A Tribute to Mathew Perry

Ironically it was about a year ago when Mathew Perry went on the road to promote his new book Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir. In this biography, Perry went into great detail about how bad his addiction to pills, drugs, and alcohol has been almost throughout his entire life. Some years ago, Perry had an intestine that ruptured and was given a 2% chance of surviving. Perry was in intensive care for 10 months. At his worst, Perry was drinking Vodka in excess and taking as many as 50 Vicotin pills a day. Perry went to rehab 15 times and detoxed 63 times in his life.

One day ago, on October 28, 2023 Mathew Perry died in his hot tub and at first his death was listed as an accidental drowning. In a few weeks, when the autopsy is released, the odds are high that Perry died of a heart attack from so many years of weakening his heart from drug abuse, or he was either drunk or high from drugs and slipped into the water and drowned.

From all of us who appreciate the unique talent and comic timing that Mathew Perry had, it is clear to me that 80% of the success and best parts of the series Friends, which ran from 1994-2004, is because of the talent of Mathew Perry, playing Chandler Bing. From the comments of grief-stricken fans of the series Friends, I have read and seen many fans agreeing that while everybody on this series was great, the character Chandler was always the funniest of the six actors for the entire 10 years.

The problem with a great comedy series or a great comedy movie is that they are so rare. It is highly unlikely that any actor will get two series as great as a series like Friends, Seinfeld, All in the Family, or the Mary Tyler Moore show. For someone like Perry who was one of the all-time greats in the history of situation comedies, longing for those highs performing in front of millions of people has always been part of the problem. What do you do, when you are the best at something, but the opportunity to do what you love is rarely available. With a talent like Mathew Perry having great ability with comedic timing is half the battle, the other part of the equation is about being cast in the right part, with the right comedy writers.

Perry went on to star in several comedy movies over the years, many of which were very good, including “Whole 9 Yards”, “Serving Sara”, “Three to Tango” and “Fools Rush In”. Perry’s other mostly successful sitcom was a reboot of the “Odd Couple” that ran from 2015-2017. It would have been great if Perry got another giant home run in his career at a level of the series Friends, but that is not how things work in Hollywood.

Along with Michael J. Fox, Bea Arthur and Betty White, Mathew Perry will be known as one of the greatest actors in the history of situation comedy.

The videos below show some of the best moments of Chandler Bing on Friends and some of the comments from his cast members.