Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry
Matthew Langford Perry (August 19, 1969 – October 28, 2023) was an American and Canadian actor. He starred as Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom Friends from 1994 to 2004. Perry also appeared on Ally McBeal (2002) and received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his performances in The West Wing (2003) and The Ron Clark Story (2006). He gained a leading role in the NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which aired from 2006 to 2007. Perry also became known for his leading film roles in Fools Rush In (1997), Almost Heroes (1998), Three to Tango (1999), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Serving Sara (2002), The Whole Ten Yards (2005), and 17 Again (2009).
Perry was co-creator, co-writer, executive producer, and star of the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine, which ran from February to April 2011. In August 2012, he starred as sportscaster Ryan King on the NBC sitcom Go On. Perry co-developed and starred in a revival of the CBS sitcom The Odd Couple portraying Oscar Madison from 2015 to 2017. He had recurring roles in the legal dramas The Good Wife (2012–2013), and The Good Fight (2017). He portrayed Ted Kennedy in The Kennedys: After Camelot (2017) and appeared as himself in Friends: The Reunion (2021).
Perry suffered from severe addictions to drugs and alcohol. Through his recovery, he became an advocate for rehabilitation and spokesperson for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. In 2013, he received the Champion of Recovery Award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In 2022 he released his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
Early life and education
Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on August 19, 1969. His mother, Suzanne Marie Morrison (née Langford, born 1948), is a Canadian journalist who was press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. His father, John Bennett Perry (born 1941), is an American actor and former model.
His parents separated when he was one year old, and his mother married Canadian broadcast journalist Keith Morrison. He was raised by his mother mostly in Ottawa, Ontario, but he also lived briefly in Toronto and Montreal. Perry attended school at Rockcliffe Park Public School, as well as Ashbury College, a boarding school in Ottawa.
By age 10, Perry started misbehaving. He stole money, smoked, let his grades slip, and beat up fellow student and future Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Perry began drinking alcohol at age 14 and was drinking every day by age 18. Perry practiced tennis, often for 10 hours per day, and became a top-ranked junior player in Canada with the possibility of a tennis career. However, at age 15, he moved from Ottawa to Los Angeles to live with his father and competition there was tougher.
At 15 years old, Perry studied acting at Buckley School, a college-preparatory school in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, and graduated in 1987. While in high school, he took improvisational comedy classes at L.A. Connection in Sherman Oaks.
Career
1979–1993: Early roles
Perry's first credited role was a small part in 240-Robert in 1979 as a child actor. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Perry began auditioning for roles. Perry made guest appearances on Not Necessarily the News in 1983, Charles in Charge in 1985, and Silver Spoons in 1986. In 1987 and 1988, he played Chazz Russell in the TV series Second Chance (later called Boys Will Be Boys). Perry made his film debut in 1988 with A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. In 1989, he had a three-episode arc on Growing Pains, portraying Carol Seaver's boyfriend Sandy who dies in hospital after a drunk-driving crash.
Perry was cast as a regular on the 1990 CBS sitcom Sydney, playing the younger brother of Valerie Bertinelli's character. In 1991, he made a guest appearance on Beverly Hills, 90210 as Roger Azarian. Perry played the starring role in the ABC sitcom Home Free, which aired in 1993.
1994–2004: Breakthrough with Friends
Perry's commitment to a pilot for a drama called LAX 2194 initially made him unavailable for a role in another pilot, Six of One, later called Friends. After the LAX 2194 pilot fell through, he had the opportunity to read for a part in Six of One and was cast as Chandler Bing. He was the youngest member of the main cast at age 24.
Friends was hugely successful, and it made Perry an international celebrity. By 2002, he and his co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer were making $1 million per episode. The program earned him an Emmy nomination in 2002 for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series award. Perry appeared in films such Fools Rush In, Almost Heroes, Three to Tango, The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel The Whole Ten Yards, and Serving Sara.
In 1995, Perry and Jennifer Aniston appeared in a 60-minute-long promotional video for Microsoft's Windows 95, released on VHS on August 1.
For his performance as Joe Quincy in The West Wing, Perry received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2003 and 2004. He appeared as attorney Todd Merrick in two episodes of Ally McBeal. In 2004, he made his directorial debut and acted in an episode of the fourth season of comedy-drama Scrubs, an episode which included his father.
2005–2023: Later work
Perry starred in the TNT movie The Ron Clark Story, which premiered August 13, 2006, and received a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for his performance.
From 2006 to 2007, Perry appeared in Aaron Sorkin's drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Perry played Matt Albie alongside Bradley Whitford's Danny Tripp, a writer-director duo brought in to help save a failing sketch show. Perry's character was considered to be based substantially on Sorkin's own personal experiences, particularly in television.
In 2006, he began filming Numb, a film based on a man suffering from depersonalization disorder. The film's tentative release date was postponed several times, but it was finally released to DVD on May 13, 2008. He also appeared on stage in London in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago. In 2008, Perry starred in the independent film Birds of America. Showtime passed on a pilot called The End of Steve, a dark comedy starring, written, and produced by Perry and Peter Tolan. In 2009, he starred in the film 17 Again playing a 37-year-old man who transforms into his 17-year-old self (Zac Efron) after a chance accident. The film received mixed reviews and was a box-office success. A review on WRC-TV found Perry miscast in his role, emphasizing the disbelief in Efron growing up to resemble Perry, both physically and behaviorally — a sentiment echoed by other critics.
Perry's new comedy pilot, Mr. Sunshine, based on his original idea for the show, was bought by ABC. He played the lead role as a middle-aged man with an identity crisis. The network canceled the series after nine episodes in 2011.
In 2012, Perry starred in the comedy series Go On, written and produced by former Friends writer/producer Scott Silveri. Perry portrayed Ryan King, a sportscaster who tries to move on after the death of his wife through the help of mandatory therapy sessions. In the same year, Perry guest-starred on the CBS drama The Good Wife as attorney Mike Kresteva. He reprised his role in the fourth season in 2013.
In 2014, Perry made his British TV debut in the one-off comedy program The Dog Thrower, which aired on May 1 as part of Sky Arts' Playhouse Presents. Perry portrayed "a charismatic man" who enchanted onlookers by throwing his dog in the air. From 2015 to 2017, Perry starred in, co-wrote, and served as executive producer of a reboot of the sitcom The Odd Couple on CBS. Perry played Oscar Madison opposite Thomas Lennon as Felix Unger.
Perry played the lead role in the world premiere production of his play The End of Longing, which opened on February 11, 2016, at the Playhouse Theatre in London. Its limited run proved successful despite mixed reviews. Perry restructured the play and appeared alongside Jennifer Morrison in its second off-Broadway production, which opened at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on June 5, 2017. It closed on July 1 after receiving poor reviews. Years later Perry described the play as "a personal message to the world, an exaggerated form of me as a drunk. I had something important to say to people like me, and to people who love people like me."
In March 2017, Perry again reprised his role as attorney Mike Kresteva in The Good Fight, a sequel show to the CBS drama The Good Wife. Later that year, he starred as Ted Kennedy in the mini-series The Kennedys: After Camelot.
In May 2021, he participated in the special episode Friends: The Reunion. Perry published a memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, in October 2022. It became a bestseller on both Amazon and The New York Times charts.
Personal life
Perry held Canadian and American citizenship. He dated Yasmine Bleeth in 1995, Julia Roberts from 1995 to 1996, and Lizzy Caplan from 2006 to 2012. In November 2020, Perry became engaged to literary manager Molly Hurwitz, with their engagement ending in 2021.
In 2009, Perry was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he presented her with an Xbox 360 and a copy of Fallout 3. The gesture led to game studio Obsidian Entertainment casting him in Fallout: New Vegas as the voice of Benny.
Residences owned at some point by Perry included a condo in Sierra Towers purchased from Elton John, a house in Hollywood Hills, a house in Malibu, and a cottage in Pacific Palisades. In 2017, Perry purchased a condo occupying the top floor of The Century in Los Angeles for $20 million, selling it to Nick Molnar for $21.6 million in 2021, who in turn sold it to Rihanna in 2023. In June 2023, Perry purchased a mid-century modern house in Hollywood Hills.
Perry had a perfectionist and obsessive personality, spending many hours perfecting his answering machine message. He also held agnostic beliefs, stating that he believed in an unspecified "higher power", which he called "God" and with whom he had "a very close relationship". He called himself "a seeker".
Health and addiction
In Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry stated that he became an alcoholic at age 14.
Perry became addicted to Vicodin after a jet-ski accident in 1997, and he completed a 28-day rehab program at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation that year. His weight dropped as low as , and he took as many as 55 Vicodin pills per day. At age 30, he suffered from alcohol-induced pancreatitis; in May 2000, he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
While Perry stated in 2002 that he had made a resolute effort not to drink on the set of Friends, he did come to work on the show with extreme hangovers and sometimes sweated and shook on set. During the later seasons of the series, he was frequently drunk or high on set. His castmates made efforts to help him (even staging an intervention), but were unsuccessful.
In February 2001, Perry paused productions of Friends and Serving Sara for two months so that he could enter in-patient rehabilitation for his addictions to Vicodin, methadone, amphetamines, and alcohol. He later revealed that due to his substance use disorder, he did not remember a three-year period when he was acting on Friends.
In 2018, Perry spent five months in a hospital for a gastrointestinal perforation. During the hospital stay, Perry nearly died after his colon burst from opioid abuse. He spent two weeks in a coma and used a colostomy bag for nine months. Upon being admitted to the hospital, doctors told his family that Perry had a 2% chance of survival. He was connected to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine.
Two years later, while attending rehab in Switzerland, Perry faked pain to get a prescription for 1,800 milligrams of Oxycontin per day and was having daily ketamine infusions. He was given propofol in conjunction with a surgery, which stopped his heart for five minutes. The resulting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) resulted in eight broken ribs. He paid $175,000 for a private jet to take him to Los Angeles to get more drugs. When doctors there refused, Perry spent another $175,000 to take a private jet back to Switzerland. In 2022, he estimated that $9 million was spent on his addiction, including 14 stomach surgeries, 15 stays in rehab, and therapy twice a week for 30 years. Perry also asserted that he had attended approximately 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Philanthropy and advocacy
In July 2011, Perry lobbied the US Congress as a celebrity spokesperson for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals in support of funding for drug courts. He received a Champion of Recovery award in May 2013 from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for opening Perry House, a rehab center in his former mansion in Malibu, California. In 2015, Perry sold the mansion and relocated its services.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Perry launched an apparel line inspired by Friends, with proceeds donated to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 relief fund.
Death
On October 28, 2023, Perry was found unresponsive in his hot tub at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, and was later pronounced dead at the age of 54. LAPD Captain Scot Williams said the "cause of death may not be known for some time, but at this point foul play is not suspected". The following day, the cause of death was listed as "deferred" by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office, pending "additional investigative steps".
On October 30, Perry's Friends costars issued a joint statement:
Acting credits
Film
Television
Theatre
Video games
Specials
Awards and nominations
Publications
Notes
References
External links
Interviewed on "Q with Tom Power", CBC, November 22, 2022, audio
1969 births
2023 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American memoirists
American emigrants to Canada
American expatriates in Canada
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American people of Canadian descent
Articles containing video clips
Canadian male film actors
Canadian male television actors
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian people of American descent
Deaths by drowning in California
Male actors from Massachusetts
Male actors from Ottawa
People from Williamstown, Massachusetts
People from Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles