ShortHand: The Viper Room & The Death of River Phoenix

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Hello.

Sorry, hello.

And welcome to another episode of Shorthand.

On the 30th of October.

The day after my birthday, 1993.

River Phoenix crashed onto the pavement outside Johnny Depp's sunset boulevard bar,

the Viper Room, and started convulsing wildly.

The world knew Phoenix as a clean cart vegan, and at 23 years old,

already one of the biggest stars of the past decade.

Yet here he was, dying on the street,

having snorted a lethal combination of cocaine and heroin known as speedball.

River Phoenix died before the paramedics even arrived.

Following his death, rumours swirled about exactly what happened that night.

Who sold this former teen idol, a fatal dose of Class A drugs?

Why did nobody call for an ambulance sooner?

And what happened to Johnny Depp's infamous den of inequity?

This is the Shorthand.

Before we can get into how River Phoenix ended up at the Viper Room,

we need to talk about how the Viper Room ended up at 8852 Sunset Boulevard.

The building that became Johnny Depp's infamous bar actually started out as a green gracer in the 1920s.

For decades, Sunset Boulevard had been a relatively sleepy three-road in L.A. County

that connected a few local farms.

However, by the end of the 1920s, Sunset began to change, fast,

and that all had to do with what lay at one end of it, Hollywood.

What was once a dusty track used predominantly by farmers became a key avenue

in and out of La La Land, and the money that came with it.

So, the Sunset Strip was born.

The Strip is a roughly two-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard,

so back then sat in a bit of a legal grey area.

It was close enough to the Hollywood Hills and the city of Los Angeles to be frequented

by the rich and famous, but it was also far enough away that it was technically part of

Los Angeles County, and as a result was not under the jurisdiction of the LAPD.

This meant that the Strip was the perfect place for bars, clubs, and casinos to operate

without the watchful eye of LAPD.

Especially during prohibition.

So through the 30s, the newly paved highway started to be home to some of the finest,

most raucous drinking establishments any self-respecting Hollywood star could hope to attend.

By June 1946, 8852 Sunset had already become a precursor to the

the den of inequity it would later be.

It was called the Cotton Club, after an infamous New York nightclub of the same name,

and along with the rest of the Strip it played host to some of America's most infamous gangsters.

Illegal gambling, sex work, and drugs were rife,

with gangsters like Bugsy Seagull and Mickey Cohen acting as de facto kings of the Strip.

And during this time, what would later become the Viper Room went through several rebrands,

first as an inn, and then as a Strip Club, which was notorious for offering discrete services

to some of Hollywood's biggest names.

Eventually in 1951, the law caught up with the Strip, and it's many less than legal establishments.

So 8852 Sunset Boulevard rebranded again, this time becoming the Melody Room,

a jazz lounge that hosted such 50s famous icons as Billy Ward, Bobby Troop, and Cesar Romero.

Despite the tighter restrictions, it still maintained a reputation as a

buzzy hangout for the rich and famous. And for 18 years, the Melody Room was the hippest jazz

joint in town. Then in 1973, the Melody Room got a new owner. His name?

Filthy McNasty. Mr McNasty was an LA music stalwart, who co-owned the local radio station.

And he rebranded the bar under his own name, uping the exclusivity and banning photography

anywhere in the building. As a well-respected LA disc jockey, McNasty was able to pull in big names.

And there are reports of Mick Jacker, evil carnival, John Wayne, and even Elvis Presley himself

joining the party. Quickly, Filthy McNasty's became an LA institution.

Somewhere the rich and famous could go to listen to the best rock and roll in town,

or without the threat of cameras or journalists. It was a hub of emerging talent and established

acts. Somewhere Elvis might rub shoulders with a homeless street performer, and everyone was treated

the same. By the time Johnny Depp purchased a park stake in the bar in 1993, it had rebranded as

the central. But the reputation for being your favourite band's favourite bar had remained

throughout the decades. Depp and his co-owners gave it yet another new name, the Viper Room.

But otherwise, they kept everything else basically the same.

All the while Depp had used his star-powered to make sure its clientele stayed as star-studded

as ever. Through a carefully curated guest list, the bar promised celebrities that they could

come and watch gigs by Tom Petty, Oasis, Green Day, Johnny Cash, The Strokes, and Countless

others all while feeling they were just normal people at a normal bar.

It's just just where it skies and go to an actual normal bar, like the rest of us ship

mongers have to go to and watch a random person doing an open mic with the guitar they can't

properly play. And also just like, where? Like, what a problem that needed solving. Thank God

for Johnny Depp. In other words, the Viper Room was a space for the rich and the famous to come

together and sing imagine, and cosplay as if they were living some kind of bohemian dream where

everyone was talented and nobody cared who you were, but you still got to keep all of your money.

And yeah, just the fact that they're like, I just want to go watch some live music like a normal

person, but you're seeing like the best bands in the world. Yeah, right, yeah. Super normal.

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of my clothes wear out after less than a year of wearing them. So now if it's not well made

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and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash red handed. Unsurprisingly the Viper Room was LA's worst kept

secret. After likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Uma Thurman and Jennifer Aniston were spotted leaving.

Everyone wanted a piece. So if you were a 23 year old actor trying to convince the world that you

were also a serious musician while trying to impress your mates, it was Hollywood catnip.

Enter River Phoenix. Those of you two young to remember River Phoenix, he was the hottest of hot

young things in the early 90s. Born River Jude bottom. I didn't know that. On the 23rd of August 1970,

River was the first child of John and Arlen bottom, who themselves were children of God.

And not in the sense that we are all children of God. No, they were part of the Christian cult

founded by David Berg that we have previously discussed on this show. If you haven't, go listen

to our two-parta. Sure, it's a two-parta. Oh, it sure was. On the children of God.

Yeah, it's a lot. If you haven't listened to our episode then go and listen. And also just

take our word for it that it rings serious alarm bells. We're talking a huge scale cult of abuse

involving some of Hollywood's biggest names. But importantly, as part of their mission,

Aron John bottom took themselves and their five children around Central and South America,

spreading the word. Spreading the word of God can provide many things, but a sustainable income

is not one of them. So River and his siblings Rain, Joaquin, Liberty and Summer spent their early

years with No Home, no friends, and not much to eat, which is why Joaquin Phoenix is so good in

that film that's about Scientology, but isn't about Scientology, the master.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Aron Hubbard, but it's the closest anyone's ever got to actually

making a film about what Scientology actually is. But they had to, in order not to get sued into

the fucking ground, make it different enough, but it's very obvious. It's actually a really good

film, I would recommend. And I think the reason Joaquin Phoenix did it is because of children of God.

River often spent his days performing on the street with his younger sister Rain, playing

the guitar and trying to get enough money from passes by to support the family. And this carried

on for years, until River's parents John and Aron started to find themselves increasingly at odds

with what the church has found a David Burg was preaching, which was communal sex, sex with children,

and loads of other fucking horrible stuff. Literal instruction manuals of how to sexually abuse

children is what the children of God were going. True story. As far as anyone knows,

the bottom family never engaged in any of these practices, which could well be true. The thing about

the children of God is that it's kind of the only quote-unquote successful cult where

they weren't all in one place, they really were spread across the world living on various

different compounds. And David Burg managed to control it from the top by never revealing himself,

that's how we got away with it. But unlike a lot of other cults, I do think there were quite a lot

of like pockets of the children of God who didn't sexually abuse their children, but that is what

they were being told to do. Not for one to being told. That's what they should say. Exactly. Right. Quite.

It does seem to have been the catalyst for River's parents to leave, and I can believe it. It was

for a lot of people. What we do know is that John and Aron wanted out for whatever reason. Probably

the child. Probably the child rape, yeah. And they wanted to get back to the USA. So I also

helped from a local non-culti priest called Father Wood. There's a lot of earthy names in this.

Father Wood had a church in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Wood told them that they could have

room and board in exchange for River and his sister rain performing Christian songs as Sunday

service. And it's easy to see why. Not only could River play the guitar, but age seven,

he could already sing the Christophe classics in English, French, and German.

The family stayed with Father Wood for four months. Until eventually he got them space on a cargo

ship heading to Florida. When the bottoms arrived in the USA, they changed their second name to

Phoenix, to symbolise a new beginning, and also because bottoms kind of a shit surname.

Not long after returning to the States, the Phoenix family moved to Hollywood,

and River, who had barely spent a day in school in his whole life, was once again sent back out

to perform to get the family's bread-butted. Only this time it wasn't on street corners,

it was on the silver screen. River's debut was in the 1985 film Explorers, an ET-inspired

Kids Adventure, which also featured a young Ethan Hawke. The film was a bit of a fizzle,

but it was a foot in the door, and in 1986 River got his big break in his second feature film,

stand by me. I always forget that.

The coming of age drama featured a standout performance by River, who aged just 14 was an overnight

sensation, and lauded everywhere, as the next big thing. Yeah, he was a very very good-looking

young man. Oh yeah, very good-looking young man. And he featured on the cover of Teen magazines,

gave interviews, signed autographs, and most importantly, pulled enough money to support his

parents and four siblings. By the time he was 18, River Phoenix had been nominated for an Oscar

for his performance in running on empty. By 20, he was playing young Indiana Jones. By 23,

he was supporting his entire family, as well as allegedly up to 30 paid staff and assorted

hangers on, as well as a also supporting a pretty intense drug habit. Exactly when this drug

habit arrived is up for debate, although it seemed to have coincided with his role as a heroine

using rent boy in the film my own private Idaho. Some sources claim that he explored drugs to

better understand his role, others say that they were offered to him by castmates,

which included flea, the basis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was at the Dodgers stadium

when I was there in L.A. They put him on the big screen. Flea River would go on to have a close

relationship for the rest of River's tragically short life. In fact, Flea was the reason

that River went to the Biper Room on the 30th of October 1993 in the first place.

River had just come back from a few months filming his next big film, Dark Blood, which he'd

taken for the opportunity to work with one of his acting idols, Judy Davis. He'd gone sober for

the film and was hoping that the post of apocalyptic epic directed by George Schlusser

might be a critical success, especially with Davis on board. He even hoped to find himself back

in Oscar contention. Unfortunately, his relationship with Judy Davis wasn't what he had hoped for.

Davis, who was known to be a bit intense, made River's life hell on set. Even the director has

admitted in interviews that Judy Davis was one of the most difficult actors he had ever worked with.

River had spent the next seven weeks increasingly unable to cope with the pressure,

but come the 30th of October, that pressure was gone. They finally finished the bulk of filming,

and at least for the next few weeks, River was free to live his regular life.

So, he headed to L.A., where he stayed in the hotel and hung out with his girlfriend, Samantha

Mathis. Who was and still is a successful actor and trade union leader. On the evening of the 30th,

River and Samantha were joined by his younger siblings, Rain and Wahim. And on top of having his

tightest crew in town, he had another reason to be excited, because that evening his mate Flea

was playing in the Viper Room as part of Johnny Depp's band P. And according to some reports,

River got the impression that he even might be able to join them on stage. River really wanted

his music to be taken seriously. He'd played and sung guitars since childhood, and it always

wanted to be a musician more than he wanted to act. This was going to be big.

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take care of my skin. That's where I've defected to one skin. Their products aren't about

hype or fancy packaging, they're based on real science. One skin's research boffins discovered

OS1, a game-changing peptide that works to slow down the skin's aging process at the source.

Every time I do my new routine, I'm basically deploying a crack squad to repair damaged cells,

support collagen production, and strengthen my skin barrier. Born from over a decade of longevity

research, one skin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you

unlock your healthier skin now as you age. For a limited time, try one skin with 15% off,

using code redhanded at 1skin.co slash red handed. That's 15% off at 1skin.co with code red handed.

After you're purchased, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show

and tell them we sent you. These days, I am all about quality over quantity.

Buy nice over by twice. I've had way too many of my clothes wear out after less than a year

of wearing them. So now, if it's not well made in versatile, it's not coming in. That's honestly

why I love quince. The fabrics feel elevated, the cuts are thoughtful, and crucially, the pricing

actually makes sense. Quince makes high quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics,

like 100% European linen, 100% silk, and organic cotton poplin. These are versatile well-made

pieces that make getting dressed simple, without paying some crazy markup. Quince works directly

with safe ethical factories and cuts out the middle man. So you're not paying for the brand

or for fancy retail stores. You're just paying for quality clothing. Right now, go to quince.com

slash red handed for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear it and love it,

and you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last.

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Not wanting to blow his big break, River stayed sober, and the four of them headed down to the

viper room. When they got there, however, disaster struck. River left his girlfriend and

his siblings in a booth and headed over to the stage with his guitar, but it was bad news.

River would not be playing. Disappointed and embarrassed, River walked away from the stage

and didn't go back to his family. Instead, he went to school. Nobody knows exactly where he found

it, but it can't be that fucking hard. But shortly after his crushing letdown, River Phoenix,

who had been clean for almost two months, took a large combination of cocaine and heroin.

Which, as we said, is known as a speedball.

Speedballing is essentially a drug addict's version of Russian roulette. It combines the ultimate

upper cocaine and the ultimate downer, heroin, creating what's known as drug synergy.

With the effects of the drug, I said to cancel each other out, to create a kind of perfect

high. It's like a really ramped up version of a vodka red ball. Turbo wine, coffee in a cigarette,

or a can of coke and a spliff. Or red wine and a spliff. No, that's that's double down.

Yeah. I think the... But I get up from... I don't get down.

So yeah, the ultimate up-down combat. Except speedballing is a notorious knife edge. Take a little

bit too much of either drug and it'll basically kill you. Just ask Chris Farley, John Belushi,

Philip Seymour Hoffman, to name just a few. Immediately after the speedball hit river system,

things started to go wrong. His heart started racing and he violently threw up.

Some reports even say that he took a volume from someone in the toilets in an attempt to take the

edge off. River spent roughly the next hour crashing around the viper room looking really

unwell. He was slurring his words, vomiting and passing out in the booth with his girlfriend

and siblings. Eventually raided Samantha, decided that River was getting worse and they dragged

him outside to get some air. As soon as he hit the pavement, River Phoenix started seizing.

And it took another five minutes of panic before someone called an ambulance and that someone

was his younger brother, Joaquin.

I'm down. If you can't come down, just inform to somebody else.

There's no one else around.

Okay. I'm fine.

It's probably a weird something. I don't know.

Who's with him right now?

I'm registered with people.

Okay. Can you talk to her for more you are?

I just thought you were trying to get him out to mouth.

Sure. Come down. Tell her not to give him out to mouth.

Don't give him out to mouth.

No, he's only giving him out to mouth if he's not breathing.

What do you do? It just seems like he's sleeping right now.

I just think he's sleeping. Okay.

That's very normal.

Yeah. That's very normal. Sometimes it's the impact.

Sometimes it do actually go to sleep.

It took another four minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

And by that point, River Phoenix's heartbeat was barely there.

The flashing lights of the ambulance brought punters out of the viper room,

including Flea, who crashed through the crowd and begged to come with River in the ambulance.

River Phoenix was pronounced dead at 1.51am on 31st October 1993.

And the world lost a brilliant young actor.

A lot has been made of why nobody called an ambulance for River Sooner,

was Johnny Depp pulling the strings, trying to keep the incident quiet,

so his precious viper room wouldn't get closed down.

In reality, properly not.

On top of the speedball, what really killed River Phoenix was most likely normalisation of drug use,

and his own celebrity status.

There was always someone famous off their face crashing around the viper room.

By this point, it was a big part of why it even existed.

People were used to seeing celebs having a bad time.

And 99 times out of 100, nobody died.

And in truth, people probably were cautious of calling an ambulance,

not because they were worried about the viper room's reputation.

That was already solidified.

Rather, they were worried about rivers.

Who wants to be the guy that calls an ambulance on River Phoenix?

Only for him to sober up on the way to the hospital and have his career ruined.

As for his siblings and his girlfriend, they were just in their late teens in early 20s.

And God knows what they were on, and they probably had no fucking clue on overdose look like.

As for the viper room, did the death of one of Hollywood's golden boys

taint its reputation?

Not really.

Johnny Depp continued to run the viper room until 2004.

It went on to host the likes of a young Paris Hilton, and her then assistant

Kim Kardashian, with her old notes.

In fact, the real reason for Johnny Depp eventually giving up the viper room is a lot

murkier.

In the early 2000s, one of his business partners, Anthony Foxx, accused Depp and the four

other co-owners of trying to defraud the viper room of millions of dollars.

Anthony Foxx went missing with his truck and revolver shortly after.

His truck was found on the 6th of January 2002.

However, neither Foxx nor his body ever turned up.

Eventually, Depp sold his share of the viper room to Anthony Foxx's daughter, Amanda,

in 2004, who herself sold it in 2008.

And that CD story really was the viper room's last hurrah.

As the plot got sold with three other properties to a development company in 2018,

and like everything else in the world, it peaked to become luxury flats.

Well, if you see him walk the line, where Hacking Phoenix plays Johnny Cash.

No, I have him.

Oh, it's so good. It's so good.

And there's a bit in the beginning, Johnny Cash is a boy and his brother dies in like a

like really quite intense like table saw accident.

And there's yeah, it's yeah.

And like, there's a bit where their dad is like crying and he's like, you took the wrong one.

There's only like you took the wrong son.

Yeah.

And I just think it's like really pointing that it's Hacking Phoenix.

Oh, miserable.

Well, there you go, guys.

Go and watch Walk the Line.

Yes.

If you're struggling for something to watch,

if you're like, sitting around like, what should I watch tonight?

Walk the line.

The answer is always walk the line.

Brilliant.

There you go. Don't say we don't give you any.

So we hope you enjoyed that.

We'll see you next week for another short hand.

Bye.

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