BENNETT
PERRY
John

• 1. Career

John Bennett Perry is an American actor and former model. He is the father of the late actor Matthew Perry.

Career

Perry began his career focusing on singing, being part of the Serendipity Singers and with his stage credits including the 1967 musical Now Is the Time for All Good Men. He also appeared as an extra in the crowd scene in the "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" segment in the 1972 film Cabaret. Perry portrayed the clean-shaven "sailor" in the Old Spice commercials of the 1970s and 1980s.

Perry has appeared in numerous films such as Lipstick (1976), Midway (1976), The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981), Only When I Laugh (1981), Independence Day (1996) and George of the Jungle (1997), and on such television programs as The West Wing, L.A. Law, Days of Our Lives, Little House on the Prairie, Centennial, 240-Robert, Nakia, Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder and Magnum, P.I.. He played General Douglas MacArthur in the 1989 film Farewell to the King.

In the 1978–79 TV season, he and Stephanie Edwards co-hosted EveryDay, a syndicated daytime talk/variety series that also featured Murray Langston, Tom Chapin, Bob Corff and Anne Bloom. He and Edwards were both nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Talk, Service or Variety Series, losing to Phil Donahue of The Phil Donahue Show.

He appeared alongside his son Matthew Perry in the 1997 movie Fools Rush In, and in the episode "My Unicorn" of the sitcom Scrubs, each time as the father of his real-life son's character. He also appeared in the episode of Friends with the title "The One with Rachel's New Dress", playing the father of Rachel Green's boyfriend Joshua.