Out on an innocent walk on Father’s Day, I bumped into The Viper Room, the nightclub that is best known, sadly, for hosting River Phoenix’s death. Sigh.
Phoenix’s career was brief, but remarkable. His breakthrough film was “Stand by Me” (1986).
And oh boy, he had a knack for being paired with great talent: with Ethan Hawke in “Explorers” (1985), with Keanu Reeves in “My Own Private Idaho” (1991), with Harrison Ford in both “The Mosquito Coast” (1986) and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989), with Sidney Poitier in “Little Nikita” (1988), and with Robert Redford in “Sneakers” (1992).
But it was the pairing of cocaine and heroin (a speedball) that killed him here on Sunset Boulevard at age 23.
A bouncer escorted Phoenix outside the club, he instantly dropped to the ground, started going into convulsions, and died.
Heartbreaking.
Standing at that very place was unsettling. Yet the moment felt familiar. What was it?
63 Bank Street
Then I remembered – my walk, two years ago, during the pandemic, to 63 Bank Street in New York City.
63 Bank Street is where Sid Vicious was found dead of a heroin overdose on February 1, 1979. 21 years after being born John Simon Ritchie in London.
Things had not been going well for Sid.
To say the least.
The Sex Pistols had broken up, in great part because of Sid’s and his girlfriend’s (Nancy Spungen) volatile and drug-driven relationship.
And the band’s supposed drummer was off reading E.B. White essays (recall this post).
Then Spungen was found dead—in her and Sid’s room at the Chelsea Hotel, killed by a stab inflicted by a knife bought by Sid.
Did he stab her?
Did she fall on the knife? Did a robber grab the knife in the spur of the moment?
(The killing was never solved because of, well, what happened at 63 Bank Street.)
Anyway, Sid was charged with his girlfriend’s murder and sent to prison.
There he slit his wrists, but lived.
Nancy and Sid
He soon got out on bail. But then he attacked Patti Smith’s brother with a broken bottle, and two months later Sid was back in jail.
After completing a rehab program, Sid was again released on bail, and went directly to a “welcome back” party at 63 Bank Street.
Sid was now clean. At last!
But then his loving mother sent a gift over to the party—a large pack of 80% pure heroin.
And Sid was found dead of an overdose the next morning. Heartbreaking.
Sid’s mum, and Sid.
I continued walking along Sunset Boulevard.
Today is Father’s Day, my first ever in Los Angeles, and I’m thinking about my wonderful dad, my terrific kids (recall this post), and the challenges of parenting.
OK, I’m far from a perfect father, and my mother once gave me one slice too many of her homemade apple pie, but Sid’s mother!
Enough….
PS: I know a guy (did it!), who once took a photo of Sally.
So for those of you who only read this far hoping to see a photo of Sally, here you go.
