Goodbye, Chandler Bing: Friends, family and fans remember Matthew Perry
Family, friends and fellow celebrities on Sunday mourned the loss of Matthew Perry, the wise-cracking co-star of the 1990s hit television sitcom Friends, a day after the actor was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.
“It still seems impossible,” the show’s principle creative team, Marta Kauffman, David Crane and Kevin Bright, said in a joint statement on Sunday. “All we can say is that we feel blessed to have had him as part of our lives.”
Asked about the circumstances of Perry’s death, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson, Captain Erik Scott, replied, without referring to Perry by name, that firefighters called an address in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood and found “an adult male unconscious in a stand-alone jacuzzi.”
“A bystander had brought the man’s head above the water and gotten him to the edge, then firefighters removed him from the water upon their arrival,” Scott wrote to Reuters by text, adding that a quick medical assessment at the scene revealed “the man was deceased” before emergency personnel arrived.
Perry’s death came one year after the publication of his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which chronicled decades-long bouts with addiction to prescription painkillers and alcohol, a struggle he said came close to ending his life more than once.
In his introduction to the book, the US-Canadian actor wrote, “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” At the time, Perry said he had been sober for about 18 months.
Perry gained fame and remains best known for his role as the sardonically wry statistical analyst Chandler Bing on Friends, which ranked among the top 10 prime-time television shows for much of its original network run from 1994 to 2004.
The series, still popular in syndication, made global stars out of Perry and all five of his lead castmates - Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow. The six earned wide critical acclaim for their on-screen chemistry, playing a close-knit group of young singles who shared space in each other’s apartments and hung out together at the “Central Perk,” a fictional Manhattan coffee house.
Although Chandler and Cox’s character, Monica, were wed in the show’s seventh season, Perry never married in real life. None of Perry’s Friends co-stars had yet to publicly comment on his death as of Sunday afternoon. But the official Friends webpage on Instagram said, “We are devastated to learn of Matthew Perry’s passing. He was a true gift to us all. Our heart goes out to his family, loved ones, and all of his fans.”
Many celebrities shared their thoughts on social media over the weekend, such as actor Alyssa Milano, who co-starred with Perry in the 1988 prom night film Dance ‘Til Dawn, described him as "always the funniest person in the room.” “Matty, remember when we used to go play bingo at that church in the valley?” she wrote. “You made me laugh that painful kind of laugh. A cry laugh. You made me cry-laugh.”
A tribute even came from Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, a boyhood friend of the young Perry, who was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Ottawa after his mother, a Canadian journalist divorced Perry’s father, remarried and moved with the boy to Ontario. The mother served for a time as press secretary to Trudeau’s father, Pierre, while he headed the Canadian government decades ago.
Following Friends, Perry went on to star in three more network television ventures that proved short-lived - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Mr. Sunshine and Go On. He also logged guest appearances or recurring roles in other hit TV shows, including The West Wing, Ally McBeal, Scrubs and Beverly Hills, 90210. His motion picture credits included Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards, Almost Heroes and Three to Tango.
The Massachusetts-born actor grew up in Ottawa after his mother, a Canadian journalist who once served as press secretary to former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, divorced Perry's father and married a Canadian broadcasting personality. Perry was a top-ranking junior tennis player before he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and improvisational comedy.
Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.