James Michael Tyler, who has died aged 59 , was the actor best known as the coffee shop manager Gunther in the sitcom Friends.
Tyler, whose character ran Central Perk and was sometimes thought of as “the seventh Friend” alongside the six protagonists, was a fan favourite for his sardonic one-liners and unrequited love for Rachel Greene, played by Jennifer Aniston.
Tyler’s early life in Winona, Mississippi, was marked by the death of his parents within a few months of each other. When he was 10 his mother died of breast cancer, and shortly afterwards his father, a former United States Air Force captain, died in a road accident.He moved to South Carolina to live with his sister.
His acting career began at Clemson University in the same state, where he studied geology and joined the Clemson Players.
After moving to Los Angeles in 1988 he sold keyboards in a music shop and worked as a barista in the Bourgeois Pig coffee shop in Hollywood before making inroads into film and television. Early gigs included a production assistant role on the Paul Newman film Fat Man and Little Boy.
But his biggest break came in 1994 with Friends. Shortly before his audition for the show Tyler let a friend who had trained as a hairdresser loose on his hair, leaving him with a peroxide blonde look. The producers liked it, and it stayed for the next decade.
Gunther, whose coffee shop became the de facto headquarters for Ross, Rachel, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Chandler, made his first appearance in the second episode of the show and featured in more than 150 of the sitcom’s 236 episodes.
On the recent Friends reunion special, Tyler called his time on the show “the most memorable 10 years of my life”. He said: “I could not have imagined just a better experience. All these guys were fantastic and just a joy to work with. It felt very, very special.”
Much of his other television work riffed on his Friends role, whether turning down Matt LeBlanc’s offers for help with a promotional video in the BBC sitcom Episodes or in an unaired pilot called Nobody’s Watching, set around the making of a sitcom at the same studios as Friends.
Tyler had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer since June 2018, but only made his diagnosis and news of the cancer’s spread public in June 2021.
“The world knew him as Gunther, but Michael’s loved ones knew him as an actor, musician, cancer-awareness advocate, and loving husband,” a statement from Tyler’s family said. “Michael loved live music, cheering on his Clemson Tigers, and would often find himself in fun and unplanned adventures. If you met him once, you made a friend for life.”
After his diagnosis Tyler campaigned for early prostate cancer testing. His first marriage, to Barbara Chadsey in 1995, ended in divorce in 2017. Tyler is survived by his second wife Jennifer Carno, whom he married in 2017.
James Michael Tyler, actor, born 28 May 1962, died 24 October 2021