River Phoenix would have been celebrating his 46th Birthday today. 29 years after his untimely death after making 24 movies, he is still regarded as  one of the most celebrated and influential young actors in the twenty first century. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Running on Empty (1988), it was his role  playing a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother in Gus Van Sant’s groundbreaking  My Own Private Idaho (1991) (for which he won  his second Oscar nomination) that he is still revered for.

Happy Birthday River Phoenix