RIP: Matthew Perry, aged 54!

[thewayne]

Bit of a surprise. He was found in his swimming pool, apparently an accidental drowning. I'm guessing that he suffered some form of medical emergency and the drowning was a consequence of that.

While best known for his role in the hugely successful TV series Friends, he did a lot of work outside of that. He also did a huge amount of drugs, which may have contributed to his rather early death. That's one of the risks and consequences of the Hollywood lifestyle: even if you're clean now, the fact that you were a hard user a couple of decades ago can have consequences.

RIP, dude. Lots of your fans will miss you.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/matthew-perry-friends-star-dead-obit-1234865185/

Comments

[silveradept]

I had never gotten into Friends, and therefore I didn't know that he had also dealt with addiction and was doing his best to try and not be known as a one-hit wonder because of it. That's too bad that he didn't get the second act that we would have wanted for him, especially because of the earlier issues with drugs.

[thewayne]

There are many shows that I can watch and just not laugh at, and Friends was one of them.  It was completely not for me.  And I was completely gobsmacked when they did an episode that was entirely about someone trying to arrange a three-way.  This was prime time entertainment?  Frasier was another one that never did it for me.

[silveradept]

It didn't seem all that interesting in the snippets that I would catch here and there.

I suspect the people who like Frasier are the people who liked the character in Cheers and followed him to the other show.

[thewayne]

I liked Cheers in a 'I'm in a room with it airing and having nothing better to do' way, but not enough to follow it.  Frasier banked on snobbishness and contrast with his working-class father.  It just didn't do it for me.