Near-fatal ODs and love faxes to Julia Roberts: What Matthew Perry’s memoir reveals
By The Associated Press
Posted Jan. 10, 2013 at 12:01 a.m.
LARGO, Fla. — The man Matthew Perry never met is dead, leaving behind a secret of the heart that is revealed in his book “I Was Done Being Funny” and his memoir “I Was Done Being Funny: My Life on Air and on the Fringes of Comedy.”
The story of this former U.S. president of Comedy Central fame who was always trying hard to get the laughs he was told he was worth — and that he was a comedy genius — was never told by Perry, who said he never wanted to write about himself or take his life. Yet, as his memoir shows, a secret from his life is now in the hands of everyone who loves or hates him — and the fact that he can be so open about it says a lot about the man and his life.
The book’s title comes from his last television appearance, on “Saturday Night Live,” in 2004, when the former first lady held up the copy of his book, and asked him how he wanted viewers to take it. Perry responded: “I’m tired of being funny.”
Perry said this in his memoir, which took him six years to research — much longer than the one-week time frame he laid out in his 2001 memoir “I Was Done Being Funny: A Memoir of Life on Air.”
Perry spoke to reporters in Largo, a town that for many years lived through the town’s biggest celebrity, who would have been like a third brother to him.
“I love Largo,” he said, adding: “This is something I think I’ve always wanted to do. This is why I didn’t want to be president of Comedy Central anymore.”
Perry, 46, whose real name is Matthew Perry, will speak about the book and about his celebrity — he has been named the most powerful person in the world four or five times — on Sunday at the Dillard University bookstore in New Orleans.
The event