganda to teach at Makerere University, where he wrote for the magazine Transition.

While at Makerere, Theroux began his friendship with novelist V. S. Naipaul, then a visiting scholar at the university.  During his time in Uganda, an angry mob at a demonstration threatened to overturn the car in which his pregnant wife was riding. This incident may have contributed  to their decision to leave Africa. The couple moved with their son Marcel to Singapore. After two years of teaching at the National University of Singapore, Theroux and his family settled in the United Kingdom, first in Dorset, and then in south London. By then he and his wife had two young children.

Literary work

Theroux published his first novel, Waldo (1967), during his time in Uganda; it was moderately successful.  He published several more novels over the next few years, including Fong and the Indians and Jungle Lovers. On his return to Malawi many years later, he found that this latter novel, which was set in that country, was still banned. He recounted that in his book Dark Star Safari (2002). 

After moving to London in 1972, Theroux set off on an epic journey by train from Great Britain to Japan and back. His account of this journey was published as The Great Railway Bazaar, his first major success as a travel writer and now a classic in the genre.    He has since written a number of travel books, including traveling by train from Boston to Argentina (The Old Patagonian Express), walking around the United Kingdom (The Kingdom By The Sea), kayaking in the South Pacific (The Happy Isles Of Oceania), visiting China (Riding the Iron Rooster), and traveling from Cairo to Cape Town across Africa (Dark Star Safari).  He is noted for his rich descriptions of people and places, laced with a heavy streak of irony, or even misanthropy. Non-fiction by Theroux includes Sir Vidia's Shadow, an account of his personal and professional friendship with Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul, which ended abruptly after 30 years.

Personal life

Theroux was married to English woman Anne Castle from 1967 to 1993. They had two sons: Marcel and Louis, both of whom are writers and television presenters. He also has an older son from a college relationship; he and his unmarried partner gave the boy up for adoption. Theroux has been married to Sheila Donnelly since 1995. 

In his books, Theroux alludes to his ability to speak Italian, French, German, Spanish, Urdu, Chichewa, Swahili, and Mandarin Chinese. He resides in Hawaii and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 

Controversy

By including versions of himself, his family, and acquaintances in some of his fiction, Theroux has occasionally disconcerted his readers.  "A. Burgess, Slightly Foxed: Fact and Fiction", a story originally published in The New Yorker,  describes a dinner at the narrator's home with author Anthony Burgess and a book-hoarding philistine lawyer who nags the narrator for an introduction to the great writer. Burgess arrives drunk and mocks the lawyer, who introduces himself as a fan. The narrator’s wife is named Anne, and she refuses to help with the dinner. The magazine later published a letter from Anne Theroux denying that Burgess was ever a guest in their home and expressing admiration for him, having once interviewed the real Burgess for the BBC: “I was dismayed to read in your August 7th edition a story … by Paul Theroux, in which a very unpleasant character with my name said and did things that I have never said or done.”  When the story was incorporated into Theroux’s novel, My Other Life (1996), the wife was renamed "Alison", and reference to her work at the BBC was excluded.

Theroux's sometimes caustic portrait of Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul in his memoir Sir Vidia's Shadow (1998) contrasts sharply with his earlier, admiring portrait of the same author in V. S. Naipaul, an Introduction to His Work (1972); events in their relationship over the 26 years between the two books colored the perspective of the later book.  The two authors attempted a reconciliation in 2011. 

His novel Jungle Lovers (1971) was banned by the government in Malawi for many years. His novel Saint Jack (1973) was banned by the government of Singapore for 30 years.  Both were banned because they were considered too critical of the government's leader(s), or cast the country in an unfavorable light.

Theroux has criticized entertainer Bono, and actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as "mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth."  He has said that "the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help—not to mention celebrities and charity concerts—is a destructive and misleading conceit".

Book critic John Ryle has disparaged Theroux's opinions on international aid, accusing him of ignorance: 
"'Aid is a failure,' he [Theroux] says, 'because the only people dishing up the food and doling out the money are foreigners. No Africans are involved'. But the majority of employees of international aid agencies in Africa, at almost all levels, are Africans. In some African countries it is international aid agencies that provide the most consistent source of employment ... The problem is not, as Theroux says, that Africans are not involved; it is, if anything, the opposite." 

Theroux remains optimistic about Africa: "I'm not pessimistic about Africa. The cities just seem big and hopeless. But there's still a great green heart where there's possibility. There's hope in the wilderness ... What Africa needs is a little organization and better government." 

Theroux has described himself in his early 20s—when he joined the Peace Corps and went to Africa—as an "angry and agitated young man" who felt he had to escape the confines of Massachusetts and a hostile U.S. foreign policy. He says he now has "the disposition of a hobbit," and remains optimistic about most of his subject matter. "I need happiness in order to write well...being depressed merely produces depressing literature in my case," he explains. 

Select awards and honors

 
* Fellow, Royal Society of Literature and Royal Geographical Society in UK
* Honorary doctorate in literature from Trinity College in Washington, D.C.
* Honorary doctorate in literature from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts
* 2015: Patron's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society in UK
* 1990: Maria Thomas Fiction Award, lifetime achievement award 
* 1983: American Book Award nominee - The Mosquito Coast
* 1981: James Tait Black Memorial Prize - The Mosquito Coast
* 1981: American Book Award nominee - The Old Patagonian Express
* 1989: Thomas Cook Travel Book Award - Riding the Iron Rooster
* 1978: Whitbread Prize for Best Novel - Picture Palace
* 1977: American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award for literature
* 1972, 1976, 1977, and 1979: The Playboy Editorial Award for Best Story

Adaptations

* Saint Jack was filmed by director Peter Bogdanovich (1979).
* Doctor Slaughter was made into the film Half Moon Street (1986).
* The Mosquito Coast was made into a film of the same name (1986).
* Chinese Box (1997), a film about the British handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, credits Theroux as a source for the story, based on themes he explored in his 1997 novel Kowloon Tong.
* A Christmas Card was a radio play dramatized by Nick Warburton and directed by Marilyn Imrie for BBC Radio 4, 29 December 1997.
* The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro was a radio play directed by Lu Kemp for BBC Radio 4, 17 December 2004.

Bibliography Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor and film producer. He gained worldwide fame for his starring roles as Han Solo in the original Star Wars epic space opera trilogy and the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in the neo-noir dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), John Book in the thriller Witness (1985), and Jack Ryan in the action films Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). Most recently, Ford reprised his role of Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).

His career has spanned six decades and includes roles in several Hollywood blockbusters; including the epic war film Apocalypse Now (1979), the legal drama Presumed Innocent (1990), the action film The Fugitive (1993), the political action thriller Air Force One (1997) and the psychological thriller What Lies Beneath (2000). Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry: American Graffiti (1973), The Conversation (1974), Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Blade Runner.

In 1997, Ford was ranked No. 1 in Empires "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. As of 2016, the U.S. domestic box-office grosses of Ford's films total over US$4.7 billion, with worldwide grosses surpassing $6 billion, making Ford the highest-grossing U.S. domestic box-office star.  Ford is married to actress Calista Flockhart, who is known for playing the title role in the comedy-drama series Ally McBeal.

Early life

Ford was born at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago,  to Christopher Ford (born John William Ford; 1906-1999), an advertising executive and former actor, and Dorothy (née Nidelman; 1917-2004), a former radio actress.   A younger brother, Terence, was born in 1945. Ford's paternal grandparents, John Fitzgerald Ford and Florence Veronica Niehaus, were of Irish Catholic and German descent, respectively. Ford's maternal grandparents, Harry Nidelman and Anna Lifschutz, were Jewish immigrants from Minsk, Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire). When asked in which religion he and his brother were raised, Ford has jokingly responded, "Democrat,"  "to be liberals of every stripe".  In a television interview shown in August 2000, when asked about what influence his Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish ancestry may have had on his life as a person and as an artist, Ford humorously stated, "As a man I've always felt Irish, as an actor I've always felt Jewish."Inside the Actors Studio. Harrison Ford, Season 6, Episode 613. August 20, 2000. 

Ford was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and achieved its second-highest rank, Life Scout. He worked at Napowan Adventure Base Scout camp as a counselor for the Reptile Study merit badge. Because of this, he and director Steven Spielberg later decided to depict the young Indiana Jones as a Life Scout in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They also jokingly reversed Ford's knowledge of reptiles into Jones' fear of snakes.

In 1960, Ford graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. His was the first student voice broadcast on his high school's new radio station, WMTH, and he was its first sportscaster during his senior year (1959–60). He attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he was a philosophy major and a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He took a drama class in the final quarter of his senior year to get over his shyness.   Ford, a self-described "late bloomer,"  became fascinated with acting.

Early career

In 1964, after a season of summer stock with the Belfry Players in Wisconsin,  Ford traveled to Los Angeles to apply for a job in radio voice-overs. He did not get it, but stayed in California and eventually signed a $150-a-week contract with Columbia Pictures' New Talent program, playing bit roles in films. His first known role was an uncredited role as a bellhop in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). There is little record of his non-speaking roles (or "extra" work) in film. Ford was at the bottom of the hiring list, having offended producer Jerry Tokovsky after he played a bellboy in the feature. He was told by Tokovsky that when actor Tony Curtis delivered a bag of groceries, he did it like a movie star; Ford felt his job was to act like a bellboy.  Ford managed to secure other roles in movies, such as A Time for Killing (The Long Ride Home), starring Glenn Ford, George Hamilton, and Inger Stevens.

His speaking roles continued next with Luv (1967), though he was still uncredited. He was finally credited as "Harrison J. Ford" in the 1967 Western film, A Time for Killing, but the "J" did not stand for anything, since he has no middle name. It was added to avoid confusion with a silent film actor named Harrison Ford, who appeared in more than 80 films between 1915 and 1932, and died in 1957. Ford later said that he was unaware of the existence of the earlier Harrison Ford until he came upon a star with his own name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ford soon dropped the "J" and worked for Universal Studios, playing minor roles in many television series throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Gunsmoke, Ironside, The Virginian, The F.B.I., Love, American Style, and Kung Fu. He appeared in the western Journey to Shiloh (1968) and had an uncredited, non-speaking role in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film Zabriskie Point, as an arrested student protester. Not happy with the roles being offered to him, Ford became a self-taught professional carpenter to support his then-wife and two small sons. While working as a carpenter, he became a stagehand for the popular rock band The Doors. He also built a sun deck for actress Sally Kellerman and a recording studio for Brazilian band leader Sérgio Mendes. 

Casting director and fledgling producer Fred Roos championed the young Ford, and secured him an audition with George Lucas for the role of Bob Falfa, which Ford went on to play in American Graffiti (1973). Ford's relationship with Lucas would profoundly affect his career later on. After director Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather was a success, he hired Ford to expand his office and gave him small roles in his next two films, The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979); in the latter film he played an army officer named "G. Lucas".

Milestone franchises

Star Wars

Harrison Ford's previous work in American Graffiti eventually landed him his first starring film role, when he was hired by Lucas to read lines for actors auditioning for roles in his then-upcoming film Star Wars (1977). Lucas was eventually won over by Ford's performance during these line reads and cast him as Han Solo.  Star Wars became one of the most successful movies of all time and established Ford as a superstar. He went on to star in the similarly successful Star Wars sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), as well as the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). Ford wanted Lucas to kill off Han Solo at the end of Return of the Jedi, saying, "That would have given the whole film a bottom," but Lucas refused.  However, in an interview in 2015, Ford admitted that "he was wrong" to want his character killed off. 

Ford reprised the role of Han Solo in the sequel Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).  During filming on June 11, 2014, Ford suffered what is said to be a fractured ankle, when a hydraulic door fell on him. He was rushed to the hospital for treatment.  Ford's son Ben released details on his father's injury, saying that his ankle would likely need a plate and screws, and that filming could be altered slightly with the crew needing to shoot Ford from the waist up for a short time until he recovers.  Ford made his return to filming in mid-August, after a two-month layoff as he recovered from his injury.   Ford's character was killed off in The Force Awakens;  however, it was subsequently announced, via a casting call, that Ford would return in some capacity as Han Solo in Episode VIII.  In February 2016, when the cast for Episode VIII was confirmed, it has indicated that Ford won't reprise his role in the film.  When Ford was asked if his character could come back in "some form", he replied, "Anything is possible in space."  A Han Solo spin-off movie is scheduled to be made, but Ford is not involved in the production. The Daily Mail reported that Ford was paid £16 million plus a 0.5% share of the revenue to appear in The Force Awakens. In the original 1977 film, Ford was paid $10,000. 

Indiana Jones

Ford's status as a leading actor was solidified when he starred as globe-trotting archeologist Indiana Jones in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a collaboration between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Though Spielberg was interested in casting Ford from the start, Lucas was not, due to having already worked with the actor in American Graffiti and Star Wars, but he eventually relented after Tom Selleck was unable to accept. 

Ford went on to star in the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). He returned to the role yet again for a 1993 episode of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and even later for the fourth film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). On March 15, 2016 Walt Disney Studios announced that Ford will appear in a fifth film due for release in July 2019. 

Other film work

Ford has been in other films, including Heroes (1977), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), and Hanover Street (1979). Ford also co-starred alongside Gene Wilder in the buddy-Western The Frisco Kid (1979), playing a bank robber with a heart of gold. He then starred as Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's cult sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982), and in a number of dramatic-action films: Peter Weir's Witness (1985) and The Mosquito Coast (1986), and Roman Polanski's Frantic (1988).

The 1990s brought Ford the role of Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as leading roles in Alan Pakula's Presumed Innocent (1990) and The Devil's Own (1997), Andrew Davis' The Fugitive (1993), Sydney Pollack's remake of Sabrina (1995), and Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One (1997). Ford also played straight dramatic roles, including an adulterous husband in both Presumed Innocent (1990) and What Lies Beneath (2000), and a recovering amnesiac in Mike Nichols' Regarding Henry (1991).

Many of Ford's major film roles came to him by default through unusual circumstances: he won the role of Han Solo while reading lines for other actors, was cast as Indiana Jones because Tom Selleck was not available, and took the role of Jack Ryan supposedly due to Alec Baldwin's fee demands, although Baldwin disputes this (Baldwin had previously played the role in The Hunt for Red October).

1990s–2010s

Starting in the late 1990s, Ford appeared in several critically derided and commercially disappointing movies, including Six Days Seven Nights (1998), Random Hearts (1999), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Hollywood Homicide (2003), Firewall (2006), and Extraordinary Measures (2010). One exception was 2000's What Lies Beneath, which grossed over $155 million in the United States and $291 million worldwide. 

In 2004, Ford declined a chance to star in the thriller Syriana, later commenting that "I didn't feel strongly enough about the truth of the material and I think I made a mistake."  The role eventually went to George Clooney, who won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his work. Prior to that, he had passed on a role in another Stephen Gaghan-written role, Robert Wakefield in Traffic. That role went to Michael Douglas.

In 2008, Ford enjoyed success with the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, another Lucas/Spielberg collaboration. The film received generally positive reviews and was the second highest-grossing film worldwide in 2008.  He later said he would like to star in another sequel, "...if it didn't take another 20 years to digest."

Other 2008 work included Crossing Over, directed by Wayne Kramer. In the film, he plays an immigrations officer, working alongside Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta. He also narrated a feature documentary film about the Dalai Lama entitled Dalai Lama Renaissance. 

Ford filmed the medical drama Extraordinary Measures in 2009 in Portland, Oregon. Released January 22, 2010, the film also starred Brendan Fraser and Alan Ruck. Also in 2010, he co-starred in the film Morning Glory, along with Patrick Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Diane Keaton. 

In July 2011, Ford starred alongside Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde in the science fiction Western film Cowboys & Aliens. To promote the film, Ford appeared at the San Diego Comic-Con International and, apparently surprised by the warm welcome, told the audience, "I just wanted to make a living as an actor. I didn't know about this." 

In 2011, Ford starred in Japanese commercials advertising the video game Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception for the PlayStation 3. In 2013, Ford co-starred in the corporate espionage thriller Paranoia, with Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman, and directed by Robert Luketic,  as well as Ender's Game, 42, and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

On February 26, 2015, Alcon Entertainment announced Ford would reprise his role as Rick Deckard in the sequel to Blade Runner. 

Personal life

Marriages and family

Ford is one of Hollywood's most private actors, guarding much of his personal life. He has two sons, Benjamin (born 1967) and Willard, with his first wife, Mary Marquardt, to whom he was married from 1964 until their divorce in 1979. With his second wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, whom he married in March 1983 and from whom he was separated in August 2001 and eventually divorced, he has two more children, Malcolm and Georgia (born 1990).

Ford began dating actress Calista Flockhart after meeting at the 2002 Golden Globes, and together they are parents to her adopted son, Liam (born 2001). Ford proposed to Flockhart over Valentine's Day weekend in 2009.  They married on June 15, 2010, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Ford was filming Cowboys & Aliens. 

Ford has three grandchildren: Eliel (born 1993), Ethan (born 2000) and Waylon (2010).  Son Benjamin, a chef and restaurateur, owns Ford's Filling Station, a gastropub at The Marriott, L.A. Live, Los Angeles.  Son Willard is the owner of Strong Sports Gym,  and was co-owner of Ford & Ching and owner of the Ludwig Clothing company. 

Back injury

In June 1983, at age 40, during the filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in London, he herniated a disc in his back, forcing him to fly back to Los Angeles for an operation. He returned six weeks later. 

Ankle injury

On June 11, 2014, Ford injured his ankle during filming of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He was airlifted to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England.  Ford's wife soon traveled from the U.S. to be at his hospital bedside, as it was feared that injuries sustained on the set could be worse than previously thought. Doctors suspected that his ankle might have been broken and he might have received a pelvic injury. Producers stated that filming would continue as planned. 

Aviation

Ford is a private pilot of both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and owns an 800 acre ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, approximately half of which he has donated as a nature reserve. On several occasions, Ford has personally provided emergency helicopter services at the request of local authorities, in one instance rescuing a hiker overcome by dehydration.

Ford began flight training in the 1960s at Wild Rose Idlewild Airport in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, flying in a Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer, but at $15 an hour, he could not afford to continue the training.  In the mid-1990s, he bought a used Gulfstream II and asked one of his pilots, Terry Bender, to give him flying lessons. They started flying a Cessna 182 out of Jackson, Wyoming, later switching to Teterboro, New Jersey, flying a Cessna 206, the aircraft he soloed in. 

On October 23, 1999, Harrison Ford was involved in the crash of a Bell 206L4 LongRanger helicopter (N36R). The NTSB accident report states that Ford was piloting the aircraft over the Lake Piru riverbed near Santa Clarita, California, on a routine training flight. While making his second attempt at an autorotation with powered recovery, Ford allowed the aircraft's altitude to drop to 150–200 feet before beginning power-up.  The aircraft was unable to recover power before hitting the ground. The aircraft landed hard and began skidding forward in the loose gravel before one of its skids struck a partially embedded log, flipping the aircraft onto its side. Neither Ford nor the instructor pilot suffered any injuries, though the helicopter was seriously damaged. When asked about the incident by fellow pilot James Lipton in an interview on the TV show Inside the Actor's Studio, Ford replied, "I broke it." 

Ford keeps his aircraft at Santa Monica Airport,  though the Bell 407 is often kept and flown in Jackson, Wyoming, and has been used by the actor in two mountain rescues during the actor's assigned duty time assisting the Teton County Search and Rescue. On one of the rescues, Ford recovered a hiker who had become lost and disoriented. She boarded Ford's Bell 407 and promptly vomited into one of the rescuers' caps, unaware of who the pilot was until much later; "I can't believe I barfed in Harrison Ford's helicopter!" she said later. 

Ford flies his de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver (N28S) more than any of his other aircraft, and has repeatedly said that he likes this aircraft and the sound of its Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine.  According to Ford, it had been flown in the CIA's Air America operations, and was riddled with bullet holes that had to be patched up. 

In March 2004, Ford officially became chairman of the Young Eagles program of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). Ford was asked to take the position by Greg Anderson, Senior Vice President of the EAA at the time, to replace General Charles "Chuck" Yeager, who was vacating the post that he had held for many years. Ford at first was hesitant, but later accepted the offer and has made appearances with the Young Eagles at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh gathering at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for two years. In July 2005, at the gathering in Oshkosh, Ford agreed to accept the position for another two years. Ford has flown over 280 children as part of the Young Eagles program, usually in his DHC-2 Beaver, which can seat the actor and five children. He is involved with the EAA chapter in Driggs, Idaho, just over the Teton Range from Jackson, Wyoming.

As of 2009, Ford appears in internet advertisements for General Aviation Serves America, a campaign by the advocacy group Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).  He has also appeared in several independent aviation documentaries, including Wings Over the Rockies (2009),  Flying The Feathered Edge: The Bob Hoover Project (2014),  and Living in the Age of Airplanes (2015).  

Ford is an honorary board member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope. 

On March 5, 2015, Ford's plane, believed to be a Ryan PT-22 Recruit, made an emergency landing on the Penmar Golf Course in Venice, California. Ford had radioed in to report that the plane had suffered engine failure. He was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he was reported to be in fair to moderate condition.  Ford suffered a broken pelvis and broken ankle during the accident, as well as other injuries. 

Activism

Environmental causes

Ford is vice-chair of Conservation International  an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization's intent is to protect nature.  The institution tries to combine the services or benefits of science, field work, and partnership to find global solutions to global problems. Three ways CI goes about solving nature-related problems are: 1) identifying and moving to protect locations that are crucial, such as those affecting water, food, and air; 2) working with large companies that are involved in energy and agriculture, to ensure the environment is being protected; and 3) working with governments to ensure they have the knowledge and the proper tools to construct policies that are environmentally friendly.

From its origins as an NGO dedicated to protecting tropical biodiversity, CI has evolved into an organization that works with governments, scientists, charitable foundations, and business.  CI has been criticised for links to companies with a poor environmental record such as BP, Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto and Shell and for allegedly offering greenwashing services.   CI has also been chastised for poor judgment in its expenditure of donors' money.

In September 2013, Ford, while filming an environmental documentary in Indonesia, interviewed the Indonesian Forestry Minister, Zulkifli Hasan. After the interview the Presidential Advisor, Andi Arief, accused Ford and his crew of "harassing state institutions" and publicly threatened them with deportation. Questions within the interview concerned the Tesso Nilo National Park, Sumatra. It was alleged the Minister of Forestry was given no prior warning of questions nor the chance to explain the challenges of catching people with illegal logging.     Ford was provided an audience with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, during which he expressed concerns regarding Indonesia's environmental degradation and the government efforts to address climate change. In response, the President explained Indonesia's commitment to preserving its oceans and forests.  

In 1993, the arachnologist Norman Platnick named a new species of spider Calponia harrisonfordi, and in 2002, the entomologist Edward O. Wilson named a new ant species Pheidole harrisonfordi (in recognition of Harrison's work as Vice Chairman of Conservation International). 

Since 1992, Ford has lent his voice to a series of public service messages promoting environmental involvement for EarthShare, an American federation of environmental and conservation charities.

Ford has been a spokesperson for Restore Hetch Hetchy, a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley to its original condition. 

Ford appears in the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which provides reports on those affected by, and seeking solutions to climate change. 

Political views

Like his parents, Ford is a lifelong Democrat,  and a close friend of former President Bill Clinton.

On September 7, 1995, Ford testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of the Dalai Lama and an independent Tibet.   In 2008, he narrated the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance. 

In 2003, he publicly condemned the Iraq War and called for "regime change" in the United States. He also criticized Hollywood for making violent movies, and called for more gun control in the United States. 

After Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his favorite role of Ford's was Air Force One because he "stood up for America", Ford reasoned that it was just a film and was doubtful that Trump's presidential bid would be successful.  

Archaeology

Following on his success portraying the archaeologist Indiana Jones, Ford also plays a part in supporting the work of professional archaeologists. He serves as a General Trustee  on the Governing Board of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. Ford assists them in their mission of increasing public awareness of archaeology and preventing looting and the illegal antiquities trade.

Selected filmography

Awards and honors

Ford received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Witness, for which he also received "Best Actor" BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. He received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards and on June 2, 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has received three additional "Best Actor" Golden Globe nominations for The Mosquito Coast, The Fugitive and Sabrina.

He received the first ever Hero Award for his many iconic roles, including Indiana Jones and Han Solo, at the 2007 Scream Awards, and in 2008, the Spike TV's Guy's Choice Award for Brass Balls.  Both roles earned him two Saturn Awards for Best Actor in 1981 and 2015, respectively.

Ford has also been honored multiple times for his involvement in general aviation, receiving the Living Legends of Aviation Award and EAA's Freedom of Flight Award in 2009,   Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 2010,  and the Al Ueltschi Humanitarian Award in 2013.  In 2013, Flying Magazine ranked him number 48 on their list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation. 

Harrison Ford received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2000. Dame Helen Lydia Mirren, DBE (née Mironoff; born 26 July 1945), is an English actor. Mirren began her acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, and is one of the few performers who have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, having won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007, after two previous nominations, for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. In 2015 she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play,  after two previous nominations, for her performance in The Audience, in which she also portrayed Elizabeth II. The Audience was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen.   Mirren won her first of several Emmy Awards in 1996 for her performance as police detective Jane Tennison on the acclaimed ITV series Prime Suspect, which ran for a total of seven seasons between 1991 and 2006.

Some of her other notable film roles include Marcella in the 1984 film Cal, for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, 2010 (1984), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989),  The Madness of King George (1994), Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), Gosford Park (2001), Calendar Girls (2003), The Last Station (2009), Hitchcock (2012), and The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014). She also starred as Victoria Winslow in the action-comedy films Red and Red 2.

In 2003, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for Services to the Performing Arts.  In 2013, Mirren was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,  and in 2014, BAFTA announced that Mirren would be the recipient of the Academy Fellowship. 

Early life and family

She was born Helen Lydia Mironoff in London, the daughter of Kathleen "Kitty" Alexandrina Eva Matilda (née Rogers; 1909–1996) and  Vasily Petrovich Mironoff (1913–1980). Her mother was English and Romani and her father was Russian, originally from Kuryanovo, Smolensk Oblast.  . nationsmemorybank.com Mirren's paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating an arms deal in Britain when he and his family were stranded during the Russian Revolution.  The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family and eventually settled down in England.

His son, Helen Mirren's father, anglicised the family name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, and later drove a taxi cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was a working-class Londoner from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose own father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist".  Mirren was the second of three children; she was born three years after her older sister Katherine ("Kate"; born 1942), and had a younger brother Peter Basil (1948–2002), who was named after his grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Mirren was brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. 

Education

Mirren attended Hamlet Court primary school Westcliff-on-Sea, where she had the lead role in a school production of Hansel and Gretel and St Bernard's High School for Girls in Southend-on-Sea, where she also acted in school productions. She then attended a teaching college, the New College of Speech and Drama in London, "housed within Anna Pavlova's old home, Ivy House" on the North End Road – which leads from Golders Green to Hampstead, N. London. Aged eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre (NYT) and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was playing Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, which led to her signing with the agent Al Parker. 

Theatre

Early years

As a result of her work for the National Youth Theatre, Mirren was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). While with the RSC, she played Castiza in Trevor Nunn's 1966 staging of The Revenger's Tragedy, Diana in All's Well That Ends Well (1967), Cressida in Troilus and Cressida (1968), Rosalind  in As You Like It (1968), Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1970), Tatiana in Gorky's Enemies at the Aldwych (1971), and the title role in Miss Julie at The Other Place (1971). She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester, between 1965 and 1967. 

In 1970, the director/producer John Goldschmidt made a documentary film, Doing Her Own Thing, about Mirren during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK.

In 1972 and 1973, Mirren worked with Peter Brook's International Centre for Theatre Research, and joined the group's tour in North Africa and the US, during which they created The Conference of the Birds. She then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975.

It was reported by Sally Beauman, in her 1982 history of the RSC, that Mirren—while appearing in Nunn's Macbeth (1974), and in a highly publicised letter to The Guardian newspaper—had sharply criticised both the National Theatre and the RSC for their lavish production expenditure, declaring it "unnecessary and destructive to the art of the Theatre," and adding, "The realms of truth, emotion and imagination reached for in acting a great play have become more and more remote, often totally unreachable across an abyss of costume and technicalities..." According to Beauman, there were no discernible repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC. 

West End and RSC

At the Royal Court Theatre in September 1975, she played the role of a rock star named Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles, a musical play by David Hare; she reprised the role the following year in a revival of the play at Wyndham's Theatre in May 1976. Her performance earned her the London critics' Plays & Players Best Actress award.

Beginning in November 1975, Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers' new farce The Bed Before Yesterday ("Mirren is stirringly voluptuous as the Harlowesque good-time girl": Michael Billington, The Guardian, 10 December 1975). At the RSC in Stratford in 1977, and at the Aldwych the following year, she played a steely Queen Margaret in Terry Hands' production of the three parts of Henry VI, while 1979 saw her 'bursting with grace', and winning acclaim for her performance as Isabella in Peter Gill's production of Measure for Measure at Riverside Studios.

In 1981, she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. That same year she also won acclaim for her performance in the title role of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, a production of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre which was later transferred to The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London. Reviewing her portrayal for The Sunday Telegraph, Francis King wrote: "Miss Mirren never leaves it in doubt that even in her absences, this ardent, beautiful woman is the most important character of the story."

In her performance as Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl—at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in January 1983, and at the Barbican Theatre in April 1983—she was described as having "swaggered through the action with radiant singularity of purpose, filling in areas of light and shade that even Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker omitted." – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983.

After a relatively barren sojourn in the Hollywood Hills, she returned to England at the beginning of 1989 to co-star with Bob Peck at the Young Vic in the London premiere of the Arthur Miller double-bill, Two Way Mirror, performances which prompted Miller to remark: "What is so good about English actors is that they are not afraid of the open expression of large emotions" (interview by Sheridan Morley: The Times 11 January 1989). In Elegy for a Lady she played the svelte proprietress of a classy boutique, while as the blonde hooker in Some Kind of Love Story she was "clad in a Freudian slip and shifting easily from waif-like vulnerability to sexual aggression, giving the role a breathy Monroesque quality" (Michael Billington, The Guardian).

On 15 February 2013, at the Gielgud Theatre she began a turn as Elizabeth II in the World Premiere of Peter Morgan's The Audience.  The show will be directed by Stephen Daldry. In April she was named best actress at the Olivier Awards for her role. 

Broadway debut

A further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Her co-stars were John Hurt as her aimless lover Rakitin and Joseph Fiennes in only his second professional stage appearance as the cocksure young tutor Belyaev. "Instead of a bored Natalya fretting the summer away in dull frocks, Mirren, dazzlingly gowned, is a woman almost wilfully allowing her heart's desire for her son's young tutor to rule her head and wreak domestic havoc....Creamy shoulders bared, she feels free to launch into a gloriously enchanted, dreamily comic self-confession of love." (John Thaxter, Richmond & Twickenham Times, 4 March 1994)

Mirren was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actress (Play): in 1995 for her Broadway debut in A Month in the Country, now directed by Scott Ellis ("Miss Mirren's performance is bigger and more animated than the one she gave last year in an entirely different London production", Vincent Canby in the NY Times, 26 April 1995). Then again in 2002 for August Strindberg's Dance of Death, co-starring with Sir Ian McKellen, their fraught rehearsal period coinciding with the terrorist attacks on New York on 11 September 2001 (as recorded in her In the Frame autobiography, September 2007).
On the 7th of June 2015‚ Mirren won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play‚ for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience which also won her the Laurence Oliver Award for Best Actress and made her one of the few actors to achieve the “Triple Crown of Acting”, joining the ranks of legends including Ingrid Bergman‚ Dame Maggie Smith, and Al Pacino.

National Theatre

In 1998, Mirren played Cleopatra to Alan Rickman's Antony in Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre. The production received poor reviews; The Guardian called it "plodding spectacle rarely informed by powerful passion", while The Daily Telegraph said "the crucial sexual chemistry on which any great production ultimately depends is fatally absent".  In 2000 Nicholas Hytner, who had worked with Mirren on the film version of The Madness of King George, cast her as Lady Torrance in his revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Michael Billington, reviewing for The Guardian, described her performance as "an exemplary study of an immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly acknowledges her sensuality."

At the National Theatre in November 2003 she again won praise playing Christine Mannon ("defiantly cool, camp and skittish", Evening Standard; "glows with mature sexual allure", Daily Telegraph) in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra directed by Howard Davies.

"This production was one of the best experiences of my professional life, The play was four and a half hours long, and I have never known that kind of response from an audience ... It was the serendipity of a beautifully cast play, with great design and direction, It will be hard to be in anything better." (In the Frame, September 2007).

She played the title role in Jean Racine's Phèdre at the National in 2009, in a production directed by Nicholas Hytner. The production was also staged at the Epidaurus amphitheatre on 11 and 12 July 2009.

Film

Mirren has also appeared in a large number of films throughout her career. Some of her earlier film appearances include roles in Midsummer Night's Dream, Age of Consent, O Lucky Man!, Caligula, Excalibur, 2010, The Long Good Friday, White Nights, When the Whales Came and The Mosquito Coast. She appeared in Some Mother's Son, Painted Lady, The Prince of Egypt and The Madness of King George. One of her other film roles was in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, as the thief's wife, opposite Michael Gambon. In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, she plays sadistic history teacher Mrs Eve Tingle. In 2007, she claimed director Michael Winner had treated her "like a piece of meat" at a casting call in 1964.   Asked about the incident, Winner told The Guardian: "I don't remember asking her to turn around but if I did I wasn't being serious. I was only doing what the [casting] agent asked me – and for this I get reviled! Helen's a lovely person, she's a great actress and I'm a huge fan, but her memory of that moment is a little flawed." 

Mirren continued her successful film career when she starred more recently in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith and Calendar Girls with Julie Walters. Other more recent appearances include The Clearing, Pride, Raising Helen, and Shadowboxer. Mirren also provided the voice for the supercomputer "Deep Thought" in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. During her career, she has portrayed three British queens in different films and television series: Elizabeth I in the television series Elizabeth I (2005), Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006), and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of George III, in The Madness of King George (1994). She is the only actress ever to have portrayed both Queens Elizabeth on the screen.

Mirren's title role of The Queen earned her numerous acting awards including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award, among many others. During her acceptance speech at the Academy Award ceremony, she praised and thanked Elizabeth II and stated that she had maintained her dignity and weathered many storms during her reign as Queen. Mirren later appeared in supporting roles in the films National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Inkheart, State of Play, and The Last Station, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. 

2000–2009

Mirren's first film of the 2000s was Joel Hershman's Greenfingers (2000), a comedy based on the true story about the award-winning prisoners of HMP Leyhill, a minimum-security prison.  Mirren portrayed a devoted plantswoman in the film, who coaches a team of prison gardeners, led by Clive Owen, to victory at a prestigious flower show.  The project garnered largely lukewarm reviews from critics, who felt that it added "nothing new to this already saturated genre" of British feel-good films.  The same year, she began work on the mystery film The Pledge, actor Sean Penn's second directorial effort, in which she played a child psychologist. A critical success,  the ensemble film tanked at the box office.  Also the year, she filmed the American-Icelandic satirical drama No Such Thing opposite Sarah Polley. Directed by Hal Hartley, Mirren portrayed a soulless television producer in the film, who strives for sensationalistic stories. It was largely panned by critics. 

Her biggest critical and commercial success, released in 2001, became Robert Altman's all-star ensemble mystery film Gosford Park. An homage to writer Agatha Christie's whodunit style, the story follows a party of wealthy Britons and an American, and their servants, who gather for a shooting weekend at an English country house, resulting in an unexpected murder. Widely acclaimed by critics, it received multiple awards and nominations, including a second Academy Award nomination and first Screen Actors Guild Award win for Mirren's portrayal of the sternly devoted head servant Mrs. Wilson.  Mirren's last film that year was Fred Schepisi's dramedy film Last Orders opposite Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins.

In 2003, Mirren starred in Nigel Cole's comedy Calendar Girls, inspired by the true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes.  Mirren was initially resistant to join the project, at first dismissing it as another middling British picture,  but rethought her decision upon learning of the casting of co-star Julie Walters. The film garnered generally positive reactions by film critics, and grossed $96,000,000 worldwide.  In addition, the picture earned Satellite, Golden Globe, and European Film Award nominations for Mirren.  Her other film that year was the Showtime television film The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone opposite Olivier Martinez, and Anne Bancroft, based on the 1950 novel of the same title by Tennessee Williams.

2010–present

In 2010, Mirren appeared in five films. In Love Ranch, directed by her husband Taylor Hackford, she portrayed Sally Conforte, one half of a married couple who opened the first legal brothel in the United States, the Mustang Ranch in Storey County, Nevada,  leading to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the assassination of famous Argentinian boxer Ringo Bonavena.  The drama film received mostly negative reviews from critics, who called it "disappointingly flaccid,"  and underperformed at the international box offices.  Mirren starred in the principal role of Prospera, the duchess of Milan, in Julie Taymor's The Tempest. Based on the play of the same name by Shakespeare, Taymor changed the original character's gender to cast Mirren as her lead.  While the actress garnered strong reviews for her portrayal, the film itself was largely panned by critics. 

 Mirren played a gutsy tea-shop owner who tries to save one of her young employees from marrying a teenage killer in Rowan Joffé's Brighton Rock, a crime film loosely based on Graham Greene's 1938 novel.  The film noir premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010,  where it received mixed reviews.  Mirren's biggest critical and commercial success of the year was Robert Schwentke's ensemble action comedy Red, in which she portrayed a retired assassin along with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich.  Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Warren Ellis, she was initially hesitant to sign on due to film's graphic violence, but changed her mind upon learning of Willis' involvement.  Released to positive reviews, it grossed $186.5 million worldwide. Also in 2010, the actress lent her voice to Zack Snyder's computer-animated fantasy film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, voicing antagonist Nyra, a leader of a group of owls. The film grossed $140.1 million on a $80 million budget. 

Mirren's next film was the comedy film Arthur, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, starring Russell Brand in the lead role. Arthur received generally negative reviews from critics, who declared it an "irritating, unnecessary remake."  In preparation for her role as a retired Israeli Mossad agent in the film The Debt, Mirren reportedly immersed herself in studies of Hebrew language, Jewish history, and Holocaust writing, including the life of Simon Wiesenthal, while in Israel in 2009 for the filming of some of the movie's scenes. The film is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name. 

In 2012, Mirren played Alfred Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville in the 2012 biopic Hitchcock, directed by Sacha Gervasi and based on Stephen Rebello's non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. The film centres on the pair's relationship during the making of Psycho, a controversial horror film that became one of the most acclaimed and influential works in the filmmaker's career. It became a moderate arthouse success and garnered a lukewarm critical response from critics, who felt that it suffered from "tonal inconsistency and a lack of truly insightful retrospection."  Mirren was universally praised for her play however, with Roger Ebert noting that the film depended most on her portrayal, which he found to be "warm and effective."  Her other film that year was The Door, a claustrophobic drama film directed by István Szabó, based on the Hungarian novel of the same name. Set at the height of communist rule in 1960s Hungary, the story of the adaptation centres on the abrasive influence that a mysterious housekeeper wields over her employer and successful novelist, played Martina Gedeck. Mirren found the role "difficult to play" and cited doing it as "one of the hardest things [she has] ever done." 

The following year, Mirren replaced Bette Midler in David Mamet's biographical television film Phil Spector about the American musician.  The HBO film focuses on the relationship between Spector and his defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden, played by Mirren, during the first of his two murder trials for the 2003 death of Lana Clarkson in his California mansion. Spector received largely mixed to positive reviews from critics, particularly for Mirren and co-star Al Pacino's performances, and was nominated for eleven Primetime Emmy Awards, also winning Mirren a Screen Actors Guild Award at the 20th awards ceremony. The film drew criticism both from Clarkson's family and friends, who charged that the suicide defense was given more merit than it deserved, and from Spector's wife, who argued that Spector was portrayed as a "foul-mouthed megalomaniac" and a "minotaur".   Also in 2013, Mirren voiced the character of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble in Pixar's computer-animated comedy film Monsters University, which grossed $743 million against its estimated budget of $200 million,  and reprised her role in the sequel film Red 2.  The action comedy received a mixed reviews from film critics, who called it a "lackadaisical sequel",  but became another commercial success, making over $140 million worldwide. 

Mirren's only film of 2014 was the comedy-drama The Hundred-Foot Journey opposite Indian actor Om Puri. Directed by Lasse Hallström and produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, the film is based on Richard Morais' 2010 novel with the same name and tells the story of a feud between two adjacent restaurants in a French town. Mirren garnered largely positive reviews for her performance of a snobby restaurateur, a role which she accepted as she was keen to play a French character, reflecting her "pathetic attempt at being a French actress."  The film earned her another Golden Globe nomination and became a modest commercial success, grossing $88.9 million worldwide.

In 2015, Mirren reunited with her former assistant Simon Curtis on Woman in Gold, co-starring Ryan Reynolds. The film was based on the true story of Jewish refugee Maria Altmann, who, together with her young lawyer Randy Schoenberg, fought the Austrian government to be reunited with Gustav Klimt's painting of her aunt, the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.   The film received mixed reviews from critics, although Mirren and Reynold's performances were widely praised.  A commercial success, Woman in Gold became one of the highest-grossing specialty films of the year.  The same year, Mirren appeared in Gavin Hood's thriller Eye in the Sky (2015), in which she played as a military intelligence officer who leads a secret drone mission to capture a terrorist group living in Nairobi, Kenya.  Mirren last film that year was Jay Roach's biographical drama Trumbo, co-starring Bryan Cranston and Diane Lane. The actress played Hedda Hopper, the famous actress and gossip columnist, in the film, which received generally positive reviews from critics and garnered her a 14th Golden Globe nomination. 

Television

Mirren is known for her role as detective Jane Tennison in the widely viewed Prime Suspect, a multiple award-winning television drama series that was noted for its high quality and popularity. Her portrayal of Tennison won her
three consecutive BAFTA Awards for Best Actress between 1992 and 1994. 

Some of Mirren's other television performances include Cousin Bette (1971); As You Like It (1979); Blue Remembered Hills (1979); The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Woman's Shoes" (1985); The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999), where her performance won her both the Emmy and the Golden Globe; Door to Door (2002); and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003). In 1976, she appeared with Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Malcolm McDowell in a production of Harold Pinter's The Collection as part of the Laurence Olivier Presents series. She also played Elizabeth I in 2005, in the television serial Elizabeth I, for Channel 4 and HBO, for which she received an Emmy Award. Mirren won another Emmy Award on 16 September 2007 for her role in Prime Suspect: The Final Act on PBS in the same category as in 2006.

Mirren hosted Saturday Night Live on 9 April 2011. 

Awards and recognition

Personal life

Mirren lived with actor Liam Neeson during the early 1980s. They had met while working on Excalibur (1981). Interviewed by James Lipton for Inside the Actors Studio, Neeson said she was instrumental in his getting an agent.

Mirren married American director Taylor Hackford (her partner since 1986) on 31 December 1997, his 53rd birthday. The ceremony took place at the Ardersier Parish Church near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.  The couple had met on the set of White Nights. It is her first marriage, and his third (he has two children from his previous marriages). Mirren has no children and says she has "no maternal instinct whatsoever." 

Mirren's autobiography, In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures, was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in September 2007. Reviewing for The Stage, John Thaxter wrote: "Sumptuously illustrated, at first sight it looks like another of those photo albums of the stars. But between the pictures there are almost 200 pages of densely printed text, an unusually frank story of her private and professional life, mainly in the theatre, the words clearly Mirren's own, delivered with forthright candour." 

In 1990, Mirren stated in an interview that she is an atheist.  In the August 2011 issue of Esquire magazine, Mirren said, "I am quite spiritual. I believed in fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God." 

In a GQ interview in 2008, Mirren stated she had been date raped as a student and had often taken cocaine at parties in her 20s, and until the 1980s. She stopped using the drug after reading the (debunked) tabloid tale that Klaus Barbie made a living from cocaine dealing.  

On 11 May 2010, Mirren attended the unveiling of her waxwork at Madame Tussauds London. The figure reportedly cost £150,000 to make and took four months to complete. 

Mirren was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the Guardian in March 2013. 

In August 2013, Mirren was announced as one of several new models for Marks & Spencer's 'Womanism' campaign.

She is quoted as being a naturist, telling the Radio Times “I’m a naturist at heart. I love being on beaches where everyone is naked. Ugly people, beautiful people, old people, whatever. It’s so unisexual and so liberating.”  In 2004, she was named "Naturist of the Year" by British Naturism. She said: “Many thanks to British Naturism for this great honour. I do believe in naturism and am my happiest on a nude beach with people of all ages and races!” 

Filmography

Selected stage credits

*Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1965
*Cathleen, Long Day's Journey into Night, Century Theatre, Manchester,England 1965
*Kitty, Charley's Aunt, Century Theatre, Manchester, 1967
*Nerissa, The Merchant of Venice, Century Theatre, Manchester, 1967
*Castiza, The Revenger's Tragedy, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 1967
*Diana, All's Well That Ends Well, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1967
*Cressida, Troilus and Cressida, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, London, 1968
*Hero, Much Ado About Nothing, Aldwych Theatre, 1968–1969
*Win-the-Fight Littlewit, Bartholomew Fair, Aldwych Theatre, 1969
*Lady Anne, Richard III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
*Ophelia, Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
*Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1970
*Tatyana, Enemies, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
*Harriet, The Man of Mode, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
*Title role, Miss Julie, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
*Elayne, The Balcony, Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, 1971
*Isabella, Measure for Measure, Riverside Studios Theatre, London,1974
*Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1974, then Aldwych Theatre, 1975
*Maggie, Teeth 'n' Smiles, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1975, then Wyndham's Theatre, London, 1976
*Nina, The Seagull, Lyric Theatre, London, 1975
*Ella, The Bed before Yesterday, Lyric Theatre, 1975
*Queen Margaret, Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1977, then Aldwych Theatre, 1978
*Title role, The Duchess of Malfi, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, England, 1980, then The Roundhouse, London, 1981
*Grace, Faith Healer, Royal Court Theatre, 1981
*Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra, Pit Theatre, London, 1983
*Moll Cutpurse, The Roaring Girl, Barbican Theatre, London, 1983
*Marjorie, Extremities, Duchess Theatre, London, 1984
*Madame Bovary, 1987
*Angela, "Some Kind of Love Story" and dying woman, "Elegy for a Lady," in Two-Way Mirror (double-bill), Young Vic Theatre, *London, 1989
*Sex Please, We're Italian, 1991
*Natalya Petrovna, A Month in the Country, London, 1994, then Criterion Theatre, New York City, 1995
*Antony and Cleopatra, Royal National Theatre, London, 1998
*Collected Stories, London, 1999
*Lady Torrance, Orpheus Descending, Donmar Warehouse, London, 2000
*Alice, Dance of Death, Broadhurst Theatre, New York City, 2001–2002
*Mourning Becomes Electra, Lyttelton Stage, Royal National Theatre, 2003
*Phèdre, National Theatre, 2009
*Also appeared as Susie Monmican, The Silver Lassie; in Woman in Mind, Los Angeles
* Queen Elizabeth II, The Audience, The Gielgud Theatre, London, 2013
* Queen Elizabeth II, The Audience,  Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York City, 2015 River Jude Phoenix (born River Jude Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993 ) was an American actor, musician, and activist. He was the older brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix and Summer Phoenix.

Phoenix's work encompassed 24 films and television appearances, and his rise to fame led to his status as a "teen idol". He began his acting career at age 10, in television commercials. He starred in the science fiction adventure film Explorers (1985), and had his first notable role in 1986's Stand By Me, a coming-of-age film based on a novella by Stephen King. Phoenix made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and My Own Private Idaho (1991), playing a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother. For his performance in the latter, Phoenix garnered enormous praise and won a Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, along with Best Actor from the National Society of Film Critics.

He and his brother Joaquin Phoenix hold the distinction of being the first and only brothers to be nominated for acting Academy Awards. 

On October 31, 1993, Phoenix collapsed and died of drug-related Heart Failure on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room at the age of 23.  At the time of his death, Phoenix had been in the middle of filming Dark Blood (1993).

Early life

Phoenix was born on August 23, 1970, in Madras, Oregon, the first child of Arlyn Dunetz and John Lee Bottom.  Phoenix's parents named him after the river of life from the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha, and he received his middle name from the Beatles' song "Hey Jude".

In an interview with People, Phoenix described his parents as "hippieish". His mother was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents whose families had emigrated from Russia and Hungary.  His father was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California, of English, as well as German and French, ancestry.  In 1968, Phoenix's mother left her family in New York City and travelled across the United States, meeting John Lee Bottom while hitchhiking in northern California. They married on September 13, 1969, less than a year after meeting.

Phoenix's family moved cross country when he was very young. Phoenix was raised in Micanopy, Florida, a small suburb of Gainesville. They received no financial support and lived in poverty, with Phoenix stating they lived in a "desperate situation." Phoenix often played guitar while he and his sister sang on street corners for money and food to support their ever-growing family. 

In the late 1970s, Phoenix's family moved in with River's maternal grandparents in Florida after spending a number of years in Venezuela with Children of God. Closely after their return to the United States, the family officially changed their name to Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, symbolizing a new beginning.  Phoenix never attended formal school. Screenwriter Naomi Foner later commented, "He was totally, totally without education. I mean, he could read and write, and he had an appetite for it, but he had no deep roots into any kind of sense of history or literature."

Children of God 

In 1973, the family joined a controversial Christian new religious movement called the Children of God as missionaries.  The family had settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where the Children of God had stationed them to work as missionaries and fruit gatherers.  Although Phoenix rarely talked about the cult, he was quoted by Arlyn Phoenix in a 1994 Esquire article as having said "They're disgusting, they're ruining people's lives."  In an interview with Details magazine in November 1991, Phoenix stated he lost his virginity at age four while in the Children of God, "but I've blocked it out." 

Arlyn and John eventually grew disillusioned with the Children of God; Arlyn would later tell a journalist that she and her husband were opposed to the group's practice of "Flirty Fishing", stating: "The group was being distorted by the leader, David Berg, who was getting powerful and wealthy. He sought to attract rich disciples through sex. No way." 

Acting career

Back in the United States, Arlyn began working as a secretary for an NBC broadcaster and John as an exteriors architect. Top kids agent Iris Burton spotted River, Joaquin, and their sisters Summer and Rain singing for spare change in Westwood, Los Angeles, and was so charmed by the family that she soon represented the four siblings. 

 
River started doing some commercials for Mitsubishi, Ocean Spray, and Saks Fifth Avenue, and soon afterward he and the other children were signed by casting director Penny Marshall from Paramount Pictures. River and Rain were assigned immediately to a show called Real Kids as warm up performers for the audience. In 1980, Phoenix began to fully pursue his work as an actor, making his first appearance on a TV show called Fantasy singing with his sister Rain. In 1982, River was cast in the short-lived CBS television series, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, in which he starred as the youngest brother, Guthrie McFadden. River, who arrived at the auditions with his guitar, promptly burst into a convincing Elvis Presley impersonation, charming the show producer.  By this age, Phoenix was also an accomplished tap dancer.

Almost a year after Seven Brides ended in 1983, Phoenix found a new role in the 1984 television movie Celebrity, where he played the part of young Jeffie Crawford. Although he was only onscreen for about ten minutes, his character was central.  Less than a month after Celebrity came the ABC Afterschool Special: Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia. River starred as a young boy who discovers he has dyslexia. Joaquin starred in a small role alongside his brother. In September, the pilot episode of the short-lived TV series It's Your Move aired. Phoenix was cast as Brian and only had one line of dialogue. He also starred as Robert Kennedy's son, Robert Kennedy, Jr., in the TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. After his role in Dyslexia was critically acclaimed, Phoenix was almost immediately cast as a major role in his next made-for-TV movie, Surviving: A Family in Crisis. He starred as Philip Brogan alongside Molly Ringwald and Heather O'Rourke. Halfway during the filming of Surviving, Iris Burton contacted him about a possible role in the film Explorers. 

In October 1984, Phoenix secured the role of geeky boy-scientist Wolfgang Müller in Joe Dante's large-budget science-fiction film Explorers alongside Ethan Hawke, and production began soon after. Released in the summer of 1985, this was Phoenix's first major motion picture role. In October 1986, Phoenix co-starred alongside Tuesday Weld and Geraldine Fitzgerald in the acclaimed CBS television movie Circle of Violence: A Family Drama, which told the tragic story of domestic elder abuse. This was Phoenix's last television role before achieving film stardom.

At the age of 15, Phoenix had a significant role in Rob Reiner's popular coming-of-age film Stand By Me (1986), which made him a household name. The Washington Post opined that Phoenix gave the film its "centre of gravity". Phoenix commented: "The truth is, I identified so much with the role of Chris Chambers that if I hadn't had my family to go back to after the shoot, I'd have probably had to see a psychiatrist."

Later that year, Phoenix completed Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast (1986), playing the son of Harrison Ford's character. "He was obviously going to be a movie star," observed Weir. "It's something apart from acting ability. Laurence Olivier never had what River had." During the five-month shoot in Belize, Phoenix began a romance with his co-star Martha Plimpton, a relationship which continued in some form for many years. Phoenix was surprised by the poor reception for the film, feeling more secure about his work in it than he had in Stand By Me.

Phoenix was next cast as the lead in the teen comedy-drama A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988), but was disappointed with his performance: "It didn't turn out the way I thought it would, and I put the blame on myself. I wanted to do a comedy, and it was definitely a stretch, but I'm not sure I was even the right person for the role." In 1988, Phoenix starred in Little Nikita (1988) alongside Sidney Poitier. During this time, the Phoenix family continued to move on a regular basis, moving over forty times by the time Phoenix was 18. After completing his sixth feature film, Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty (1988), Phoenix purchased his family a ranch in Micanopy, Florida, near Gainesville in 1987, in addition to a spread in Costa Rica.

In early 1989, Phoenix was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (as well as for a Golden Globe), and received the Best Supporting Actor honor from the National Board of Review for his role in Running on Empty. Phoenix jumped to his feet during the ceremony when Kevin Kline beat him for the Oscar. "I had to stop River from running to hug Kevin," recalled his mother Arlyn. "It never crossed his mind that he hadn't won." That year he also portrayed a young Indiana Jones in the box-office hit Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade directed by Steven Spielberg. In 1990, Phoenix was photographed by Bruce Weber for Vogue and was spokesperson for a campaign for Gap.

In 1991, Phoenix filmed an acclaimed independent picture called Dogfight co-starring Lili Taylor and directed by Nancy Savoca. In the romantic coming-of-age drama set in San Francisco, Phoenix portrayed a young U.S. Marine on the night before he was shipped off to Vietnam in November 1963. Taylor remarked that Phoenix suffered because he could not distance himself from his character: "He also hadn’t gotten into any [drugs] – he was just drinking then, too. It was different... That was actually a hard part for him, because it was so radically different from who he was. He was such a hippie, and here he was playing this marine. It actually caused him a lot of discomfort. I don't think he enjoyed that, actually, getting into that psyche." 

Phoenix met actor Keanu Reeves while Reeves was filming Parenthood with Phoenix's brother, Joaquin. The two starred together for the first time (along with Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman and Joan Plowright) in 1990's I Love You to Death and again in Gus Van Sant's avant-garde film My Own Private Idaho. In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen praised Phoenix's performance: "The campfire scene in which Mike awkwardly declares his unrequited love for Scott is a marvel of delicacy. In this, and every scene, Phoenix immerses himself so deeply inside his character you almost forget you've seen him before: it's a stunningly sensitive performance, poignant and comic at once". For his role in My Own Private Idaho, Phoenix won Best Actor honors at the Venice Film Festival, the National Society of Film Critics and the Independent Spirit Awards. The film and its success solidified Phoenix's image as an actor with edgy, leading man potential. In that period Phoenix was beginning to make use of drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin with some friends.  In the book Gus Van Sant wrote about Phoenix, Pink, the director said clearly that Phoenix was not a regular drug user but only occasionally, and that the actor had a more serious problem with alcohol. Phoenix had always tried to hide his addictions because he feared that they might ruin his career as they did his relationship with Martha Plimpton.

Phoenix teamed up with Robert Redford and again with Sidney Poitier for the conspiracy/espionage thriller Sneakers (1992). A month later he began production on Sam Shepard's art-house ghost western Silent Tongue (which was released in 1994); he also was beaten out for the role of Paul by Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. He made a cameo appearance in Van Sant's Even Cowgirls get the Blues (1993), co-starring his sister Rain. Phoenix then starred in Peter Bogdanovich's country music-themed film, The Thing Called Love (1993), the last completed picture before his death. Phoenix began a relationship with co-star Samantha Mathis on the set.

Music

Although Phoenix's movie career was generating most of the income for his family, it has been stated by close friends and relatives that his true passion was music. Phoenix was a singer, songwriter, and an accomplished guitarist. He had begun teaching himself guitar at the age of five and had stated in an interview for E! in 1988 that his family's move to Los Angeles when he was nine was made so that he and his sister "... could become recording artists. I fell into commercials for financial reasons and acting became an attractive concept ..."  Prior to securing an acting agent, Phoenix and his siblings tried to forge a career in music by playing cover versions on the streets of the Westwood district of LA, often being moved along by police because gathering crowds would obstruct the pavement. With the first fruits of his film success, Phoenix saved $650 for his prize possession, a guitar on which he wrote what he described as "progressive, ethereal folk-rock".

While working on A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon in 1986, Phoenix had written and recorded a song, "Heart to Get", specifically for the end credits of the movie. 20th Century Fox cut it from the completed film, but director William Richert put it back into place for his director's cut some years later. It was during filming that Phoenix met Chris Blackwell of Island Records; this meeting would later secure Phoenix a two-year development deal with the label. Phoenix disliked the idea of being a solo artist and relished collaboration; therefore he focused on putting together a band. Aleka's Attic were formed in 1987 and the lineup included his sister Rain. 

Phoenix was committed to gaining credibility by his own merit and maintained that the band would not use his name when securing performances that were not benefits for charitable organizations. Phoenix's first release was "Across the Way", co-written with band mate Josh McKay, which was released in 1989 on a benefit album for PETA titled Tame Yourself.  In 1991, Phoenix wrote and recorded a spoken word piece called "Curi Curi" for Milton Nascimento's album TXAI.  Also in 1991 the Aleka's Attic track "Too Many Colors" was lent to the soundtrack of Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho which included Phoenix in a starring role. In 1996, the Aleka's Attic track "Note to a Friend" was released on the 1996 benefit album In Defense of Animals; Volume II and featured Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass.

Phoenix had collaborated with friend John Frusciante after his first departure from Red Hot Chili Peppers and the songs "Height Down" and "Well I've Been" were released on Frusciante's second solo album Smile from the Streets You Hold in 1997.

Phoenix was an investor in the original House of Blues (founded by his good friend and Sneakers co-star Dan Aykroyd) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened its doors to the public after serving a group of homeless people on Thanksgiving Day 1992. 

Activism

Phoenix was a dedicated animal rights, environmental and political activist. He was a prominent spokesperson for PETA and won their Humanitarian Award in 1992 for his fund-raising efforts.  In 1990, Phoenix wrote an environmental awareness essay about Earth Day targeted at his young fanbase, which was printed in Seventeen magazine.

Phoenix was a lifelong vegan.  His first girlfriend Martha Plimpton recalled: "Once when we were fifteen, River and I went out for a fancy dinner in Manhattan, and I ordered soft-shell crabs. He left the restaurant and walked around on Park Avenue, crying. I went out and he said, 'I love you so much, why?...' He had such pain that I was eating an animal, that he hadn't impressed on me what was right."

He financially aided a great many environmental and humanitarian organizations, and bought 800 acre of endangered rainforest in Costa Rica.  As well as giving speeches at rallies for various groups, Phoenix and his band often played environmental benefits for well-known charities as well as local ones in the Gainesville, Florida area.

Death

On the evening of October 30, 1993, Phoenix was to perform with his close friend Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers onstage at The Viper Room, a Hollywood nightclub partly owned at the time by actor Johnny Depp. Phoenix had returned to Los Angeles early that week from Utah to complete the three weeks of interior shots left on his last project Dark Blood,  a film that was finally completed in 2012.  His younger sister Rain and brother Joaquin had flown out to join him at the Hotel Nikko (now the SLS Hotel) on La Cienega Boulevard. Phoenix's girlfriend, Samantha Mathis, had also come to meet him. All were present at the scene of Phoenix's death.

During the early morning hours of October 31, 1993, Phoenix suffered a drug overdose, and collapsed outside and convulsed for over five minutes. When his brother Joaquin called 9-1-1, he was unable to determine whether Phoenix was breathing. His sister Rain proceeded to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. 

During the episode, Johnny Depp and his band P (featuring Flea and Phoenix's friend Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers) were onstage. According to Haynes, the band was in the middle of their song "Michael Stipe" while Phoenix was outside the venue having seizures on the sidewalk.  When the news filtered through the club, Flea left the stage and rushed outside. By that time, paramedics had arrived on the scene and found Phoenix turning dark blue, in full cardiac arrest and in a flatline state. They administered medication in an attempt to restart his heart. He was rushed to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, accompanied by Flea, via an ambulance. Further attempts to resuscitate Phoenix were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at 1:51 a.m. PST on the morning of October 31, 1993, at the age of 23.

The following day the club became a makeshift shrine with fans and mourners leaving flowers, pictures and candles on the sidewalk and graffiti messages on the walls of the venue.  A sign was placed in the window that read, "With much respect and love to River and his family, The Viper Room is temporarily closed. Our heartfelt condolences to all his family, friends and loved ones. He will be missed."  The club remained closed for a week. Depp continued to close the club every year on October 31 until selling his share in 2004. 

Prior to his death, Phoenix's image—one he bemoaned in interviews—had been squeaky-clean, owing in part to his public dedication to his various social, political, humanitarian, and dietary interests not always popular in the 1980s. As a result, his death elicited a vast amount of coverage from the media.  Phoenix was described by one writer as "the vegan James Dean," and comparisons were made regarding the youth and sudden deaths of both actors. 

Phoenix's autopsy, signed November 15, 1993, reads as follows in the section entitled "Opinion" by Christopher Rogers, MD: "Toxicology studies showed high concentrations of morphine and cocaine in the blood, as well as other substances in smaller concentrations."  The cause of death was "acute multiple drug intoxication", including cocaine and morphine.  Joaquin's call to 9-1-1 was recorded and broadcast by several radio and TV shows. Following the death of River and the invasive attitude of the media in his private life (a reporter broke into the Miami funeral home and took a picture of Phoenix resting in his casket that was sold to the National Enquirer), Joaquin walked away from Hollywood for the second time.

On November 24, 1993, Arlyn "Heart" Phoenix published an open letter in the Los Angeles Times on her son's life and death. It read, in part:

:His friends, co-workers and the rest of our family know that River was not a regular drug user. He lived at home in Florida with us and was almost never a part of the "club scene" in Los Angeles. He had just arrived in L.A. from the pristine beauty and quietness of Utah where he was filming for six weeks. We feel that the excitement and energy of the Halloween nightclub and party scene were way beyond his usual experience and control. How many other beautiful young souls, who remain anonymous to us, have died by using drugs recreationally? It is my prayer that River's leaving in this way will focus the attention of the world on how painfully the spirits of his generation are being worn down.

:River made such a big impression during his life on Earth. He found his voice and found his place. And even River, who had the whole world at his fingertips to listen, felt deep frustration that no one heard. What is it going to take? Chernobyl wasn't enough. Exxon Valdez wasn't enough. A bloody war over oil wasn't enough. If River's passing opens our global heart, then I say, thanks dear, beloved son, for yet another gift to all of us. 

Phoenix was cremated and his ashes were scattered at his family ranch in Micanopy, Florida. Following his death, Aleka's Attic disbanded.

On the 20th anniversary of Phoenix's death, musician Bob Forrest talked about the young actor's early death saying that while Phoenix maintained an image of a hippie vegan pacifist the reality of his drug taking was much darker than anyone knew. Forrest said that Phoenix had been staying with musician John Frusciante for a few days prior to his death. The duo would go on long drug binges, barely sleeping. They would smoke crack and inject heroin and cocaine together. On the night of his death, both Phoenix and Frusciante arrived at the Viper Room together, where they met up with Mathis and River's brother and sister. Forrest claims that cocaine was instantly passed around amongst the group; however, he noticed that Phoenix was already not looking well. During the performance by Depp's band, Phoenix informed Forrest that he wasn't feeling well, and thought he was overdosing. Forrest said that Phoenix rallied and re-entered the crowd, but moments later someone frantically called out for 9-1-1 as Phoenix collapsed outside and started having seizures. Forrest drove his own car to the hospital, but Phoenix was declared dead shortly after arrival. 

Unreleased and unfilmed projects

River's sudden death prevented him from playing various roles for which he had already been cast:
*Phoenix was due to begin work on Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) two weeks after his death. He was to play Daniel Molloy, the interviewer, which then went to Christian Slater,  who donated his entire $250,000 salary to two of Phoenix's favorite charitable organizations: Earth Save and Earth Trust.    The film has a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits.
*The Guardian suggested in 2003 "it was likely that Phoenix would have followed [Interview with the Vampire] by appearing as Susan Sarandon's son in Safe Passage" (1994), a role that went to Sean Astin. 
* Phoenix had signed onto the lead role in Broken Dreams, a screenplay written by John Boorman and Neil Jordan (to be directed by Boorman), and co-starring Winona Ryder. The film was put on hold due to Phoenix's death.  In June 2012, it was announced that Caleb Landry Jones had been cast in the role.  
* Gus Van Sant had gotten Phoenix to agree to play the role of Cleve Jones in Milk when he was originally planning on making the movie in the early 1990s. The role was eventually played by Emile Hirsch in 2008. When asked in Interview magazine, "You were going to do a movie with River about Andy Warhol, right?" Van Sant said, "Yeah. River kind of looked like Andy in his younger days. But that project never really went forward." Only first page of four pages archived; Milk comment appears on non-archived page.
*In 1988, Phoenix was reportedly carrying around a copy of the 1978 memoir The Basketball Diaries. He had heard a movie version was in the works and wanted to play the autobiographical role of Jim Carroll. The film was sent into hiatus on numerous occasions with Phoenix being cited as the main contender for the role each time. The Basketball Diaries was made in 1994 with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead.
*He had expressed interest in playing the 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud in Total Eclipse (1995) by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Phoenix died before the movie was cast, with the role eventually going to Leonardo DiCaprio.

Legacy

River Phoenix is one of the most celebrated and influential young actors in the twenty first century.    Every year on October 31, fans pay tribute to the life of the actor. His famous quote "Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on." is frequently mentioned by fans on social media. 
Other male actors who have credited Phoenix as a major influence as well for paving the way for them include Leonardo DiCaprio, Jared Leto,  James Franco,  Dylan O'Brien  Will Peltz  and many more. 

In culture and media

Phoenix's status as a teen idol and promising young actor, and his subsequent premature death, made him a frequent subject in popular culture media. He first gained references in music with Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento writing the song "River Phoenix: Letter to a Young Actor" about him after having seen Phoenix in The Mosquito Coast (1986). The song appears on the 1989 release Miltons. 

Phoenix's friends, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, wrote a few lines for him in their hit song "Give It Away" from the 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik: "There's a River born to be a giver, keep you warm won't let you shiver, his heart is never gonna wither..." Phoenix also appears in the music video for their song, "Breaking the Girl" and following his death, the band paid tribute to him with the song "Transcending" (originally titled "River") on their 1995 album, One Hot Minute. Former Chili Peppers' guitarist, John Frusciante, dedicated the song "Smile From The Streets You Hold" to River Phoenix. Frusciante wrote the first part of the song about their friendship while Phoenix was still alive. After Phoenix's death, Frusciante wrote the second part in his memory.

Phoenix has been the subject of numerous other tributes in song and other media. The band R.E.M. dedicated their album Monster to Phoenix (as Michael Stipe and Phoenix were close friends), and their song "E-Bow the Letter" from 1996's New Adventures in Hi-Fi is said to have been written from a letter Michael Stipe wrote to Phoenix but never sent because of the actor's death. River Phoenix is referenced in the song "Sacred Life" from the eponymous album by the British band The Cult: "River Phoenix was so young, Don't you know your prince has gone?"

Ex-10000 Maniacs singer Natalie Merchant wrote and recorded a memorably controversial song, simply named "River", featured on her 1995 solo album Tigerlily (Elektra). While she deplores this tragic death of a "Young & strong Hollywood son" who was "one of ours", she criticizes strongly the excesses of the people's "vulture's candor" and the media's greedy attention to the event and adds: "Why don't you let him be… /Give his father & his mother peace", as well as: "It's only a tragedy", ending with the real question behind it: "How could we save him / From himself?" Thus she went far beyond the straight eulogy that most songs and writings about River Phoenix's passing were at the time it happened.
 
Musician Sam Phillips has the dedication "For River" on her album Martinis & Bikinis. Other songs inspired by Phoenix include Dana Lyons' "Song For River Phoenix (If I Had Known)", Grant Lee Buffalo's "Halloween",× Ellis Paul's song "River", found on his 1994 release Stories,  Rufus Wainwright's "Matinee Idol", Nada Surf's "River Phoenix" and Stereophonics's "Chris Chambers".

In her 1996 album Woman & a Man, Belinda Carlisle referenced River in the song "California". The song opens and closes with the line "I remember I was in a tanning salon, when I heard that River Phoenix was gone." In Jay-Z's album, Kingdom Come, the lyrics of "Hollywood" list him as one of the many fatalities of the pressures of Hollywood. New York band Japanther featured a song on their album Skuffed Up My Huffy (2008) entitled "River Phoenix", which is about certain events in his life and delivers the chorus "River Phoenix didn't mean it". In the song "The Viper Room", Wesley Willis takes an abrupt turn from an otherwise glowing account of the club by noting Phoenix's death, stating that he "...collapsed and died like a Doberman." On his 2013 album Not Thinking Straight, British recording artist Matt Fishel referenced Phoenix in the song "When Boy Meets Boy". Its lyrics portray a bedroom in which the walls are "covered in posters of idols and rock stars who had died too young" and the song's third verse contains the line "I paid tribute with a little wink to River Phoenix hanging on the wall".  In the song's accompanying music video, an animated poster of Phoenix hangs on a wall next to Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury and Kurt Cobain. 

Gus Van Sant, with whom Phoenix worked in the film My Own Private Idaho, dedicated his 1994 movie Even Cowgirls Get the Blues as well as his 1997 novel Pink to him. Experimental Santa Cruz filmmaker Cam Archer also produced a documentary called Drowning River Phoenix as part of his American Fame series.  During performances on November 13  and November 15, 1993,  and February 12, 1994,  and one of Nirvana's last USA shows in Seattle on January 7, 1994,  Kurt Cobain of Nirvana dedicated the song "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" to Phoenix (among other celebrities who died young), just a few months before Cobain's death. Tom Petty dedicated "Ballad of Easy Rider" to Phoenix when he played in his and Phoenix's hometown of Gainesville, Florida in November 1993.

The British band Manic Street Preachers mentions River in their song "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart" (from the album The Holy Bible, 1994) in the following line: "...I'm thinking right now of Hollywood tragedy; Big Mac; smack; Phoenix, R; please smile y'all..." Phoenix was the subject of a controversial song by Australian group TISM titled "(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River" the single originally featured a mock-up of Phoenix's tombstone as its cover art in 1995. The chorus features the line, "I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix."  On the song "Love Me, Hate Me" by rapper Ja Rule, he numerates different ways he could die as a celebrity, and one of the lyrics says "I might OD in a club off drugs like River Phoenix". In the 1997 musical, The Fix, Phoenix is alluded to in the song "Mistress of Deception" in the lines, "Hot young actor died last night at an L.A. club/Ecstasy and booze/And too much NyQuil/Had the sweetest face/Warm and shy and innocent/Sexy in that careless kinda way/The newsman said his heart just stopped like that..." The Hugh Cornwell song "Rain on the River" from his 2009 album Hooverdam is directly about the death of Phoenix, as his sister Rain sits over her dying brother on the sidewalk outside The Viper Room. 

A lesser known reference to River Phoenix was Final Fantasy VIII main protagonist Squall Leonhart. Tetsuya Nomura, the lead character designer for the game, stated he modeled Squall on River's visage during development, and even gave Squall the same birthdate. 

The scene of Phoenix's death also merits several mentions in William Gibson's book Spook Country.

The song "River, Run" by the band Suddenly, Tammy! from their record We Get There When We Do was written about him.

Honors and rankings

Phoenix has been ranked numerous times on a number of lists recognizing his talent and career. He was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1986" in "John Willis' Screen World" (2004). Phoenix was voted at No. 64 on a "Greatest Movie Stars of All Time" poll by Channel 4 television in the UK. The poll was made up wholly of votes from prominent figures of the acting and directing communities. He was ranked No. 86 in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997.

His life and death has been the subject of an E! True Hollywood Story, an A&E Biography and an episode of Final 24, which contains a dramatic reconstruction of his final hours and death. He was also referred to as "This century's James Dean" in episode 10 ("Mi Casa, Su Casa Loma") of the first season of Being Erica. His death was listed as No. 16 in the top 101 events in E! Television's "101 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment". In 2010, Phoenix was voted by GQ Magazine as one of the "50 Most Stylish Men of the Past Half Century".

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos
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