‘Friends’ star Matthew Perry dead at 54, allegedly found in hot tub

Authorities responded about 4 p.m. to his home, where he was discovered unresponsive. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, did not cite a cause of death. There was no sign of foul play, the sources added.

Los Angeles Police Department’s robbery-homicide detectives are investigating the death.

Perry, the son of actor John Bennett Perry and Suzanne Marie Langford, onetime press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Piere Trudeau, was born in 1969 and grew up between Montreal and Los Angeles after his parents separated when Perry was 1.

He got his start as a child actor, landing guest spots “Charles in Charge” and “Beverly Hills 90210” and playing opposite River Phoenix in the film “A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon” in the 1980s and early 1990s. But his big break came when he was cast in “Friends” — originally titled “Friends Like Us” — a sitcom about six single New Yorkers navigating adulthood that premiered on NBC in 1994. It soon became a juggernaut, the anchor of the network’s vaunted Thursday-night “Must-See TV” lineup, and turned Perry and his cast mates, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt Leblanc and David Schwimmer into mega-stars almost overnight.

As Chandler Bing, the handsome, wisecracking roommate of Leblanc’s Joey Tribbiani and, later, love interest of the fastidious Monica Geller, Perry distinguished himself in a crackling ensemble cast with his dry delivery, creating a catchphrase with a mere turn of inflection: Could he be any more Chandler?

There was a dark side to the life of one of television’s most beloved funnymen, however. In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry recounted his lifelong struggle with addiction to alcohol and opioids, which led to multiple stints in rehab and a number of serious health issues, including a five-month hospitalization in 2018 following a colon rupture that left him, he wrote, with a two percent chance to live through the night.

“Nobody wanted to be famous more than me,” Perry told The Times in April, discussing “Big Terrible Thing” at the Festival of Books. “I was convinced it was the answer. I was 25, it was the second year of ‘Friends,’ and eight months into it, I realized the American dream is not making me happy, not filling the holes in my life. I couldn’t get enough attention. … Fame does not do what you think it’s going to do. It was all a trick.”

Source:
LA Times