Coy Luther Perry III – I scrawled that name in my high school notebooks more times than I care to admit, along with his better known moniker, Luke Perry. My bedroom was also wallpapered with images of the dreamy teen idol. I even slept on Beverly Hills, 90210 sheets! And, at the age of 14, deep in the throws of my LP obsession, I changed my phone number to 34-LUKE-3. I’m not kidding. I kept that number up until the day I left Northern California to move to L.A. in 2000, a full decade after the series that made him famous started airing. Most who knew me during my youth can’t think of Luke and the show without thinking of me – even all these years later. That became painfully evident when news of his death broke yesterday morning and my phone became inundated with emails, texts, messages and calls offering condolences. The calls were especially hard to bear being that my ring tone is – and always has been – the 90210 theme song. Every single note felt like a pang through my heart and brought me to tears once more. Luke, along with the rest of the cast and 90210 as a whole were a tremendous part of my teen years. And they still are today. Luke’s death has left me gutted. It just doesn’t seem real. My heart mourns for lost pieces of my childhood, for his family, for his friends, and for the legions of fans who mourn alongside me. A world without Luke is not a place I want to know. As Gwynedd Stuart said in a Los Angeles magazine article yesterday, “It’s always sad and weird when a celebrity of our youth dies too young, but this one really stings.” Luke, you will be missed tremendously. Rest easy, sweet soul.
(The brilliant image above is from Thinking Mom.)
‘