Matthew Perry, ‘Friends Star, Dead At 54
Matthew Perry, who played the charming and friendly Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends , died Saturday at age 54, law enforcement sources confirmed to Rolling Stone . A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said police "responded to an investigation into the death of a man in his 50s at 4:10 a.m. today." While an official cause of death has not yet been released, authorities said Perry apparently drowned at his Los Angeles home.
Although Perry is best known for her role on Friends , she has appeared in other television shows, including Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , The Good Wife and The Odd Couple , as well as comedies such as Fools Rush ", "Full Movies". includes Nine ...Yards , Three to Tango , Baby and many more.
But it was Chandler Bing, whom he played for over 10 seasons and over 200 episodes, who won the love of fans. (Phrases like “Can I be more [insert joke here]?” have inspired countless video montages and quotes.) Along with a supporting cast including Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc, she plays his character. . , enhancing his hilarious and sarcastic lines with facial expressions that almost broke his character but added to his charm.
In some ways, this was intentional, as he told Dateline in 2004: "( The Friends creator ) invited us all to lunch separately and said, 'Tell us about yourself.' And I remember saying two things: "I'm not a great person, but I'm terrible towards women... This is a character we've never seen before." And I don't like silence either. At any awkward moment or any silence, I have to break it with a joke.” What character would be suitable for a sitcom? "It's a natural reason to be funny."
“Matthew was an incredibly generous actor. I had never been on stage with him and was inspired by his genius,” Maggie Wheeler, the actress who plays Perry’s girlfriend Janice Horalnik, said in a statement. “Even its darkness. Plus, his comedic timing was impeccable at times. Matthew suffered terribly when he presented his book to the world. I hope he remains calm during this ordeal. He passed away too soon and will be missed, as will all who loved and knew him during his lifetime. To my beloved Chandler Bing.
The series Friends has been a real success and is one of the most popular shows of all time. The series was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards and won Outstanding Comedy Series in its eighth season in 2002, when it rose to number one in the television ratings after consistently placing in the top ten. About 53 people watched the series finale. millions of viewers, making it the most watched episode in years.
The series was included in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, with writer Alan Sepinwall noting that "all the elements came together in just the right proportions to create such a touching show" that was embraced by young audiences. . Chandler's generation. "I think there is some misunderstanding and no scope for the joke in this episode of Three's Company .
Although Perry's comedic side made her famous and popular among her friends , her personal life was dark and serious: she suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction, including painkillers. He spent several stints in rehab, including as a cast member of Friends .
Perry talks candidly about her struggles in her memoir , Friends, Lovers and the Big Bad , published last fall. The memoir, which spans his life from childhood to fame with his friends and subsequent sobriety, became a hit upon its release, topping Amazon's nonfiction best-seller list. His unusual view of his addiction was revealed in the following sentence: “Hello, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should have died," and later admitted to taking 55 Vicodin a day while filming the third season of Friends.
In one paragraph, he said he was going to appear opposite Meryl Streep in Don't Look Up , but was forced to leave the film due to a health scare after suffering a five-minute cardiac arrest and suffering a broken rib during his resuscitation. .
“The injection was given at 11:00,” he wrote. “I woke up eleven hours later in another hospital. Apparently propofol stopped my heart. within five minutes. It wasn’t a heart attack, I didn’t fall, but nothing was beating. I was told that the big Swiss guy really didn't want my friend's boyfriend to die at his table, and he performed CPR on me for a full five minutes, punching and punching me in the chest. If you weren't on Friends , would you stop after three minutes? Did my friends save my life again? He added: “He may have saved my life, but he also broke eight of my ribs.”
Perry was born on August 19, 1969 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the son of Suzanne Morrison, a Canadian journalist who worked as press secretary for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and American actor John Perry. His parents divorced before he was a year old, and his mother married Canadian television presenter Keith Morrison.
Perry grew up in Canada and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 15 to pursue an acting career. He focused on improvisational comedy, which he studied at the Sherman Oaks school LA Connection while in high school.
His first role was in the television series Second Chance (later titled Boys Will Be Boys ), and his big screen debut was in the 1988 film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon . He starred in some of the era's biggest sitcoms, including Growing Pains and Beverly Hills 90210, and co-starred with his love Valerie Bertinelli in the short-lived Sydney . When he was cast as Chandler Bing on Friends , he was the youngest in the cast, at 24 years old.
When Friends officially ended in May 2004, fans demanded a reboot, which was often rumored but unplanned. In 2017, Perry told Variety : "I have nightmares from time to time, I'm not kidding. When I sleep, I have a nightmare: we are friends again, and no one cares. We do a whole episode, come back, and no one cares. Therefore, if anyone asks me, I will answer. The point is that we were at the top. We can't defeat him. Why would we do this again? However, four years later, she joined her co-stars in the HBO Max special Friends: Reunion in May 2021.
After Friends , Perry made her directorial debut in the film Scrubs , in which she starred. He was also nominated for Emmy Awards for his roles in The West Wing and The Ron Clark Story, which also earned him a Golden Globe nomination. From 2015 to 2017, he produced, co-wrote and executive produced the reboot of The Odd Couple , in which he played Oscar Madison.
And while Perry's accomplishments during his more than three-decade career extend beyond his tenure as Chandler Bing, the enduring bond he formed lives up to the show's namesake, a sincerity that has kept the beloved comedy alive nearly 20 years after its end.
“The only way to describe it is when one of us bumped into the other after a performance, at a party or other social event. That was the end of the night,” Perry said emotionally on the reunion show . “You sat with a man all night. That's all. You apologize to the people you were with, but they need to understand: you met someone. special and you want to talk to them for the rest of the night. And here's how it works: "It's definitely how we all work together, it's just happenstance."
