Joaquin Phoenix

Phoenix is a strict vegan, and will not wear costumes made from animal products. His last role was in Soylent Green (1973). Night Shyamalan's Signs, and stoic Lucius Hunt in Shyamalan's The Village. in sum, a Renaissance man"; sadly, he died two months prior to its formal presentation. He portrayed a troubled teen in Gus Van Sant's To Die For, and has earned positive reviews for adult roles as Commodus in Gladiator (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), a priest in Quills, washed-up baseball player Merrill Hess in M. Never nominated for an Academy Award, in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts, and a dedicated citizen .. He changed his name from "Leaf" back to his birth name "Joaquin". That same year he returned to Broadway in "Middle of the Night".

Joaquin was reluctant to re-enter the world of acting again but, he did so at the insistence of his friends. In 1956 he had to sell off his large art collection for $3.25 million as part of his divorce settlement with Lloyd. Joaquin came back to the public light under tragic circumstances—he was the person that dialled 9-1-1 when his brother River suffered a fatal drug overdose outside Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room. In the 1950s he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he was cleared of all suspicion. He made his big screen debut in the interstellar romp Space Camp (1986), and his first starring role in the drama Russkies (1987), and went on to establish himself as a child actor in Parenthood (1989), before deciding to withdraw from acting for a while and move to Mexico with his father. He was a popular box-office draw and was able to avoid flops. Joaquin's first acting stints were guest appearances on two television shows with his brother River, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1982) and Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia (1984). Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), he expanded into edgy psychological dramas including Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945); but he continued to accept gangster roles such as that of Johnny Rocco in the classic Key Largo (1948), one of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart.

His parents contracted an agent who eventually got the five children on commercial spots. In the 1940s, after a good performance in Dr. His mother started working as a secretary for NBC and his father became a landscaper. A sensational performance as the gangster Rico Bandello in Little Caesar (1930) led to him being typecast as a 'tough' for much of his early career in works such as Five Star Final (1931), Tiger Shark (1932), Kid Galahad and A Slight Case of Murder (1938). The family moved to Los Angeles when Joaquin was 6 years old. He married the actress Gladys Lloyd in 1927. Since his other siblings changed their names to match their earth monikers, "River"; "Rain" (or "Rainbow"); "Liberty" and "Summer", Joaquin followed and changed his name to "Leaf". One of many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era rather than falter, he made only three films prior to 1930 but left his stage career that year and made fourteen films in 1930-32.