The “Falcon Crest” star tells EW that she bumped into the pair after her first guest spot as Chandler’s mother on the NBC sitcom.

How Friends stars Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc reacted when they saw Morgan Fairchild at Blockbuster

The “Falcon Crest” star tells EW that she bumped into the pair after her first guest spot as Chandler’s mother on the NBC sitcom.

By Rance Collins

August 21, 2026 6:21 p.m. ET

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Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Morgan Fairchild, and Matthew Perry on ‘Friends’. Credit:

NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

- Morgan Fairchild appeared in an early episode of *Friends*, playing the mother of Matthew Perry’s character.

- She says she was surprised she wasn’t asked back for several seasons, given the success of her guest spot.

- When she returned, Fairchild noticed the shift in the stars’ personal and professional lives.

Morgan Fairchild was a friend from the beginning.

The *Flamingo Road* star tells ** about her much-heralded guest spots on *Friends* playing Nora Tyler Bing, mother of Matthew Perry’s Chandler Bing. The character, a celebrated romance novelist, first appeared in an early episode of the series, “The One With Mrs. Bing,” which aired on Jan. 5, 1995, and was the 11th entry in the show’s first season.

For the then-44-year-old Fairchild, the role represented a career shift.

“My friend Cicely Tyson, [she said], ‘Morgan. You’re too young to be playing that guy’s mother. You shouldn’t play that guy’s mother.’ I said, ‘Well, you got to make that transition at some point in your career.’ I played mothers of kids and mothers of teenagers, not too often because I’m usually playing the bitch, but sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Perry remembered his onscreen mother from childhood, since his father, John Bennett Perry, had worked on series with Fairchild like *Falcon Crest* in the 1980s. Fairchild described the junior Perry as a “big puppy dog.”

“I said, ‘Oh my God, you’re that little kid.’ And then I’m thinking, ‘I guess I am old enough to be this kid’s mother.’ But yeah, just [an] adorable, wonderful young man.”

Matthew Perry and Morgan Fairchild on ‘Friends’.

NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Fairchild’s appearance would’ve been shot in late 1994, not long after the series premiered that September.

“The show was not a huge hit when I did it the first time,” she explains.

As the season progressed, it would rise in the ratings, and eventually it became one of the most popular sitcoms in television history. Fairchild was one of the first big-name, established actors to have a guest spot on the show. Jay Leno, another NBC property at the time, also appears in the episode as himself, interviewing Nora Bing.

Not long after the episode aired, Fairchild saw her onscreen son and Matt LeBlanc (Joey) in a very ordinary place, at least for 1995.

“I ran into the two Matthews at the Blockbuster — I think it was over there on Ventura Boulevard. It’s not there anymore,” she recalls. (There was indeed a Blockbuster at 10911 Ventura Blvd. in Studio City, near the Warner Bros. Studio lot where *Friends* was filmed, at the time.)

“And they came up and grabbed me. Gave me like a big sandwich hug and said, ‘You got us in the top five! You got us in the top five!’ You know, because they promoted very heavily on my appearance,” Fairchild remembers. “So I’m thinking, ‘Oh great, they’re going to have me back all the time!’ But they didn’t. So they talked about me a lot, but they didn’t have me back.”

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Fairchild would not appear on *Friends* again for several years, returning for the season 5 episode, “The One With All the Thanksgivings,” and then later for a few episodes involving Chandler and Monica’s (Courteney Cox) wedding. Chandler’s father Charles Bing, a drag performer portrayed by Kathleen Turner, also appears at the wedding.

Fairchild says she was excited to work with the “fabulous” Turner, although she got the feeling executives worried they would both be “divas.”

“We weren’t at all. We had great fun,” Fairchild shares. “I love Kathleen. Obviously a great talent, but also very funny and just a terrific human being.”

Morgan Fairchild and Kathleen Turner on ‘Friends’.

She adds, though, that the vibe was a little different from *Friends*’ first season, with the show now cemented as a cultural phenomenon and each of its stars among the most famous people in the world.

“By the time I came back, the show was obviously a huge hit, and well, it had just changed. Everybody’s got movies going, and everybody’s like off shooting other things, and the show is becoming a bit ancillary to them sometimes,” Fairchild says. “But everybody was always very nice. They were a little more preoccupied, you didn’t see them as much between scenes and chat and stuff. But, you know, [the] people, they stayed nice.”

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She admires how the cast famously “stuck together” when negotiating equal pay in their contracts.

“Nobody got the big head and thought they were the best one on the show who could get the best deal,” says the actress. “Everybody stayed friends.”

Fairchild discusses more from her career, as well as current events, pop culture, and everything in between, on her podcast. Fairchild’s sister Cathryn Hartt cohosts the show, titled *2 Bitches From Texas*, which can be found on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and all the usual podcast sites.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Comedy”