Rise to Fame
He went to 216 auditions before landing his first real part, which tells you exactly how the next decade was going to go. When Beverly Hills, 90210 came calling, the producers only wanted him for two episodes. Fox didn't want to put him on contract. Aaron Spelling overruled them. Dylan McKay wasn't supposed to be anyone's favorite character, and yet 10,000 fans showed up to an autograph signing in 1991 and Perry had to be evacuated after 90 seconds. The sideburns, the Porsche, the Lord Byron, the brooding about his absent father, it was a specific kind of tortured cool that didn't need explaining.
In the Spotlight
Perry spent the decade after 90210 trying to prove he was more than Dylan McKay, which mostly meant choosing interesting roles over safe ones. The passion project was 8 Seconds in 1994, playing real rodeo star Lane Frost. He did a stretch on HBO's Oz as a fire-and-brimstone reverend. He came back to 90210 in 1998 and stayed through the finale. What changed things was Riverdale, where he played Fred Andrews as the quietly decent father figure. Then Quentin Tarantino cast him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the film was dedicated to his memory after he died before it opened.
Side Notes
His full name was Coy Luther Perry III, which is not the name of a teen idol. He grew up in Fredericktown, Ohio, reportedly took high school classes on how to deliver calves and drive tractors, and owned a farm in Vanleer, Tennessee for the last two decades of his life. When he died, he was buried on that farm in a mushroom burial suit, a biodegradable garment designed to break down the body and neutralize soil toxins. For a guy permanently branded as Dylan McKay, the sideburned TV rebel of the early nineties, he seemed genuinely happiest when he was as far from Hollywood as possible.
Final Chapter
Riverdale's Season 4 premiere, 'In Memoriam,' aired October 9, 2019, with the entire episode dedicated to Fred Andrews' death. Shannen Doherty guest-starred as the stranded motorist Fred saves before being struck by a car, a casting choice Perry had personally wanted. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, released July 2019 and dedicated to his memory, earned Perry a posthumous Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.