Further thoughts on the death of Matthew Perry

Still, I was surprised by Perry's flushed, unshaven face and his generally burned-out demeanor.

The occasion was a gathering of television stars and critics in Pasadena, California, organized by the networks so that journalists could interview the actors in person. Perry was quite conscious and smoking a cigarette while he answered my questions. I thanked him and moved on.

Maybe he hadn't slept much recently. Maybe he was just having a bad day, like we all do. His appearance was still shocking, though, and I've thought about it often since he died of a ketamine overdose on October 28 last year at the age of 54, after a long and hard battle with addiction.

Five people – including two doctors, Perry's personal assistant, an alleged drug trafficker known as the “ketamine queen” and an acquaintance who worked as a film producer and director – have been charged in connection with his death. Several of them have signed plea agreements or agreed to cooperate with law enforcement, allowing some harrowing details of Perry's final days and hours to emerge over the weekend.

The New York Times reported that at one point one of the doctors texted the other, “I wonder how much this idiot is going to pay.” The second doctor replied, “Let's find out.”

According to the Associated Press, a Drug Enforcement Administration official said Perry paid doctors $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost her $12. A U.S. prosecutor said Perry paid them about $55,000 in the two months before his death.

The Times reported that Perry's assistant injected him with ketamine six to eight times a day in the weeks before his death, according to a plea agreement he signed. On October 28, the assistant administered a ketamine injection to the actor at around 8:30 a.m. and a second one four hours later.

About 40 minutes later, Perry asked the assistant to “give me a big shot” and then “prepare his hot tub,” the Times wrote. When the assistant returned from his errands, “he found Mr. Perry dead, face down in the water,” the Times said.

Like so many celebrity deaths, Perry's story seems to be one of greed, recklessness and exploitation. It also reminds us that sometimes we don't know how popular an artist is until after his death. The outpouring of sadness over Perry's death showed how much affection there was for him – and for Chandler – and how many admired his openness about his substance abuse.

Perry was born in Williamstown and worked as an apprentice at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1993. While at the festival, he had an affair with another apprentice, a young actress named Gwyneth Paltrow. What Paltrow wrote on Instagram after his death may have captured the real Matthew Perry.

“He was so funny and so sweet and so much fun to be around,” Paltrow wrote. “We went out swimming in streams, drank beer at the local college bar and kissed in a field of tall grass. It was a magical summer.”

Don Aucoin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GlobeAucoin.