Jennifer Aniston, Couteney Cox and Matt LaBlanc were among the stars in the Friends sitcom who expressed their gratitude to James Michael Tyler, or known as “Gunther”, who died at 59.
In 2018, the actor was found to have been suffering from advanced prostate cancer.
The show “would not have been the same” without Tyler’s performance as a waiter in the Central Perk, Aniston said.
“Thank you for the laughter you brought to the show and to all of our lives. You will be so missed,” she said, whose character, “Rachel”, was “Gunter’s” crush in the sitcom. In the early seasons of Friends, Rachel worked at a similar coffee house with Gunther.
Aniston posted an Instagram photo of some moments she shared with Tyler, including when Gunther confessed his feelings for Rachel.
Apart from Anistor, Cox, who played the role of Monica, also expressed her gratitude to Tyler. “The size of gratitude you brought into the room and showed every day on set is the size of the gratitude I hold for having known you,” she said.
“Rest In peace, James.”
LeBlanc, who played the character of Joey, also shared a photo he had with Gunther in a scene at the coffee house.
“We had a lot of laughs buddy,” he said. “You will be missed. RIP my friend.”
Lisa Kudrow, or “Phoebe” in the sitcom, wrote: “James Michael Tyler, we will miss you. Thank you for being there for us all.”
In total, Tyler’s character appeared in almost 150 episodes of Friends, and his character left a mark on the hearts of the fans.
His manager said that he “passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday morning”.
“The world knew him as Gunther (the seventh Friend)… but Michael’s loved ones knew him as an actor, musician, cancer-awareness advocate, and loving husband. If you met him once you made a friend for life,” it added, as reported by BBC.
“Wanting to help as many people as possible, he bravely shared his story and became a campaigner for those with a prostate to get a… blood test as early as 40-years-old.”
