Update 9:30 a.m. Oct. 31: As expected, Friends stars issued a joint statementabout the drowning death of Matthew Perry late Monday.
"We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family. There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss," said the message signed by Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.
"In time we will say more, as and when we are able. For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world."
Original post 1:45 p.m. Monday Oct. 30:"I'll be there for you" is not just a line from the Friends theme song.
The Friends cast embodied that statement from the sitcom's premiere in September 1994, throughout its 10-year run on NBC, and during the nearly 20 years since.
In a Hollywood business filled with egos, the six TV Friends — Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer — had an unprecedented bond.
During the sitcom's run on NBC, the cast members refused to appear on magazine covers individually. Instead, they insisted that all six be shown. Perry, who played sarcastic Chandler Bing on the comedy, once asked that his name be removed from the Emmy's Best Actor in a Comedy list because the Friends co-stars agreed that they would only be nominated in supporting roles.
So it's no surprise that in the wake of Perry's drowning death at his Los Angeles-area home Saturday night at age 54 that none of the cast members have individually made public comments or social media posts about their dear friend.
We've seen statements from the Friends co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane and executive producer Kevin Bright; various guest stars; and Perry's movie co-stars. But so far no comment from the five surviving stars of the sitcom, which remains a TV mainstay today (9 p.m.-to 2 a.m. on Nickelodeon; 11:35 p.m. on WXIX-TV; streaming on HBO Max and available on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and VUDU).
(Nickelodeon also airs Matthew Perry: Thanks For Being A Friend at midnight tonight. The special tribute premiered Sunday night.)
During my twice-annual trips to Los Angeles for the Television Critics Association's press tour for the Cincinnati Enquirer, I met the Friends cast several times. Perry in person was very much like his TV character — smart, witty, self-deprecating and charming. That wasn't a surprise. Perry has said the writers and producers would chat with the stars and glean tidbits, funny lines or gags for their scripts.
But we saw less of the Friends at NBC gatherings than stars from other shows. One of the reasons was the Friends unprecedented — there's that word again — hold out in unison for $1 million per episode. They eventually got it.
Friends debuted Sept. 22, 1994, in NBC's hugely popular "Must See TV" lineup of Seinfeld, ER and Mad About You a year after Cheers ended and two years after The Cosby Show signed off. By the second season (1995-96) it was No. 3 in the national Nielsens, behind ER and Seinfeld.
In its eighth season (2001-02), Friends finally jumped into No. 1, averaging 24 million viewers, more than ER, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Everybody Loves Raymond, Law & Order and Survivor. That was quite an achievement. Only Cheers and Seinfeld had been the No. 1 show in the eighth season since The Andy Griffith Show. And Friends did it with the original cast intact, unlike Andy Griffith, Cheers, ER, The Cosby Show or Roseanne. Friends also won its only Best Comedy Series Emmy for the 2001-02 TV season.
During that season, I was lucky to attend a Friends taping at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank in January 2002, the one where pregnant Rachel (Aniston) was rushed to a hospital with false labor pains.
The experience was — I'm going to say it again — unprecedented in my sitcom taping experiences. Unlike my visits to Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Night Court, Murphy Brown and other shows, Friends took six hours (!) to tape a 22-minute show. That was twice as long as any other taping I watched. It ran so long they passed out pizzas to the studio audience. Twice.
The long night revealed the great dedication and care by the cast and writers to produce the funniest episode possible. Often taping halted so 10 writers and producers could huddle like a football team in front of the Central Perk café set while the stars waited for them to punch up a scene with the perfect joke.
We didn't laugh when Aniston grimaced as the baby's father (Schwimmer) dismissed the false labor by saying, "That's no big deal. Most people don't even feel them."
After the impromptu writers' meeting, Rachel showed her contempt with a comeback on the next take: "No uterus, no opinion!"
The studio audience howled.
Chandler had already married Monica (Cox) the previous May. Creators Kaufman and Crane continued to shake things up for the must-see 2001-02 season with Ross having career troubles and Joey's (LeBlanc) unexpected romantic feelings for Rachel. Which led to this line from smart aleck Chandler to Joey that night: "How's your hideously inappropriate crush on Rachel coming?"
Perry was the youngest of the Friends cast, at 24, when the pilot was filmed in early 1994. The Canadian teenage tennis star moved to Los Angeles to be near his father, actor John Bennett Perry (Independence Day, Falcon Crest, George of the Jungle). His stepfather also lives in L.A. — NBC Dateline host Keith Morrison.
Perry got small parts on Silver Spoons, Charles in Charge (both 1985) before being hired as a cast member on Boys Will Be Boys (1987-88). He also appeared in Empty Nest, Growing Pains, Who's The Boss and Beverly Hills 90210 before auditioning for the Kauffman-Crane show originally titled Friends Like Us.
Friends changed his life. He created an iconic sitcom character which ranks right up there with Kramer from Seinfeld; Don Knotts from Andy Griffith; Kelsey Grammer's Frasier or Jim Parson's Sheldon Cooper. He was so popular that only Perry and Michael J. Fox have had the No. 1 TV show and No. 1 movie the same week. Perry did it in 2000 with The Whole Nine Yards comedy with Bruce Willis and Rosanna Arquette.
After Friends he did a mix of movies (The Whole 10 Years, 17 Again), starring in TV series (The West Wing, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Mr. Sunshine, Go On, The Odd Couple) and TV guest roles (on Cox's Cougar Town. The Good Wife, The Good Fight and playing father-son with his dad on Scrubs).
We love to watch Friends reruns, but Perry didn't. He said in interviews last year promoting his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, that he could tell which seasons he was battling addictions to alcohol or Vicodin painkillers, one reason for his weight-drop to 128 lbs. (When I attended the 2002 taping, only Cox, LeBlanc and Kudrow stuck around all six hours for the curtain call. Aniston split early to attend the Sundance Film Festival, while Schwimmer and Perry "had other engagements," we were told.
His book starts out by saying, "I should be dead." He went to detox 65 times, and into rehab 15 times, and attended 6,000 AA meetings. His Vicodin addiction was so bad he took 55 pills per day.
Perry told ABC's Diane Sawyer in October last year how he would go to open houses on Sunday and walk into the bathroom to see what drugs he could steal.
He recalled to Sawyer how Aniston confronted him during the 10-year run of Friends about his problems.
" 'I know you're drinking,' " Perry recalled her saying. "How? I thought I was hiding it. And she said, 'We can smell it. We can smell it.' But I wasn't in a position to stop."
He finally beat his demons in early 2021 and wrote his memoir. Last year he said on Tom Power's q show (weekdays at 9:05 p.m. on WVXU-FM) how he offered help to people battling addiction. As that song says, "I'll be there for you."
"I've said for a long time: Because I was on television, I've got to help as many people as I can … When I die, I don't want Friends to be the first thing that's mentioned. And I'm going to live the rest of my life proving that."
Reruns of Friends air weekdays 9 p.m.-to 2 a.m. on Nickelodeon and 11:35 p.m. on WXIX-TV (except on World Series nights) and stream on HBO Max. Nickelodeon also repeats its Sunday night tribute, Matthew Perry: Thanks For Being A Friend, at midnight tonight. Nickelodeon also will feature Perry's best episodes through Sunday, Nov. 5. Friends also is available on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and VUDU.
