Kiefer Sutherland Shares Heartwarming 'Stand By Me' Story About River Phoenix
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Kiefer Sutherland thinks he knows how “Stand by Me” came to be titled.
The “24” star appeared on “The Tonight Show” Friday and shed some light on the matter, as he portrayed one of the baddies in the cult classic coming-of-age drama, which also starred Corey Feldman and River Phoenix — before the latter’s untimely death at 23.
“We were making ‘Stand by Me,’ which was a Stephen King short story called ‘The Body,’ and River Phoenix was learning guitar and playing guitar and he was actually very, very good,” he told Jimmy Fallon about the making of Rob Reiner’s iconic 1986 film.
“And I was playing ‘Stand by Me’ and singing that song, and he said, ‘Oh, I love the melody of that song,’ and he hadn’t heard it before,” added Sutherland. “So I was teaching it to him and Rob Reiner walked by and said, ‘Oh, I haven’t heard that song for a long time, I love it.’”
“And then that was the end of that discussion.”
Reiner, of course, went on to title the film “Stand by Me.” While he isn’t completely certain the reason why, Sutherland told Fallon that the enthusiasm around the song “was part of that conversation.” The film included the eponymous 1961 Ben E. King track to memorable effect.
The movie remains most remembered, however, for the relatable camaraderie among the four leads, which included Wil Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell alongside Feldman and Phoenix, as they set off on an unexpected adventure after finding the dead body.
Phoenix died of an overdose outside of the Viper Room nightclub in Los Angeles in 1993.
Jerry O'Connell, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton and Corey Feldman in "Stand By Me" (1986).
“He was a year older than the rest of the boys and I think it made a pretty significant difference,” Sutherland told The Guardian of Phoenix in 2021. “When the others were doing age-appropriate things, River was asking questions like, ‘Would you mind running lines with me?’”
“He saw me playing guitar and asked, ‘What song is that? Would you teach me?’” Sutherland continued. “His desire to get to the next level was so evident that you knew was going to do something special.”
The film was made on a budget of $8 million and grossed more than $52 million. It essentially launched all four leads into stardom — with Phoenix later starring opposite Harrison Ford in “The Mosquito Coast” (1986) and “The Last Crusade” (1989).
“He played my son once,” Ford told The New York Times after Phoenix’s death, “and I came to love him like a son, and was proud to watch him grow into a man of such talent and integrity and compassion.”
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