Summer Joy Phoenix (born December 10, 1978) is an American actress and model.
Phoenix has appeared in several artistic / indie movies, including Wasted, The Laramie Project, Esther Kahn, SLC Punk!, Dinner Rush, and The Faculty. She has also had guest roles on many television shows, including ER, Growing Pains, Murder, She Wrote, and Airwolf.
Not content with being a musician and a film actress, Phoenix has also trodden the boards in London, appearing in This is Our Youth for the 2002 run at the Garrick Theatre with Matt Damon and future husband Casey Affleck. She has also performed with Clea DuVall (in the movie The Faculty as the girl shouting "Fuck you" and slapping to her boyfriend many times, the boyfriend being Jon Abrahams (Scary Movie).
Phoenix was born in Winter Park, Florida. Her mother, Arlyn Sharon (née Dunetz), was born in the Bronx, New York to Jewish parents from Hungary and Russia. Her father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California. In 1968, Phoenix's mother left her family and moved to California, meeting Phoenix's father while hitch-hiking. They married in 1969 and joined the religious cult the Children of God, working as missionaries and fruit pickers in South America. Phoenix has four siblings: two brothers, actors Joaquin and the late River, and two sisters, Rain and Liberty.
Phoenix attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, but left before graduating to pursue a career in film.
A vegan since birth, Phoenix is an avid supporter of several environmental and animal rights causes and charities, including PETA. Phoenix owns the vintage clothing boutique in Manhattan, NY and in Los Angeles, CA called "Some Odd Rubies" with friends Odessa Whitmire and Ruby Canner.
Phoenix became engaged to Casey Affleck on December 25, 2003, and gave birth to a son, Indiana August, on May 31, 2004, in Amsterdam. Phoenix and Affleck married on June 3, 2006 in Savannah, Georgia. They welcomed their second son, Atticus , on January 12 2008, .
