At times, Perry had a Chandler-esque life

After the “Friends” pilot was finished, the producers took the six stars out for separate lunches. For Matthew Perry (shown here, middle), that turned out to be prescient.
“I remember telling them I had just been on a date the previous night,” Perry recalled in “Friends ,,, ‘Til the End” (TimeInc, 2004). “I got home, I called my friend and he said, ‘How did the date go?’
“And I said, ‘I’m going to die alone.’”
That was a funny line at the time … one that his character (Chandler Bing) soon said. Later, it became too true: Perry did apparently died alone, in his hot tub Oct. 28, at 54. He had never married.
Now his key “Friends” episodes are being rerun, through Sunday (Nov. 5). That’s on Nickelodeon (9 p.m. to 2 a.m. or later) and on TBS — 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 1); 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Friday; 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday’ and 9 to 3:30 on Sunday.
But this is a role that almost didn’t happen.
“One of the first actors on our list was Matthew Perry,” co-creator Marta Kauffman said in Warren Littlefield’s “Top of the Rock” (Doubleday, 2012). “But he was doing a show called ‘LAX 2194.’”
That was, Perry said in the “Friends” book, “God-awful …. I played a guy who sorted out aliens’ luggage in the year 2194. I was surrounded by extras who were midgets in wigs, playing aliens.”
But he had told his agent that he was broke and needed something. After he’d done the pilot, he read the “Friends” pilot script and felt the Chandler role was perfect for him.
“It’s sarcastic and kind of quippy, but no one could do it,” co-creator David Crane said in the Littlefield book. Added Kauffman: “The person who came the closest was Craig Bierko – and we found out later that Mathew had coached him.”
Bierko was offered the role, but then producers saw “LAX 2194” and realized it would sobe nixed.
Now Perry had the role he seemed made for. “Matthew had a very distinctive style,” James Burrows, who directed the pilot, wrote in “Directed by James Burrows” (Ballantine, 2022). “He was the smart, quick one. He brought the self-deprecating and the funny good-looking.”
On the surface, Perry had had an enviable life. Handsome and athletic, he was one of the top-ranked junior tennis players in Canada. His father was a successful actor, his mother was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary; Justin Trudeau, now 51 and the prime minister, was a boyhood friend.
But Perry’s parents separated when he was 1. Perry has described feeling overlooked among his half-siblings … something that could be strictly in perception: Much later, he wrote in his memoir (Flatiron Books, 2022), his stepfather told him that Perry’s mom had made one thing clear: He (Perry) would always be the most important man in her life.
The teen Perry threw himself obsessively into tennis, began drinking at 14 and a year later moved to California to live with his dad. (John Bennett Perry, now 82, had a busy career. On TV, he was an action hero in “240 Robert” and a guest-star in many shows; in movies he was, among other things, Elvis’ father, the Lone Ranger’s brother and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.)
Matthew Perry landed regular roles in series – “Sydney,” “Home Free,” “Second Chance” – that never caught on. “I had just spent my early-20s not living a life and making fun of other people,” he said in the “Friends” book. “And strangely, that’s what Chandler was at the beginning of ‘Friends.’”
And then each of the characters became deeper, “’Friends’ is a show about lovable losers who, in the end, become winners by leaning on each other,” he said.
Perry would do other shows, some – “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and an “Odd Couple” reboot – good. He retained the habit that was copied for Chandler – cracking a joke while avoiding emotion.
That was clear in a “Friends” press conference, when actors were asked their goal in life. Matt LeBlanc said he hoped to marry; Perry said, approximately: “I, too, very much hope Matt gets married.”
LeBlanc did, before the final season, but later divorced. Perry had several relationships, amid addictions to alcohol and drugs. An engagement ended two years ago. He apparently died alone.