LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Friends star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic, but lovable, Chandler Bing was among television’s most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54.

The actor was found dead at his Los Angeles home, according to coroner’s records. An investigation into how Perry died is ongoing, and it may take weeks before his cause of death is determined.

Perry’s body was found in a hot tub at his home, according to unnamed sources cited by the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which was the first to report the news. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Drake Madison told The Associated Press on Saturday that officers had gone to that block “for a death investigation of a male in his 50s”.

“This truly is the one where our hearts are broken,” Friends co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and executive producer Kevin Bright said in a statement. “We will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment — not just to his work, but in life as well.

He was always the funniest person in the room. More than that, he was the sweetest, with a giving and selfless heart.”Perry’s 10 seasons on Friends made him one of Hollywood’s most recognisable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a friend group in New York.

As Chandler, he played the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc’s Joey and a close friend of Schwimmer’s Ross.

During the show’s hijinks, he could be counted on to chime in with a line like “Could this BE any more awkward?” or another well-timed quip.Perry was open about his long and public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his 2022 million-selling memoir: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”Friends ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each.Some of his Friends guest stars paid tribute on social media, posting photos, GIFs and bloopers from their favourite episodes.Perry described reading the Friends script for the first time in his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.””It was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life.

One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn’t that I thought I could ‘play’ Chandler. I ‘was’ Chandler.”Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.”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.Perry was born August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father is actor John Bennett Perry and his mother, Suzanne, served as press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and is married to Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison.