‘STAND BY ME’ RELEASED IN 1986

Rob Reiner’s coming-of-age film “Stand By Me” was put into wide release by Columbia Pictures 35 years ago today. The film starred a young actor named River Phoenix who spoke to movie critic David Elliott about from his family’s home in Rancho Santa Fe.

From The San Diego Union, Friday, Aug. 22, 1986

‘Stand By Me’ separates teens from boys

River Phoenix flows naturally into an entertainment career

By David Elliott, Movie Critic

With a name like River Phoenix, what’s a boy to do but wander? Which, as the young star of “Stand By Me” affirms, is the only life for him ...

“My family kept traveling, living out of a VW van. We’ve been all over. Florida. Mexico. South America. My parents are like flower child gypsies. With a big family there wasn’t always a lot of money, but I never felt lonely, or deprived. I know some kids wouldn’t love moving around so much, but I do. My life has been so unpredictable, so spontaneous.”

Currently the young Phoenixes -- River, brother Leaf, sisters Rainbow, Summer and Sunshine -- have “decamped” for a while in their new North County home with parents John and Arlen, the flower-kids-turnedtumbleweeds who also manage their talented brood’s careers. With such a background,

the roving life of an actor has been made to order for Phoenix. But like many 16-year-old boys, he set out “to become a rock star. That’s still my goal.”

In the meantime, his acting is a key strength in “Stand By Me,” Robb Reiner’s film of a Stephen King story. The sturdy, blond and quietly self-possessed River plays Chris, a boy from a busted home who rallies under duress to become a sort of father to one of his four chums on a long night’s adventure, set in Oregon in 1959.

“I made up Chris’ background in my mind, so I knew what he was thinking,” says the actor. “And we listened to tapes of ‘50s songs, and talked in that ‘50s style even off the set. Staying with it. It was fun, though the hard stuff is never the technical things, it’s finding those real personal feelings ... When I see the movie, I see so much I could have done better.”

River’s mature outlook was clearly shown, after a successful preview of the film to the Cinema Society of San Diego, when he responded to a viewer’s disgruntled question about the “naked bodies” in some current youth films with a wonderfully direct, “What’s wrong with naked bodies?”

Later, for this interview, the young star amplified: “My mom and dad had a lot to do with who I am. I guess they’re children of the ‘60s, which is why we all have nature names. And certain ideas.”

River was “born in a log cabin in Oregon,” and further down the winding road he and his siblings began “performing, at first on the street, doing our own songs. We were cute kids, but we weren’t great, not professional singers. Dad said we were a novelty. I still want to be a singer but it’s a lot harder for a kid to get into than acting, much more competitive.”

His mother was “a secretary at NBC for a while, then got into casting. That led me to getting an agent. And that led to commercials. I hate TV commercials, because I can’t stand to be phony. You paste on a smile, or cry for no reason. It’s just stupid. But I had to start there, then I got into the TV show ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,’ and we did 22 episodes.”

The rest is show biz: an NBC miniseries (“Celebrity”), an ABC Afterschool Special on dyslexia, a bit job as Robert Kennedy Jr. on a CBS miniseries, the ABC movie “Surviving,” another bit as geometry tutor on “Family Ties.” He knows about tutors, having left school years ago for scheduling like this...

“After ‘Surviving,’ two years ago, I flew to Northern California for another job, then had a few weeks off and got into the pilot of a remake of ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ And then came ‘Stand By Me.’ Then I went into ‘The Mosquito Coast.’ Now I’m doing publicity for ‘Stand By Me,’ and then the ‘Mosquito Coast’ promotion, and next month I start a film in Chicago called ‘Jimmy Reardon.’ I don’t think I will be going to college. I want to keep moving, seeing the world.”

As the son of Harrison Ford in the new Peter Weir film of Paul Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast,” filmed in tropical Belize, River overcame some of his youthful cynicism about big-name stars:

“A lot of stars, they’re just stars. The way some of them act makes me sick. I really don’t like the jerks. But Harrison Ford is cool, he just sits down and talks to you. Of course I was nervous at first. You think he’s this big action star, but at the audition he was dressed like a real conservative businessman, which kind of threw me. But we hung out a little in L.A. together before the filming, and it was great. He has a dry sense of humor, kind of sarcastic, but he was like a father to me.”