Actor Matthew Perry, who rose to stardom with his portrayal of Chandler Bing in the iconic sitcom \u2018Friends\u2019, breathed his last as he died at the age of 54 at his Los Angeles home. His portrayal broke new grounds, and over the years has become a mark of the 1990s.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons Perry fits in so well as Chandler is his proximity to the character in some sense. Like Chandler, Perry\u2019s parents too separated when he was an infant.<\/p>\n
He grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and stayed with his Canadian mother, who was a journalist and served as press secretary to former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of the current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n
As his mother later married Canadian-born broadcast journalist Keith Morrison, Matthew also lived briefly in Toronto and Montreal.<\/p>\n
At the age of 15, Perry moved from Ottawa to Los Angeles to live with his biological father, John Bennett Perry – an American actor and former model. Perry pursued acting in Los Angeles as he lived with his father. He also pursued improvisational comedy while still in high school.<\/p>\n
After his graduation, he was selected to play Chazz Russell in the TV series \u2018Second Chance\u2019. The show ran for 13 episodes, after which it became \u2018Boys Will Be Boys\u2019. The new plots were now focused on the adventures of Chazz and his friends. This was followed by Perry\u2019s big screen debut in the 1988 film \u2018A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon\u2019. The following year, he had a three-episode arc on the series \u2018Growing Pains\u2019, where he portrayed Carol Seaver’s boyfriend Sandy who dies in hospital after a drunk-driving crash.<\/p>\n
In 1990, he was cast as a regular in the sitcom \u2018Sydney\u2019 in which he played the younger brother of Valerie Bertinelli’s character. He then played the starring role in the ABC sitcom Home Free, which aired 11 episodes in the spring of 1993. His commitment to a pilot caused him not to be considered for a role in another pilot, \u2018Six of One\u2019 and it was the start of something great as \u2018Six of One\u2019 later got retitled as \u2018Friends\u2019. What followed next created history.<\/p>\n
Perry quickly became the hot favourite of the show\u2019s audience, not just bringing in the comic relief but also giving birth to new story arcs, case in point the start of romance between Ross and Rachel. It was Chandler who accidentally broke the news to Jennifer Aniston\u2019s Rachel about David Schwimmer\u2019s Ross Geller being head over heels for her since their college days.<\/p>\n
The change in the character of Chandler Bing from a young carefree guy, who weaponises his sarcasm to a more compassionate friend and the caring husband to Monica Geller remains a pivotal point in the show and only Matthew Perry could have pulled it off with a rock-solid conviction.<\/p>\n
By 2002, Perry and the six-member main cast were making $1 million per episode. The show earned him an Emmy nomination in 2002 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.<\/p>\n
While his professional life was reaching new heights, on the personal front Perry struggled with alcohol and substance abuse. He sought treatment for substance abuse in 1997 and again in 2001. In an interview with Britain’s BBC Radio 2 in 2016, Perry revealed that he had no recollection of filming seasons 3 through 6 of ‘Friends’.<\/p>\n
In a 2013 People cover story, he admitted to a history of alcohol and Vicodin abuse. However, he battled his demons and came out victorious at the other end as he established Perry House, a men’s sober living facility, in his former Malibu beach residence<\/p>\n
The actor also appeared in films such \u2018Fools Rush In\u2019, \u2018Almost Heroes\u2019, \u2018Three to Tango\u2019, \u2018The Whole Nine Yards\u2019 and its sequel \u2018The Whole Ten Yards\u2019, and \u2018Serving Sara\u2019 among many others.<\/p>\n