Matthew Perry, Emmy-nominated ‘Friends’ star, has died at 54, reports say

LOS ANGELES – “Friends” famous person Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic, however cute Chandler Bing used to be amongst tv’s most renowned and maximum quotable characters, has died at 54.

The actor used to be discovered lifeless of an obvious drowning at his Los Angeles house Saturday, in step with the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which used to be the primary to record the news. Both retailers cited unnamed resources confirming Perry’s dying.

“Matthew was an incredibly gifted actor and an indelible part of the Warner Bros. Television Group family,” the corporate mentioned in a commentary. “The impact of his comedic genius was felt around the world, and his legacy will live on in the hearts of so many. This is a heartbreaking day, and we send our love to his family, his loved ones, and all of his devoted fans.”

Perry’s publicists and different representatives didn’t in an instant reply to messages from The Associated Press in search of remark.

Asked to verify police reaction to what used to be indexed as Perry’s house cope with, LAPD Officer Drake Madison instructed the AP that officials had long gone to that block “for a death investigation of a male in his 50s.”

Perry’s 10 seasons on “Friends” made him considered one of Hollywood’s maximum recognizable actors, starring reverse Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a chum workforce in New York.

As Chandler, he performed the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc’s Joey and a detailed buddy of Schwimmer’s Ross. During the display’s hijinks, he might be counted directly to chime in with a line like “Could this BE any more awkward?” or any other well-timed quip.

Perry used to be open about his lengthy and public battle with dependancy, writing at the start of his 2022 million-selling memoir: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”

“Friends” ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each.

By the “Friends” finale, Chandler is married to Cox’s Monica and they have a family, reflecting the journey of the core cast from single New Yorkers trying to figure their lives out to several of them married and starting families.

The collection used to be considered one of tv’s largest hits and has taken on a brand new lifestyles — and located sudden popularity with younger fans — in recent times on streaming services and products.

Perry described reading the “Friends” script for the first time in his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”

“It was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn’t that I was thought I could ‘play’ Chandler. I ‘was’ Chandler.”

Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.

“’Friends’ was huge. I couldn’t jeopardize that. I loved the script. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his memoir. “I had a secret and no one could know.”

“I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions,” Perry wrote. “If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.”

He recalled in his memoir that Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.

“I know you’re drinking,” he remembered her telling him once. “We can smell it,” she said, in what Perry called a “kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”

In the foreword to Perry’s memoir, Lisa Kudrow described him as “whip smart, charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable, and rational.” She added, “That guy, with everything he was battling, was still there.”

An HBO Max reunion special in 2021 was hosted by James Corden and fed into huge interest in seeing the cast together again, although the program consisted of the actors discussing the show and was not a continuation of their characters’ storylines.

Perry received one Emmy nomination for his “Friends” role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on “The West Wing.”

Perry also had several notable film roles, starring opposite Salma Hayek in the rom-com “Fools Rush In” and Bruce Willis in the the crime comedy “The Whole Nine Yards.”

He worked consistently after “Friends,” though never in a role that brought him as much attention or acclaim.

In 2015, he played Oscar for a CBS reboot of “The Odd Couple” that aired for two seasons. He told the AP that playing Oscar Madison, the character originally made famous in the 1960s series by Walter Matthau, was a “dream role.” He also said he was surprised how much he enjoyed being filmed again in front of a live audience.

“I didn’t realize I missed it really until it actually happened, til we actually shot the pilot and there was a studio audience there and I realized, ‘Wow, I really like this. This is nice,’” he said. “You kind of ham up for the people in the audience. My performance never got better than when there was an audience there.”

Perry was born Aug. 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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Associated Press writers Alicia Rancilio, Janie Har, Hillel Italie, Ryan Pearson and Anthony McCartney contributed to this record.