James Michael Tyler

James Michael Tyler was born on May 28, 1962, the youngest of five children, in either Greenwood, Mississippi or Winona, Mississippi. When Tyler was ten years old, his father, a former USAF captain, died. Just one year later, when Tyler was age eleven, his mother died. Afterwards, Tyler moved to Anderson, South Carolina to live with his sister. He graduated from Anderson College (now Anderson University) in 1982 with a two-year Associate's degree and subsequently graduated from Clemson University with a degree in geology in 1984. During his time at Clemson, he was a member of a student theatre group, the Clemson Players. This experience sparked his interest in becoming an actor. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia in 1987. ==Career==

In 1988, he moved to Los Angeles and became an assistant film editor and production assistant. The same year, he was a production assistant on the film Fat Man and Little Boy. From 1994 to 2004, James Michael Tyler played Gunther on the sitcom Friends. Gunther was a coffee shop worker at Central Perk who had unrequited love for Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston. His real-life experience as a barista gave an assistant director on Friends the idea to put him behind the counter of Central Perk to make the set seem more "authentic". This led to a ten-year career with appearances in 148 of Friends' 236 episodes; he is the show's most-frequently-appearing recurring character actor. He appeared in the unaired pilot satire sitcom ''Nobody's Watching'', playing himself on the set of Central Perk. Tyler appeared in the BBC/Showtime sitcom Episodes (Series 2, Episode 6) as himself playing an ice hockey coach, when Matt LeBlanc tries unsuccessfully to get the other main stars from Friends to appear in the promotional video for the fictional television show Pucks. He supported the Lili Claire Foundation and AIDS Project Los Angeles charities. ==Personal life==

In 1995, Tyler married Barbara Chadsey. The couple separated in 2003, and in 2014, he filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. He married Jennifer Carno in 2017. ==Death==

Tyler was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018, but did not publicly disclose his illness until June 2021, shortly after the release of Friends: The Reunion. The cancer metastasized to his spine, leading him to use a wheelchair. He died of complications from the disease at his home in Los Angeles, California, on October 24, 2021, at age 59. ==Filmography==

Film Television Video games Music video ==If You Knew spoken word performance==

In July 2021, producers Al Gomes and Connie Watrous of Big Noise, along with two-time Emmy Award nominee Tim Labonte and Grammy Award winner Alan Boyd, conceptualized and created a short film for Tyler's spoken word performance entitled If You Knew. Tyler's recording had been featured on a 2016 tribute album to The Beach Boys' lyricist Stephen Kalinich called Be Still that Gomes, Watrous, and Boyd had also produced. The Recording Academy placed the collection on the Official Ballot for the 59th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album. Tyler also composed the music for the recording. The new short film for If You Knew was produced to honor Tyler and also create a fundraiser for the organization that was working closely with him, the Prostate Cancer Foundation. All the streaming proceeds of the video, and Tyler's original recording, are being donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. ==Notes==