Death of a Hollywood Heart-throb
‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ and ‘Riverdale’ star Luke Perry has passed away, age 52
The perfect, brushed-back hair. The crinkled forehead. The brooding James Dean-like stare. Luke Perry’s Beverly Hills, 90210 character, Dylan Mckay, was the quintessential teen idol. But it’s a tag that never sat well with the late actor. Speaking with WHO at the height of his fame in 1991, Perry, then 25, was at pains to point out his celebrity status had not gone to his head. “I’m a simple guy. Look around. I don’t need a whole lot,” he said.
Perry, whose career spanned over 30 years, died on March 4, five days after he suffered a massive stroke. He was just 52. The down-toearth star was surrounded by his close family when he passed away at St Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank, California. His children, Jack, 21, and Sophie, 18, and 44-year-old fiancée Wendy Madison Bauer were by his bedside, as were ex-wife Rachel “Minnie” Sharp, mother Ann Bennett, stepfather Steve Bennett, brother Tom Perry, sister Amy Coder and other family members and friends.
The flood of emotion from millions throughout the world is to be expected. While his 90210 role made him famous to one set of fans, he recently gained a new set of young admirers when he took on the role of scruffy-looking dad Fred Andrews in the hit teen show Riverdale. “The family appreciates the outpouring of support and prayers that have been extended to Luke from around the world, and respectfully request privacy in this time
of great mourning,” a representative for the family said in a statement.
Hollywood paid tribute to Perry on social media, including those he has worked with over the years. One of Perry’s former 90210 co-stars, Christine Elise Mccarthy, who played Emily Valentine in the series, was “stunned” by his death. “With the heaviest of hearts, I am stunned and devastated to tell you that Luke passed away,” she posted on Instagram alongside a picture of her with Perry and co-star Jason Priestley. “I am still in shock and I have no words beyond saying he was a truly kind gentleman. He will be mourned and missed by everyone who knew him and the millions who love him. RIP, dearie Luke. Your time here was far too short.”
Perry was raised in the farming community of Fredericktown, Ohio, a far cry from Hollywood. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles, taking up jobs such as working for an asphalt paving company to pay the bills. He was reportedly rejected 256 times at auditions, before finally landing a role in a show called Loving, and then a 10-episode arc in soap Another World.
Everything changed for Perry when he scored the career-making role in 90210. Yet he was, and perhaps remained, the guy from the country. “I love where I come from,” Perry, who was born Coy Luther Perry III, told WHO in 1991. “The people there are good people. When they say, ‘Thank you’ they mean it. A lot of people say nice things to me out here [in Hollywood] because they’re getting paid to.”
Even at this point, Perry wasn’t interested
in being your typical Hollywood actor. He was determined to succeed in his own way; live his own life. “Some people would say that I’m not an actor, simply because I don’t own a Harley-davidson and I’ve never been to a poetry reading. That s--t isn’t what I’m about.” The first time his mother saw him step out of a limousine, he confessed to the US Today show, he felt “weird”. “I felt a little guilty, maybe. I felt a little strange,” he said.
Perry’s father, Coy, a steelworker, and his mother, Ann, divorced when the actor was 6 years old. When his father died of a heart attack in 1980, Perry attended his funeral, but father and son had never reconciled. Perry did, however, connect with his mother’s new husband, his stepfather, construction worker Steve Bennett, who Ann married when Perry was 12. “He is the greatest man I know. I love him,” Perry told WHO of Steve in 1991. “He was the one who taught me the important things I needed to know about being a man.”
Likely, it was Steve who instilled in Perry what it meant to be a good father. The actor had two children with former wife Rachel “Minnie” Sharp, son Jack and daughter Sophie. “Luke was a super great, very hands-on dad,” a source tells WHO. “He was always attending his kids’ school and afterschool functions when they were younger. He loved just hanging out with them and being present. He was so proud of everything they accomplished.”
And it appears his son has Perry’s flair for entertaining, with Jack pursuing a career in professional wrestling. He performs under the name Jungle Boy Nate Coy and proud dad Perry reportedly attended some of his matches, even filming the sweaty events from the stands.
Perry married Sharp in November 1993 after the pair had dated for two years. The wedding was held, somewhat fittingly, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. Fifty family and friends were there, including Perry’s 90210 cast mates, Jason Priestley and Brian Austin Green.
Sharp’s father, Alan, was part of the industry – he wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film The Year of Living Dangerously – but Minnie was a one-time actress-turned-furniture saleswoman. And that, said people who knew Perry at the time, made her right for the star. “She will be good for Luke,” 90210 creator Aaron Spelling told USA Today at the time. “She’s not in show business. Her head is on really straight.”
Certainly, that’s exactly what he needed at the time, when the dizzy heights of 90210 fandom reached its zenith. Perry was – here come those words he hated – one of the biggest teen idols on the planet in the
“Luke was a super great, hands-on dad”
1990s. Joining the show in 1990, Perry’s life suddenly became a giddy whir of magazine covers, public appearances for feverish fans at shopping centres and merchandising. Who will admit to once owning a Dylan Mckay doll?
Of course, girls fell for Dylan. Where Brandon (Priestley) was the nice guy with career aspirations, Dylan was the classic bad boy with a good heart, caught in a love triangle with besties Brenda (Shannen Doherty) and Kelly (Jennie Garth).
Perry and the others carried on a tradition of actors playing high-schoolers, despite being well out of their teens. Some would single out Perry’s wrinkled forehead as proof he was much older than his character, despite the fact he was just 24 when he took on the role. He left the show in 1995 and then returned in 1998 for a two-year stint.
Regardless of what people said about him, the actor was able to use his celebrity status to further his career. He voiced himself in a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, and scored a role in the 1992 horror-comedy movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made before the cult TV series.
The movie’s writer and series creator, Joss Whedon, tweeted this about Perry following the actor’s death: “The first time I met Luke Perry we talked about what kind of movie we wanted Buffy to be. I asked if he’d ever seen Near Dark and he gave me a look of ‘How dare you, sir!’ and I knew we’d get along. Funny, committed, and always gracious. He shouldn’t be gone.”
In his latest TV role as Fred Andrews in Riverdale, Perry, who played Archie’s (KJ Apa) dad, was just as much a father figure to younger castmates on the set of the series. In an emotional joint statement, Riverdale executive producers, Warner Bros., and
network The CW explained the integral team member they’ve lost: “Luke was everything you would hope he would be: an incredibly caring, consummate professional with a giant heart, and a true friend to all,” the statement read. “A father figure and mentor to the show’s young cast, Luke was incredibly generous, and he infused the set with love and kindness.”
Meanwhile, co-star Marisol Nichols is still coming to terms with Perry’s death, writing: “I don’t have any words now. Maybe I will later.”
While he is synonymous for his roles in 90210 and Riverdale, Perry will also be remembered for making his mark in smaller roles. In the 1994 cowboy flick 8 Seconds Perry played real-life bull-rider Lane Frost. In 1997, he appeared in the sci-fi film The Fifth Element. This year, he will appear posthumously in Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, alongside Leonardo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.
As people react with shock at Perry’s death, his family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Fight Colorectal Cancer and St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. This makes sense. In 2015, Perry had a cancer scare after a colonoscopy revealed precancerous growths and in 2017, he spoke about his wish for more people to get checked for the disease.
“Right now, there are 23 million Americans who haven’t been screened who need to be screened,” Perry, who had the growths removed, told Fox News. “If I had waited, it could have been a whole different scenario.”
Gone way too soon, Perry nonetheless achieved much during his 52 years. People may remember him for a handful of roles, yet he worked almost continuously since he found fame on 90210. “I want to do something with my life,” he told WHO in 1991. “When my time here is up, I don’t want to look back and see that I didn’t do anything.” No danger there.