R.I.P. Matthew Perry, Friends star

TMZ is reporting that actor Matthew Perry has been found dead at his Los Angeles-area home. No official cause of death has been reported, although early reports state that no signs of foul play were apparently found, and that first-responders arrived on the scene due to a call for cardiac arrest. A more recent TMZ report says that no illicit drugs were found in Perry’s home (he had reportedly been fully sober since May of 2021), though he had apparently been suffering form chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from his years as a smoker. Perry was 54.

One of the stars of NBC’s mega-hit Friends, Perry was one of the most famous television stars of his generation; as perpetual sarcastic oddball Chandler Bing, he took a series of stock sitcom parts—self-loathing, neuroses, a series of catchphrase-friendly verbal tics—and built a character that endures vividly in the public imagination. As a character, Chandler could be easy to boil down to his more imitable elements, but it was Perry’s vulnerability, quick-fire delivery, and talent for both verbal and physical comedy that made him an indelible part of the pop culture landscape.

Perry came to Friends as an already-veteran actor, having been securing regular and guest star parts on TV sitcoms and in films since just after leaving high school. That included a memorable three-episode turn on Growing Pains, a main cast role on Second Chances, and a supporting role opposite River Phoenix in 1988 coming-of-age drama A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon. (Years later, in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing, he spoke lovingly of Phoenix, calling him, “Too beautiful for this world.”) His most important role during this period, though, would turn out to be a guest star part on HBO sitcom Dream On: When creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman went looking around for the cast of their upcoming NBC sitcom (then called Six Of One, before changing to the more simple Friends), Perry knew he wanted to be on board. When cast in the series, he was still just 24.

The attendant dramas surrounding the production of Friends have been exhaustively documented at this point—Perry’s more than most, as his life became subject to recurring issues with alcohol and substance abuse. (In interviews, he noted that he remembers very little about the filming of Friends from roughly its third season to its sixth.) Despite the issues, Perry and his castmates went out on something very much resembling the top, drawing strong notices for the show’s final seasons, and famously signing a deal that brought each of them a million dollars per episode for the series’ final run.

Meanwhile, Perry developed a burgeoning film career. Although never as successful in film as in television, he did manage a few highlights, most notably Fools Rush In, a slight but fondly remembered romantic comedy with Salma Hayek, and The Whole Nine Yards, which paired his manic energy, to strong effect, with a deadpan Bruce Willis.

But for the most part, his fortunes stayed with TV, and if they never hit the heights of Friends, well, whose could? Among other things, Perry became (with Bradley Whitford) the latest in a long line of Aaron Sorkin surrogates for the writer’s short-lived Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, playing a quick-talking TV writer with a grudge against the world. After that show folded, he took a series of occasional runs back at the sitcom throne, starring in and co-creating Mr. Sunshine for ABC in 2011, and starring in support group-based comedy series Go On for NBC in 2012. He also made occasional appearances in support of his old Friends co-stars, appearing in Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy and Courtney Cox’s Cougar Town for short stints. His biggest TV success of the 2010s came in 2015, when he and Thomas Lennon launched a new revival of The Odd Couple, with Perry in the Oscar Madison part; the series ran for three seasons at CBS.

Perry’s final major credit was as himself, when he appeared as part of HBO’s Friends: The Reunion in 2021. During the conversation with his old co-workers, Perry reflected on the sometimes compulsive drive to score laughs with every single taping in front of the show’s live studio audience. “It’s not healthy, for sure,” he noted to his former castmates. “But I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and just go into convulsions. If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out. I felt like that every single night.” He spent the last year or so largely promoting (and occasionally apologizing for) his memoir, which spoke candidly about his long struggles with substance abuse, and the toll it took on his health. It’s opening lines began, “My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”

Perry’s death was confirmed tonight by The L.A. Times.