Luke Perry
Played teen heart-throb Dylan Mckay in Beverly Hills, 90210
LUKE PERRY, the actor, who has died aged 52, became US television’s leading heart-throb in the 1990s as the smouldering loner Dylan Mckay in the high-school series Beverly Hills, 90210, although he struggled for many years to escape the shadow of the role.
Beverly Hills, 90210, which began in October 1990, was the first soap opera aimed at teenagers. The well-heeled characters were played by actors who looked like models and the storylines mixed melodrama with “relatable” adolescent issues, a formula emulated by Dawson’s Creek, The OC and many others.
Luke Perry was catapulted to stardom as the programme became essential viewing for teenagers. In 1991 10,000 fans turned up when he made a personal appearance at a shopping mall in Florida; he had to be whisked away to a nearby hotel after the event erupted into a mêlée that left 20 injured.
The following year he and his co-stars appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone and Perry appeared solo – and shirtless – on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Part of the show’s appeal was its unfussy attitude towards sex; in the first season Dylan and his girlfriend Brenda (Shannen Doherty) became the first teenage couple on US television to enjoy a sexual relationship with no dire consequences. After complaints from parents, however, the couple suffered a pregnancy scare.
Perry’s success did not bring him much fulfilment. “It doesn’t say ‘role model’ in my contract,” he said. “I looked at every page. I was hired as an actor.”
With his James Dean pompadour and sideburns, his character made teenyboppers swoon, but Perry was aware that he was also derided as an ersatz clone of the original rebel without a cause.
He left in 1995 to develop his film career, but appeared only in small roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Fifth Element. He returned to 90210 in 1998 and remained until it ended in 2000.
In 2001 he played Brad Majors in a revival of The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway. He was cast with Alyson Hannigan in a stage version of When Harry Met Sally at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2004; the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer judged that “Luke Perry’s rumpled Harry [was] actually rather more engaging than Billy Crystal.”
Perry declined to join revivals of 90210, and concentrated on taking small but varied roles.
In 2017 he embarked on his best part since 90210 in Riverdale, another teen drama, based on the Archie Andrews comics; his performance as the lead character’s father, Fred Andrews, was praised.
The son of Coy Perry, a steelworker, and his wife Ann, he was born Coy Luther Perry III in Mansfield, Ohio, on October 11 1966 and grew up in rural Fredericktown. His parents divorced when he was six and he became estranged from his father, forming a strong bond with his stepfather, a builder.
Aged 17 he left for Los Angeles; he told his family they would next see him “in a box or on the box”.
“I didn’t really have much of a plan B,” he said in 2004, “I guess I figured if I didn’t make it I’d just marry well.”
He claimed to have received 216 rejections before he landed the part of Ned Bates in the soap opera Loving in 1987. But he was axed after a year and lived as a jobbing actor, often taking on construction work, until 90210. When filming the series at Torrance High School, he liked to point out the speed bump he had laid in the car park a week before he landed the role.
He continued to work on Riverdale until suffering a severe stroke in February.
Luke Perry’s marriage to Minnie Sharp was dissolved in 2003. Their son and daughter survive him.