“Everything I have in my life is because of Rob Reiner ... my children, my wife, my, just everything.”
Feldman said Reiner was a “surrogate father” to him and Phoenix in particular.
River Phoenix, who received rave reviews for his performance as Chris Chambers, died in 1993, at age 23 of combined drug intoxication.
“It’s the worst thing I could imagine. … Accepting that fact that this could have happened in his home from his own son, it sent shivers and chills down all of us," Feldman said in an ABC News special last week.
Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were found dead in their Los Angeles home last Sunday, December 14 with apparent stab wounds.
Their son Nick, 32, was arrested hours after their bodies were found and charged with two counts of murder. If convicted, he could face a life sentence without parole or the death penalty, US Weekly reported.
In an interview with CBS Mornings, O’Connell described Reiner’s nurturing directing style.
While preparing to shoot one day, O’Connell started to ad-lib and get into character, when suddenly Reiner yelled “Cut!” and came over to him.
O’Connell became scared and thought he would be told off for being disorderly - he remembered being constantly chastised by his mother for being hyperactive.
Instead, Reiner said, “Jerry, keep going man, that’s what I’m talking about right there, keep going, more”.
“The world knows Rob as a generational talent, a storyteller and humanitarian activist who made a difference with his art, his voice, and his influence,” Wheaton wrote in a blog post.
“I knew that man, but I also knew a man who treated me with more kindness, care, and love than my own father ever did.
“And it is the loss of that man that is piercing my heart right now.”
Stand By Me will mark its 40th anniversary next year.
