R.I.P. to a great TV star, not a great movie star

There was really only one successful breakout star from Friends: Jennifer Aniston. Even though she's made more bad movies than good ones, there's no doubt that she became a viable movie star, not to mention a worldwide brand and gossip column/tabloid staple.

One could argue that Matthew Perry was the next most promising, though it didn't work out that way.

They kept on trying to make Perry happen during the first half of his Friends run. But movies like Fools Rush In, Almost Heroes, Three to Tango and The Whole Nine Yards just didn't register, although they did make a sequel to The Whole Nine Yards and Perry appeared in that as well. 

More than not registering, some of them were just really awful. I ranked Almost Heroes last of all the movies I saw in 1998, and lest you forget, Christopher Guest was actually the director there. I don't recall Perry being specifically bad, but he certainly didn't save it. The very next year, Three to Tango was sixth from the bottom, though my memory has been even less kind to it. It's ranked even lower than Heroes on my Flickchart, the latter coming in at 6372 while Heroes pulls up at a comparatively respectable 6304. There are only 6397 films on my Flickchart so these rankings are both awful. I probably owe Three to Tango another viewing just to see how it managed to get so low on my chart. I think there was a scene involving vomiting that I hated.

Matthew Perry's movie career doesn't say a single thing about who he was as a performer and what he brought into our lives.

There's a very real argument that Chandler Bing ushered in a whole ironic sensibility that wouldn't be a fraction of what it is today in our culture without him. Perry was a maestro of sarcasm. He owns a whole sentence construction to himself -- you know, the one where the word "be" is emphasized. Best not to quote him, but to quote the homage to him delivered by Chandler bestie Joey Tribbiani, played by Matt LeBlanc, when the two friends are embroiled in an epic argument. Joey goes and puts on every piece of clothing in Chandler's closet and zings him "I'm Chandler Bing, could I *be* wearing any more clothes?"

There's no doubt Perry was gifted at line deliveries and had impeccable comedic timing. But don't forget how much he made you believe in the soul underneath all that sarcasm. We shipped his relationship with Courtney Cox's Monica Geller through the series, because in that chronic sub plot Perry sold the depth of Chandler Bing. I think also about an earlier TV performance, in Growing Pains, when his Sandy character appeared in a memorable guest plot as a character suffering from drug addiction. (That was all too close to home for the future version of Perry, alas.)

The end of Friends was the end of the good times for Perry, career-wise, in that nothing he did after that really stuck. However, he almost became a mini version of Ted Danson in that new TV shows kept betting on the star power and specific comedic persona he brought to the screen. Alas, none of those series lasted like Danson's did.

It's hard to say what role Perry's struggles with addiction may have played in what is being described as a drowning death in a hot tub on Saturday. Pickleball was also involved. We don't know if drugs were involved (if it was an accident), or if depression was involved (if it were intentional). The details are still being investigated. And I suspect we haven't heard the last of the reporting on the topic.

What we do know is when we lost Perry at 54, we lost a comic actor who shone brightly, not for long enough, and not with the perfect showcases we would have hoped for his talent.

RIP.