If River Phoenix had never died, would Leonardo DiCaprio's career be the same?

An interesting idea: what if River becomes Jack in Titanic?

Last night, on a Saturday evening at about 12:21am, I was reading the Wikipedia for River Phoenix (what else would one possibly be doing at that time?). I came across two things I didn't know (well, way more than that -- like how close River Phoenix and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers are -- but two for the purposes of this post):

• River had been intere…