The actor, who passed away on October 28, 2023 at the age of 54 due to the acute effects of ketamine, remained in the hearts of the public and colleagues from the sitcom Friends. During his long career he had acted in TV series, films and on the stage, but in his private life he had fought against addictions, which he described with honesty and courage in his autobiography.
Born on August 19, 1969 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, actor Matthew Perry died at the age of 54 three years ago, on October 28, 2023 in Los Angeles, due to the acute effects of ketamine.
Matthew Perry was the son of actor John Bennett Perry and Suzanne Marie Morrison Langford, former press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After his parents' divorce, Matthew grew up with his mother in Canada.
During school he had become interested in tennis. At the age of 15, however, he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father and pursue an acting career.
After some minor appearances on television in the late 1980s, he landed the role of Chazz Russell on the program Second Chance.
In the early 1990s he attempted to audition for Marta Kauffman and David Crane's Six of One project, but was not allowed to audition. However, when Six of One itself gave rise to the sitcom Friends, he obtained the role of Chandler Bing, which made him famous. The actor had played the character for 10 years.
He then starred in the first season of the TV series Beverly Hills 90210, where he played the champion of West Beverly High.
He had also appeared in several films, such as Jimmy's Girls (1988) directed by William Richert and starring River Phoenix.
In 1997 he starred in the film Apple and Tequila by Andy Tennant and co-starring Salma Hayek.
In 1999 he starred in the film Threesome by Damon Santostefano and with Dylan McDermott.
In 2000 he starred in the film FBI: Witness Protection by Jonathan Lynn, while in 2004 he starred in the film FBI: Witness Protection 2 by Howard Deutch, both starring Bruce Willis.
In 2006 he starred in the film The Ron Clark Story, where he played the protagonist role, the teacher of a small town who was entrusted with the most difficult class in the country.
In 2009 he starred in the film 17 Again, where he shared the set with then teen idol Zac Efron.
He had also successfully tackled dramatic roles, such as Associate White House Counsel Joe Quincy in the TV series West Wing - All the President's Men, a role for which he received two nominations for the Emmy Awards in 2003 and 2004.
He also participated in three episodes of the fifth season of the TV series Ally McBeal.
He then made his directorial debut in an episode of the TV series Scrubs, where he also acted alongside his father. In 2006 he participated in the sitcom Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, where he played a writer trying to save a show on the verge of bankruptcy.
He also starred in four episodes of the TV series The Good Wife, where he played the lawyer Mike Kresteva, a role he also reprized in 2017 in the spin-off The Good Fight.
In 2021 he participated in the Friends cast reunion together with Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, who retraced the most important moments experienced on stage and behind the scenes.
At the theater he had acted in two shows, respectively Sexual Perversity, staged in Chicago in 2003 directed by Lindsay Posner, and The End of Longing, written by him, directed once again by Posner and staged in 2016 both at the Playhouse Theater in London and at the Lucille Lortel Theater in New York.
On the sentimental front, in the nineties he had a flirtation with the actress Julia Roberts.
Matthew Perry had faced addiction issues. By 1983, at the age of 14, he had begun consuming large quantities of alcohol. In 1997, after a water accident, he developed an addiction to Vicodin. In 2000 he was hospitalized in Los Angeles for cirrhosis of the liver, while in 2001 he entered treatment to detox from addiction to Vicodin, methadone, amphetamines and alcohol.
Over time he also began to use cocaine and benzodiazepines. He had gone through rehabilitation 15 times and attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
He also became an ambassador for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. In 2013 he received the Champion of Recovery Award at President Barack Obama's White House for his civil commitment.
In 2018 he nearly died from a serious colon injury, but survived despite having only a 2% chance of making it through the night. For nine months he remained attached to a forced oxygenation machine. In 2020, however, he had a cardiac arrest.
In 2022 he published his autobiography Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, where he spoke about himself without filters to help other people overcome difficult times. In the book he also revealed his opioid abuse, after which he spent two weeks in a coma and five months in hospital.
On October 28, 2023, at the age of 54, he was found dead in the hot tub of his home in Pacifici Palisades, Los Angeles. Friends castmates also attended the funeral.
The autopsy clarified that the actor had died from the "acute effects of ketamine", a substance he took as an antidepressant therapy and which had caused him a cardiorespiratory crisis. However, the tests had shown a level of ketamine that was too high for therapeutic use alone. By August 2024, police had arrested five people: two doctors, the drug dealer known as the Ketamine Queen, a middleman and Perry's assistant.
The five people were ultimately convicted. The first is Jasveen Sangha, the “Queen of Ketamine,” who was sentenced to 15 years in prison: She was the central figure in a North Hollywood drug ring and pleaded guilty to selling the ketamine that killed Perry. The second is Erik Fleming, who was sentenced to two years in prison for acting as an intermediary in the sale of the substance.
The third is doctor Mark Chavez, who was sentenced to eight months of house arrest and three years of probation for participating in a plan to supply ketamine to the actor. The fourth is the doctor Salvador Plasencia, who was sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison for having illegally sold him ketamine, also knowing that he was a drug addict in difficulty. The fifth is personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who was sentenced to 3 years and 5 months in prison for having administered ketamine which caused the fatal overdose.
The three-part docuseries The One About Matthew Perry is now available on Netflix (also visible on Sky Glass, Sky Q and via app on NOW Smart Stick), which traces the actor's life and contains unpublished photographs and films from the family archive.
