2023-10-29 10:12:01
Matthew Perry, here in September 2009 in Los Angeles. MATT SAYLES / AP
He had appeared in 14 feature films, 33 series and 14 TV films between 1979 and 2017. But in the eyes of the world, the career of Matthew Perry, who was found dead in his jacuzzi in Beverly Hills (California) on October 28 at the age of 54, could be summed up in three syllables: Chandler Bing. Over the 236 episodes of Friendshundreds of millions of spectators accompanied him in the transformation of a young dynamic, sarcastic and uncomfortable executive into a good father ready to leave Manhattan for the suburbs.
At the same time as Friends reached first place in the series, Matthew Perry sank into addiction, first to alcohol, then to painkillers, increasing the number of detoxification treatments. He retraced this journey in his autobiography, Friends, my loves and this terrible thing, published at the end of 2022. The actor had come close to death in 2018, suffering from pancreatitis whose side effects had plunged him into a coma.
Matthew Perry was born on August 19, 1969 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father John Bennett Perry is an actor, his mother Suzanne Marie Morrison is a Canadian journalist who worked with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. His parents separated shortly after his birth and Matthew Perry grew up in Canada, where he developed a passion for tennis. At 15, he joined his father in Los Angeles.
As a high school student, he began an acting career, appearing in several series for one episode. In 1988, having finished high school, he landed his first recurring role, that of a high school student in Boys Will Be Boys. The series was canceled after one season. Until 1994, Matthew Perry appeared for a few episodes in successful series (What’s up doctor? Beverly Hills 92 010). In the spring of 1993, his luck seemed to change when he got the leading role, that of an irresponsible young man who still lives with his mother, in Home Free, a family sitcom scheduled on Friday evenings on ABC, one of the three major American networks. But the series was a public failure and left the air after 13 episodes.
Planetary phenomenon
In 1991, Matthew Perry starred in an episode of Dream On, a series created by David Crane and Martha Kaufman. Three years later, the duo sold their new project, Six of a Kind, which follows the tribulations of a sextet of friends as they enter adulthood together in Manhattan. NBC acquired Six of a Kind, meanwhile become Friends, that the network plans to broadcast on Thursday evening, an appointment that will not change. After auditioning, Matthew Perry obtained the role of Chandler Bing, which he held for almost ten years, from September 22, 1994, the broadcast date of the first episode of Friends to May 10, 2004, a dark day for millions of fans, now deprived of their weekly dose of friendship and mischief.
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