On the 28th of October, this year, 53-year-old Matthew Perry, the iconic actor of Friends, sadly, found dead at his house in Los Angeles.
He was born in 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. When he was a newborn baby, his parents gor separated, and later, they remarried with each other.
He had said that he is still terrified, when he thinks about his childhood, as he was put on a flight alone, when he was no more than 5 years old.
“I was terrified, my feet didn’t even touch the floor. And then when I saw the lights of the city, I knew we were landing, that my dad was going to pick me up, and I’d have a parent again.” He said in an interview.
He had talked about his childhood, in his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. He had stated in there that his father was pursuing his dreams to be an actor in Los Angeles, while his mother was struggling with her life in Canada.
“Mom and I were both abandoned, in fact, before we’d even gotten the chance to know each other,” he had stated in his book.
“I learned to be funny (pratfalls, quick one-liners, you know the drill) because I had to be,”
“And me being funny tended to calm her down enough that she would cook some food, sit down at the dinner table with me, and hear me out, after I heard her out, of course.”
As he was growing, he was showing his talent on tennis, as he was on the national rank. but at the age of 15, he relocated with his father again.
As he was happy with tennis, he also has an interest towards acting. He had appeared on small comedy shows, and appeared on Call Me Anna, which didn’t helped him a lot, in terms of success.
He continued on his appearences on other sitcoms, as, Home Free, and LAX 2194.
But with his next show, his life had changed, as Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane were in search for their show.
“We were looking at a time when the future was more of a question mark. Maybe because that’s what we were feeling at the moment, but looking at that question mark and going: that’s interesting. Everybody knows that feeling,” Kauffman said in 2004.
When it was 1993, they had wrote seven pages of pitch that was named, Insomnia Cafe, and stated in the pitch, “It’s about sex, love, relationships, careers, a time in your life when everything’s possible. And it’s about friendship because when you’re single and in the city, your friends are your family,”
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer were all got their places, in the cast, as they had auditioned and won their parts. It was Matthew Perry, who was unsure about being in the show, because he had a contract with LAX 2194.
“There was this part that was perfect for me, and it was making me crazy that I couldn’t go up for it because [of] the baggage handlers show,” Perry said.
“I was losing my mind.”
For his luck, the executives on the channel had said “the worst thing we’ve ever seen in our lives” for the plot episode, and Perry got freed himself from the show, and joined the cast of Friends.
“‘He is available. You can hire him for your little show called Friends Like Us that then became Friends,’”, he was told.
“Out of nowhere, I found myself getting to my knees, closing my eyes tightly, and praying. I had never done this before,” he said in his book.
“God, you can do whatever you want to me. Just please make me famous.”
“Three weeks later, I got cast in Friends. And God has certainly kept his side of the bargain — but the Almighty, being the Almighty, had not forgotten the first part of that prayer as well,” he added.
“The first was our very first rehearsal when we had all six of them onstage for the first time, and they read the scene in the coffeehouse. I got chills up and down my spine and thought, ‘This is special. There is something about these six, this script for them, that’s special,’” said Martha Kauffman, in her interview with The Rolling Stone.
He also talked about his addiction towards alcohol and drugs, in his memoir.
“It wasn’t my intention to have a problem with it,”
“But from the start, I liked how it made me feel, and I wanted to get more.”
“I had this odd rule that I would never drink on a set,”
“I went to work in extreme cases of hangovers. It’s so horrible to feel that way and have to work and be funny on top of that.”
“I don’t remember three years of it,” Perry had continued.
“I was a little out of it at the time — somewhere between Seasons 3 and 6.”
As his co-stars had helped Perry, Matt LeBlanc had said that, “I tried to talk to him,”
“There wasn’t a response. It’s such a personal struggle; they need to bottom out on their own.”
“When Matthew was sick, it was not fun,” Lisa Kudrow said.
“We were just hopelessly standing on the sidelines. We were hurting a lot. Matthew is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. He’s charming and hilarious. Most of our hard laughs came from Matthew.”
“The best thing about me, bar none, is that if somebody comes to me and says, ‘I can’t stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say ‘yes’ and follow up and do it,” Perry said.
“When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned,” he had added.
“I want [helping people] to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m gonna live the rest of my life proving that.”
He had famous relationship, with top celebrities, like, Julia Roberts and Lizzy Caplan.
“Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me,” said Perry in his book.
“I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me — why would she not? I was not enough; I could never be enough; I was broken, bent, unlovable.”
“So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts,”
“She might have considered herself slumming it with a TV guy, and TV guy was now breaking up with her. I can’t begin to describe the look of confusion on her face.”
Perry got engaged with Molly Hurwitz, in 2020, but in a year, they got separated. And a year before he passed away, he had stated that he would like to be a father.
“I think I’d be great, I really do. I grew up with a lot of little kids around me, and that’s probably why, but I can’t wait,” Matthew said.
After his passing, Gwyneth Paltrow had paid tribute to Perry. She had stated that there was something between them for a little while, and added,
“I met Matthew Perry in 1993 at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. We were both there for most of the summer doing plays. He was so funny and so sweet and so much fun to be with,”
“We drove out to swim in creeks, had beers in the local college bar, kissed in a field of long grass. It was a magical summer. He had shot the pilot of Friends but it had not aired yet. He was nervous, hoping his big break was just around the corner.” And added that they had ““drifted apart,” in the end.
“I hope Matthew is at peace at long last. I really do,” she added.
In his book, Perry had revealed their little fling too, as he stated that in a party the two of them had “slipped off into a broom cupboard and made out.”
“This was the last summer of my life when I could make out at a party with a beautiful young woman called Gwyneth,”
“And no one, save Gwyneth and I, cared.” He added.
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