Matthew Perry, ‘Friends’ Star, Dead at 54

Matthew Perry — who played the charmingly lovable and endlessly quotable Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends, has died, law enforcement sources confirmed to Rolling Stone. He was 54. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department said that police “responded at 4:10 this afternoon to a death investigation for a male in his 50s.”

While Perry was best known for his role in Friends, he appeared in scores of other television shows and comedic films, including Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards, Three to Tango, The Kid, and many more movies.

But it was Chandler, who he portrayed over 10 seasons and over the course of more than 200 episodes, which endeared him to fans. (Lines like, “Could I BE more [add quip here]” with a drawn-out “be” inspired video montages and endless quotes.) Alongside the ensemble cast — comprising Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, and Matt LeBlanc — he embodied his character, augmenting his hilarious lines with facial expressions that almost bordered breaking character, something comedians try to avoid, but also added to his charm.

While his humorous side is what made him famous, his personal life was dark and serious — he suffered from addiction to alcohol and drugs, including painkillers. He served several stints in rehab, including while he was a cast member on Friends.

Perry candidly addressed his struggles in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which arrived last fall. In one passage, he said he was set to appear opposite Meryl Streep in Don’t Look Up, but had to leave the film after suffering a medical scare, where his heart stopped for five minutes, and ribs were broken as he was resuscitated.

“I was given the shot at 11:00 a.m.,” he writes. “I woke up eleven hours later in a different hospital. Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes. It wasn’t a heart attack — I didn’t flatline — but nothing had been beating. I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn’t want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest. If I hadn’t been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again?” He added: “He may have saved my life, but he also broke eight of my ribs.”

Perry was born on Aug. 19, 1969 in Plymouth, Massachusetts to Canadian journalist Suzanne Morrison, who served as the press secretary for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and American actor John Perry. His parents divorced before he turned one, and his mother married Canadian broadcaster Keith Morrison. Perry was raised in Canada.

At age 15, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, with a focus on improvisational comedy, which he studied at LA Connection in Sherman Oaks while still attending high school.

His first role was in the TV series Second Chance (later called Boys Will Be Boys), and he made his big screen debut in the 1988 film, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. He had guest roles in some of the big sitcoms of the era, including Growing Pains and Beverly Hills, 90210. When he landed his role as Chandler Bing in Friends, he was the youngest in the cast at age 24.

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from Rolling Stone US.