Matthew Perry

Born: 19th August, 1969
Where: Williamstown, Massachusetts

Matthew, best known as Chandler Bing in Friends, was an avid tennis player and ranked number 17 in Canada in the junior singles category and number three in doubles competition.

Just one week after college graduation, he was offered the lead in a Fox sitcom called Second Chance. It was duly cancelled.

Putting faith in Matthew's abilities, Fox conjured up another sitcom, Boys Will Be Boys, around the would-be star. But that was another failure.

Matthew then began to appear as a guest on a series of TV programmes ranging from Michael Landon's Highway to Heaven, to Aaron Spelling's Beverly Hills 90210.

Matthew was 'discovered' in true Hollywood fashion while skipping university classes and hanging out in a restaurant.

His waitress delivered the sixteen-year-old a napkin with the telephone number of director William Richert, who wanted to audition him for a movie.

Though sceptical, Matthew called Richert and later accepted a small part opposite River Phoenix in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.

In 1993, he tapped into his savings and began writing his own TV comedy. One year later, he sold the pilot to Universal Television.

Titled Maxwell's House, Matthew's programme was about a caffeine charged cluster of six attractive twenty-somethings who moaned about their jobs, relationships, and getting old.

Sounds familiar. NBC thought so too when Matthew and Universal pitched them the show. The network declined because it was already developing a similar sitcom called Friends.

Although they didn't want his programme, NBC and the producers of Friends did want Perry, and they cast him as Chandler.

As the legend goes, Friends debuted to immediate success in 1994, and its six co-stars shot to international stardom.

Like the other cast members, he has capitalised on his sudden fame by spending time away from the set of Friends making movies.

In the summer of 1997, it was reported that Matthew checked into a drug rehab centre suffering from 'chemical dependency on a prescription medication.'

One year Matthew asked that his name be removed from the Best Actor in a Comedy Emmy list. Friends co-stars have all agreed that they would only be nominated in supporting roles.