{"id":39393,"date":"2023-10-29T06:16:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T06:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=39393"},"modified":"2023-10-29T06:42:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T06:42:25","slug":"matthew-perry-of-friends-fame-died-at-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/10\/29\/matthew-perry-of-friends-fame-died-at-54\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Perry of friends fame died at 54"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Friends\u201d star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic, but lovable Chandler Bing was among television\u2019s most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The actor was found dead of an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Times<\/strong> and celebrity website TMZ<\/strong>, which was the first to report the news. Both outlets cited unnamed sources confirming Perry\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMatthew was an incredibly gifted actor and an indelible part of the Warner Bros. Television Group family,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cThe impact of his comedic genius was felt around the world, and his legacy will live on in the hearts of so many. This is a heartbreaking day, and we send our love to his family, his loved ones, and all of his devoted fans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry\u2019s publicists and other representatives did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.\u00a0
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Asked to confirm police response to what was listed as Perry\u2019s home address, LAPD Officer Drake Madison told the AP that officers had gone to that block \u201cfor a death investigation of a male in his 50s.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry\u2019s 10 seasons on \u201cFriends\u201d made him one of Hollywood\u2019s most recognizable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a friend group in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Chandler, he played the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc\u2019s Joey and a close friend of Schwimmer\u2019s Ross. During the show\u2019s hijinks, he could be counted on to chime in with a line like \u201cCould this BE any more awkward?\u201d or another well-timed quip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry was open about his long and public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his 2022 million-selling memoir: \u201cHi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFriends\u201d ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the \u201cFriends\u201d finale, Chandler is married to Cox\u2019s Monica and they have a family, reflecting the journey of the core cast from single New Yorkers trying to figure their lives out to several of them married and starting families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series was one of television\u2019s biggest hits and has taken on a new life \u2014 and found surprising popularity with younger fans<\/strong> \u2014 in recent years on streaming services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry described reading the \u201cFriends\u201d script for the first time in his memoir, \u201cFriends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn\u2019t that I thought I could \u2018play\u2019 Chandler. I \u2018was\u2019 Chandler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Friends\u2019 was huge. I couldn\u2019t jeopardize that. I loved the script. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,\u201d he wrote in his memoir. \u201cI had a secret and no one could know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn\u2019t laugh, and that\u2019s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn\u2019t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions,\u201d Perry wrote. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recalled in his memoir that Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know you\u2019re drinking,\u201d he remembered her telling him once. \u201cWe can smell it,\u201d she said, in what Perry called a \u201ckind of weird but loving way, and the plural \u2018we\u2019 hit me like a sledgehammer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the foreword to Perry\u2019s memoir, Lisa Kudrow described him as \u201cwhip smart, charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable, and rational.\u201d She added, \u201cThat guy, with everything he was battling, was still there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An HBO Max reunion special in 2021 was hosted by James Corden and fed into huge interest in seeing the cast together again, although the program consisted of the actors discussing the show and was not a continuation of their characters\u2019 storylines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry received one Emmy nomination for his \u201cFriends\u201d role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on \u201cThe West Wing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry also had several notable film roles, starring opposite Salma Hayek in the rom-com \u201cFools Rush In\u201d and Bruce Willis in the the crime comedy \u201cThe Whole Nine Yards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worked consistently after \u201cFriends,\u201d though never in a role that brought him as much attention or acclaim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, he played Oscar for a CBS reboot of \u201cThe Odd Couple\u201d that aired for two seasons. He told the AP that playing Oscar Madison, the character originally made famous in the 1960s series by Walter Matthau, was a \u201cdream role.\u201d He also said he was surprised how much he enjoyed being filmed again in front of a live audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize I missed it really until it actually happened, til we actually shot the pilot and there was a studio audience there and I realized, \u2018Wow, I really like this. This is nice,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cYou kind of ham up for the people in the audience. My performance never got better than when there was an audience there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry was born Aug. 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father is actor John Bennett Perry and his mother, Suzanne, served as press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and is married to \u201cDateline\u201d correspondent Keith Morrison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends\u201d star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic, but lovable Chandler Bing was among television\u2019s most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54. The actor was found dead of an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which was the first to report the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":39416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[10618,1623,11017,7599,10239,2465,6083,7234,10505,5241,1160,2267,920,6738,5455,9026,9883,6225,3269,6328,2490,10197,7123,6220,9349,851,10803,9336,990,8486,7968,11973,5399,7803,421,3174,9523,5261,11259,9253,9881,8916,6571,2982,36],"class_list":["post-39393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-bruce-willis","tag-canadian","tag-celebrity","tag-comedy","tag-cox","tag-dead","tag-death","tag-die","tag-died","tag-drake","tag-emmy-award","tag-episode","tag-families","tag-family","tag-fans","tag-fed","tag-friends","tag-genius","tag-hbo","tag-hollywood","tag-investigation","tag-los-angeles","tag-love","tag-married","tag-massachusetts","tag-matthew-perry","tag-memoir","tag-new-york","tag-nice","tag-nine","tag-one","tag-oscar","tag-pilot","tag-police","tag-prime-minister","tag-reunion","tag-salary","tag-shot","tag-sick","tag-smart","tag-together-again","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39417,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39393\/revisions\/39417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}