Matthew Perry death: Actor’s family and Friends cast pay tribute as 911 call released

Kathleen Turner says in a new interview that she is “very sad for Matthew” after learning of the Friends actor’s passing at his home on Saturday.

She remembered her TV son — Turner played Chandler Bing’s parent on Friends — and said: “He came to see one of my Broadway shows and he came backstage. When he saw me, he yelled out, ‘Hey dad’ and everyone thought it was pretty cool. I think it was for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

Turner saw Perry “at least 10 years [ago] at some event. I liked him. He had a good sense of humour and a good heart. He liked other people, which, to me, is terribly important, especially for an actor.

“It’s extremely sad when you think about how young [he was] and a pity he couldn’t get more control.”

Hank Azaria has said that Friends co-star Matthew Perry helped him to get sober, and that it was “heartbreaking” to have to watch Perry deal with drug and alcohol addiction.

Simpsons voice actor Azaria paid tribute to comedy actor Perry after the news of his death aged 54.

The 59-year-old comedian and actor starred as Phoebe Buffay’s boyfriend David in the much-loved 90s sitcom, while Perry played the witty and sarcastic Chandler Bing.

In a video posted to his Instagram page, Azaria described his friendship with Perry and said they were like brothers.

“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles when I moved there,” he said.

“We did a pilot together … we became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time.

“We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together. We were there for each other in the early days of our career and he was to me, as funny as he was on Friends and he was and other things too, in person he was just the funniest man ever.

“And every night, he was like a genius, he would start to weave comedy threads together, just hanging out – little joke here, joke there, joke here, joke there – and then by the end of the night he would weave them all together in this crescendo of hilarity.”

Perry, who appeared in TV series including The Odd Couple and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, had publicly discussed his recovery from an addiction to opiates and alcohol.

Azaria said: “I really loved him. A lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because as he documented in his autobiography there was so much suffering.

“I had to pick it up and put down the biography like 11 times it was so painful for me to read.

“It was really, as his, friend who loved him I knew he must be suffering, but the details of it were just devastating, just physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically.

“You know, from a recovery perspective, I mean I’m a sober guy for 17 years. I want to say that the night I went into AA Matthew brought me in.”

Read the full tribute here:

Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing came out on 1 November 2022, and in it, Perry wrote about his famous past relationships and his time on the hit sitcom that made him famous around the world.

However, Perry also explored his widely publicised addiction to alcohol and painkillers, which resulted in him visiting rehab 15 times over his lifetime, and having a number of near-death experiences.

Here are seven of the biggest revelations from Perry’s memoir…

Matthew Perry’s family is speaking out following the actor’s sudden death on Saturday.

Matthew was born in 1969 to his parents John Bennett Perry and Suzanne Morrison, but they split less than a year later. He was raised by his mother and father, as well as his stepfather, Dateline NBC’s Keith Morrison.

His family told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement that they are “heartbroken” by his “tragic” death.

“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of our beloved son and brother,” the family said. “Matthew brought so much joy to the world, both as an actor and a friend.”

They added: “You all meant so much to him and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of love.”

Andrea Cavallier reports…

A 911 call made from Matthew Perry’s Los Angeles home on the night he died references “drowning” just before first responders arrived to find the actor unresponsive in a jacuzzi.

Perry, the actor best known for his role of Chandler Bing on Friends, was found dead in his jacuzzi in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Saturday. He was 54.

In the dispatch audio obtained by TMZ, a man can be heard saying, “Agent 23. Rescue 23. EMS 9 on the radio. In response to the drowning.” Other bits of the 16-minute clip were bleeped out.

Tape was put up around the home, but law enforcement sources told TMZ no drugs were found at the scene and no foul play is suspected.

His official cause of death is still under investigation.

On Sunday, Perry’s book was ranked No. 1 on Amazon, supplanting Britney Spears’ memoir, the Associated Press reported.

Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.

“‘Friends’ was huge. I couldn’t jeopardize that. I loved the script. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his memoir. “I had a secret and no one could know.”

“I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions,” Perry wrote. “If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.”

He recalled in his memoir that Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.

“I know you’re drinking,” he remembered her telling him once. “We can smell it,” she said, in what Perry called a “kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”

In the foreword to Perry’s memoir, Lisa Kudrow described him as “whip smart, charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable, and rational.” She added, “That guy, with everything he was battling, was still there.”

Maggie Wheeler, who played Janice on Friends, has said “the world will miss” her co-star Matthew Perry.

“What a loss.The world will miss you Mathew Perry . The joy you brought to so many in your too short lifetime will live on. I feel so very blessed by every creative moment we shared,” she wrote on Instagram.

Wheeler had earlier this year said reading Perry’s memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing was “sad”.

The actor said she had “many startling revelations about the ways Matthew has suffered over the years trying to wrangle his addictions” while reading the book.

“I think he’s done a tremendous job and he’s really survived the unthinkable,” Wheeler had said. “And I’m so proud of him and I’m so happy he’s here and I think it’s very brave that he’s written a book and he’s out talking about it, he’s really helping a lot of people.”

A 911 call made from Matthew Perry’s Los Angeles home on the night he died references “drowning” just before first responders arrived to find the actor unresponsive in a jacuzzi. Andrea Cavallier reports