Matthew Perry’s Trust Draws Name From Late Actor’s Treasured Childhood Memory With Mother

A Friday legal filing in Los Angeles regarding the estate and will of Matthew Perry shows that the late Friends actor has named his parents as the beneficiaries of a trust that he named after an iconic Woody Allen character. The role in the film, the actor said in his memoir, was central to his favorite childhood memory.  

The legal filing, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, shows that Perry, who died in late October at the age of 54, had placed the majority of his belongings into the Alvy Singer Living Trust. Alvy Singer is the iconic character played by Allen in his 1975 career high-water mark romantic comedy, Annie Hall. In his 2022 memoir, Friends Lovers – And The Big Terrible Thing, Perry recalled the treasured memory of a day with his mother that ended with the two watching the film.

“We had played games all day long — we even tried to play Monopoly, but it’s hard when there’s just two of you — and then as night fell, we found Annie Hall on our little TV and laughed our asses off at Woody Allen’s house under the roller coaster,” Perry wrote. “That is my absolute favorite childhood memory — sitting with my mom and watching that movie.”

His mother, Suzanne Morrison, and John Perry, the actor’s father, are named in the trust as its beneficiaries. Perry’s half-sister, Caitlin Morrison, and his ex-girlfriend from 2003 to 2005, Rachel Dunn, are also listed in the trust; his will, created in 2009, indicates that any children he had would not be entitled to access his estate. Perry, who was single at the time of his death, is not known to have fathered any children.

The co-executors of the trust are named in the legal filing as Lisa Ferguson and Robin Ruzan, who was the executive producer of the game show Celebrity Liar, on which Perry had appeared. 

A living trust holds the ownership rights or title to the assets that a person decides to transfer there. Trusts are frequently used to avoid the lengthy court-supervised probate process, which is the case with any assets in a person’s estate. According to the filing, the actor held $1,030,000 in personal property “not limited to jewelry, furniture and furnishings, works of art and automobiles.” His total estimated total net worth was around $120 million.

Perry died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine, according to the autopsy report filed by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. The results listed drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine (a drug used to treat opioid addiction) effects as contributing factors. Perry’s manner of death was ruled an accident and there were no signs of foul play.

Perry was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy at the time of his death; however, his most recent session had been one-and-a-half weeks before his death.

An appointment hearing for Perry’s estate is scheduled at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles on April 10.