COURTNEY, WINONA, RIVER & ROBERT DOWNEY, JR.: "THEIR HIPPIE PARENTS SMOKED THEM"

Courtney Love, the rock widow from Spaceland. Winona Ryder, the adorable thespian kleptomaniac with a nasty prescription pill problem. River Phoenix, the shy vegan who loved PETA and heroin. Robert Downey, Jr., the junkie acting genius who chose state prison over Malibu.

What do they all have in common?

Hippie parents who screwed up their kids with their trip.

Brought up in hippie communes in Oregon, COURTNEY’s father allegedly gave her LSD when she was 4. Her mother then chose four awful husbands. No wonder a pissed off, acting out Courtney spent much of her adolescence in juvenile jails. She used a trust fund from her grandmother to run away to Europe and Asia as a teen. She began collecting rocker boyfriends and stripping in sleazy clubs. And thus commenced her drug addled trip through life and dicey behavior. An excellent, but not famous musician, she soared to Yoko Ono status when she married Kurt Cobain. She displayed her maternal instincts and level of judgment by continuing to shoot up heroin in the early months of her pregnancy.

WINONA’s parents were communal hippies and she grew up on a commune in Northern California, the goddaughter of LSD guru Timothy Leary. The ex-Harvard professor sounded the charge for the emerging drug culture: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” One can only imagine the drug trips taken in the dirt poor commune. Winona lived on the isolated, rural property with no electricity or TV or a flush toilet. They say poverty leaves an indelible scar on the soul. No amount of money and fame can erase that insecurity. This might explain Winona’s shoplifting binge at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Her counter-culture icon godfather might explain the 37 prescriptions filled by 20 doctors, with Winona using 6 aliases, that were found in her purse by the arresting officers.

Courtney and Winona are best friends.

RIVER PHOENIX’s parents lived in hippie communes before joining the heinous Children of God cult. The missionary family lived in abject poverty, begging for money all across Latin America. River, his brother Joaquin and their other siblings sang and performed on street corners for food. The family were vegetarians, believing that eating animals was wrong. However, devouring children’s bodies and souls through a sexual initiation into the Children of God cult was not wrong. It was de rigueur. River said that he had intercourse at age 4. He continued sexual relations with other children until he was 10, when his parents left the cult to move to Hollywood. In his quest for an enlightened lifestyle, it is no mystery why River saw no paradox in eschewing meat and then injecting heroin.

The artsy fartsy, hippie parents of ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. didn’t do him any favors either. His underground director father gave Robert his first movie role at age 5 in his movie “Pound”. At age 7 dad gave him his first joint. Father & son reached a cannabis high together. How’s that for a heartwarming bonding experience? Dad later kicked a cocaine addiction, while Sean Penn kicked down Junior’s door to drag him onto a plane to a rehab clinic. If you look up “functioning addict” in the dictionary, you’ll probably see Robert Downey, Jr.’s picture. He maintained his stellar acting career, receiving an Oscar nomination for “Chaplin”, all the while dancing around the open grave of addiction. After countless court-ordered rehabs and many arrests for possession of heroin, crack, cocaine and marijuana, the judge finally decided on the ultimate Tough Love lesson. His Honor threw Junior’s ass into state prison. Even though Downey had three hit movies in theaters at the time, the inmates didn’t get the memo on star treatment and how to coddle a celebrity. They kicked Mr. Movie Star’s butt on the tier, in the yard and in the shower. He emerged from prison a year later, sober as a judge. NOT. He had yet another arrest months later. Recently, it appears he’s been zapped with real sobriety at long last. If forgiveness is the key to AA serenity, then it’s an odds on bet Robert Senior will be getting a mushy Father’s Day card this year.

Perhaps the hippest thing to do for your kids is to be an unhip parent.

(c)2006, Sistarrs International