Matthew Perry Famous Canadian Actor from Ottawa, Ontario

Matthew was born August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, as the son of Suzanne Perry, a model at that time, press aid to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau later, and actor John Perry, who became sort of famous in the 60s as the face of the "Old Spice"-commercials. Matthew's parents divorced before his first birthday, and his mother moved to her native Ottawa with him. While working for the Canadian federal Liberal party, she moved around a lot with Matthew in that time, but later settled in Ottawa again, where she remarried. Her new husband was Keith Morrison, NBC News Reporter. They had four more children
In school Matthew was an avid tennis player, he once said that he spent his whole childhood on a tennis court. When he was thirteen he was the Number 2 player in Ottawa. Since he wanted to play professional tennis, Matthew decided to move to Los Angeles to his father's new family.
Actually his tennis career wasn't the success he intended, Matthew turned to acting. As an actor he was "discovered" by director William Richert, while sitting in a restaurant with three girls, trying to impress them. Suddenly Matthew got a napkin with a note on it - sounds a bit like the story of Lana Turner's discovery, but nonetheless true. The movie he now auditioned for, and in which he got a small part, was "A Night in The Life of Jimmy Reardon" opposite River Phoenix.
Although the movie wasn't a huge success, from then on Matthew was a regular guest on TV-shows, guest starring in shows like "Stairway to Heaven", "Who's the Boss", Beverly Hills 90210". Yet the big success wasn't coming, until ... well until he one day in 1994 auditioned for an NBC sitcom, that was then to be known as "Friends". He got the part of Chandler Bing, the show became a huge success, all 6 actors are now rich and famous, and pursue a movie career. The show is now running in its 6th season, still the most successful sitcom in the States.
Matthew had some problems in this time, but he has also overcome them, looking good and healthy right now; he made some movies in the last few years, such as "Fools Rush In" with Salma Hayek, "Almost Heroes" starring the late Chris Farley, "Three to Tango" with Dylan McDermott and Neve Campbell, and lately "The Whole Nine Yards" with Bruce Willis, which turns out to be a huge box-office success.
In 2000 the cast of Friends signed up for another two years, probably the last two seasons of the show. And Matthew started filming the movie Servicing Sara with co-star Liz Hurley in December 2000. It will be in theaters early 2002.

Addition February 2002: As you probably all know, 2001 turned out to be a troublesome year for Matthew, so the filming of Servicing Sara was interrupted for a while. It will be in theaters later this year. As for Friends - just last week the cast signed up for a ninth season, again probably the last one. In addition to that, Matthew will appear in two episodes of Ally McBeal.