Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on August 19, 1969, and passing away in Los Angeles, California, on October 28, 2023, Matthew Perry was an American-Canadian comedic actor best known for playing the witty Chandler Bing on the wildly successful sitcom Friends (1994–2004).
Growing up in Ottawa, Perry competed in junior tennis at a high level and aspired to play professional sports. But when he moved to live with his father in Los Angeles when he was fifteen, that’s when he developed an interest in acting. He attended the comedy theater LA Connection and took improv classes while he was a student at Buckley School.
Perry debuted on television in 1979 in an episode of the police drama 240-Robert, which starred his father. Perry played bit parts in television series like Silver Spoons, Charles in Charge, and The Tracey Ullman Show in the middle of the 1980s.
Perry graduated from Buckley in 1987, and that year he appeared in his first starring role, in the sitcom Second Chance (later renamed Boys Will Be Boys), which ran for one season. In 1988 Perry made his big-screen debut in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, a coming-of-age film that starred River Phoenix. The following year Perry had a memorable role on the hit sitcom Growing Pains, playing a boyfriend of Carol Seaver (Tracey Gold) who dies in a drunk-driving accident. Perry later was a series regular on the short-lived Sydney (1990), cast as a rookie cop whose sister (Valerie Bertinelli) is a private detective. He then had guest appearances on Who’s the Boss and Beverly Hills, 90210 before starring in the family comedy Home Free (1993), another series that was quickly canceled.
Matthew Perry Parents
His mother, Canadian journalist Suzanne Marie Morrison (née Langford; born in 1948), served as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary. John Bennett Perry, his father, is an American actor and former model who was born in 1941.
When Perry was a year old, his parents divorced, and his mother wed Canadian broadcast journalist Keith Morrison. His mother reared him primarily in Ottawa, Ontario, though he also spent a brief time living in Toronto and Montreal. Perry went to Ashbury College, an Ottawa boarding school, as well as Rockcliffe Park Public School.
In addition to a younger paternal half-sister named Maria, he had four younger maternal half-siblings: Caitlin, Emily, Will, and Madeline. During his early performances, his siblings “would stand and applaud” him.
