River Phoenix: young DiCaprio's idol ?

I have just discovered River Phoenix (I was born three months after he died), I have watched his most important films already and I could not help noticing his raw talent from a young age (Oscar nomination at 19!!), and also his physical resemblance with young Leonardo DiCaprio (who is my favorite actor to this day - and DiCaprio's first Oscar nomination was when he was 20). I am going through a bit of an obsessive phase with River at the moment and I remember having read on a website that River could have starred in Titanic as Jack and that River was DiCaprio's role model when he was a teenager. I mean, DiCaprio rocked River's hairstyle for a good few years in the 90s and he was obviously influenced by River's acting - some had said that DiCaprio's portrayal of a drug addict in The Basketball Diaries was done after River's performance in My Own Private Idaho, and also with River's death on his mind and in his loving memory. Others had said that if River had lived, he would have competed with DiCaprio for Oscar nominations and that he would have supposedly starred in great movies and roles that were given to other great actors after his death.

Could anyone confirm this? What do you think?

It is indeed extremely sad that a remarkably talented actor had passed away at an extremely young age, also bearing in mind that River was part of a golden generation of actors, as opposed to nowadays' meaningless 'blockbusters generation'! I will be 23 next month and I could not imagine losing my life before it's even begun properly.