Matthew Perry, notorious for his role as Chandler Bing on the beloved American TV sitcom, Friends, passed away at age 54 on Saturday in his home in L.A. by an apparent drowning accident.

Perry was well known to American TV audiences, featuring in over 200 episodes in all 10 seasons of Friends, the hit sitcom about a tight-knit group of young adults living in Manhattan. He starred alongside notable actors such as Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow. His character, Chandler Bing, was known as one of the funniest sitcom performances of all time due to his funny, affable and sarcastic personality.

Although he was best known for Friends, Perry had a career in television that spanned nearly four decades, with his earliest being in 1979, when he starred in an episode of the cop show, 240-Robert, as a young child. He landed the role of Chandler Bing at age 24.

Perry also had roles in various TV shows in the 2010s, including Mr. Sunshine, a 2011 ABC comedy in which he starred as Ben Donovan, a gloomy, egoistical loner who was the general manager of the Sunshine Center, a sports and entertainment arena in San Diego. He also played the role of Oscar Madison in all three seasons of the remake of The Odd Couple, a sitcom that aired on CBS from 2015 to 2017.

In 1997, Perry went into rehab, which according to news reports was due to an addiction to pain medication. He was later hospitalized for pancreatitis, an inflammation that is caused by alcohol and drug abuse. His addiction then led to a series of complications in 2018.

In 2021, Perry appeared in a reunion of the Friends cast, where the stars revisited some of the show’s most famous sets such as the Central Perk coffee shop where they reveled in the nostalgia of old episodes.

News of Perry’s death prompted fans worldwide to pay tribute on social media. Asked in an interview how he would like to be remembered, he said, “As a guy who lived life, loved well, lived well and helped people.”