Luke Perry may have played bad boy Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills: 90210 — but in real life, he was a doting dad to his two kids: Jack and Sophie.
The late actor, who reached “teen idol” status while appearing on the high school drama in the 1990s, married Rachel “Minnie” Sharp in November 1993 after two years of dating. Together, they welcomed their son Jack in June 1997, followed by their daughter Sophie in June 2000.
Though Perry and Sharp split in 2003, the couple shared joint custody of their children — and Perry remained an involved and dedicated father, according to those closest to him.
Perry’s pride in his kids only grew as they got older and embarked on their careers, with Sophie volunteering in Africa and Jack pursuing professional wrestling.
“Both my parents were very cool about just letting me do what I wanted and figure it out myself,” Jack told PEOPLE in 2023. “And they never pressured me into going into any direction I didn’t want to go.”
The bond between Perry and his children became even more evident when the actor, who also starred in The CW series Riverdale, suffered a massive stroke on Feb. 27, 2019. Perry died five days later on March 4, with Jack and Sophie by his side. He was 52 years old.
From their upbringing with their famous father to how they’re keeping Perry’s memory alive, here’s everything to know about Luke Perry’s two kids, Jack and Sophie.
Jack Perry, 27
Jack Perry, son of Luke Perry arrives at the premiere of Sony Pictures’ “Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood” at the Chinese Theatre on July 22, 2019 in Hollywood, California.
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Perry and Sharp welcomed their son, Jack Perry, on June 16, 1997.
Though Perry was a bona fide TV star when his son was born, Jack didn’t grow up watching his father on-screen.
“I really haven’t watched a ton of him acting,” Jack admitted to PEOPLE in 2019.
Despite Perry’s demanding career in Hollywood, he always managed to be a “very hands-on dad” for Jack and his younger sister Sophie — even helping his son construct a makeshift wrestling ring in their backyard to support his love of the sport.
“When I was a kid and got back into wrestling, I went around the town … (finding) sandbags at a construction site … or like pieces of wood or whatever, to construct this ring,” Jack recalled to PEOPLE in 2023. “And I asked my dad to help me put it together.”
That “garbage heap of a wrestling ring” became a full-blown career for Jack, who began pursuing professional wrestling as a high school senior. While he welcomed his parents’ support, Jack (who wrestled under the persona “Jungle Boy”) has been determined to pave his own path in the wrestling world — outside his dad’s fame.
“My family is a part of who I am, but I’m trying to make my own way. I don’t want to use (my father’s fame) to be successful, I want to have my own success,” Jack told Sports Illustrated.
Luke Perry with his son Jack Perry.
Jack Perry/Instagram
Jack has done just that: The wrestling professional signed with All Elite Wrestling in January 2019 and has won multiple championship titles since, including the FTW Championship in 2022 and the AEW TNT Championship in 2024.
The same year, Jack also changed his wrestling persona from “Jungle Boy” to “Scapegoat.”
Both of Jack’s parents have been supportive of his career, with Perry attending Jack’s wrestling events while he was still alive and later inspired a storyline in the ring after his death.
Though Jack’s primary focus is wrestling, he did have the opportunity to act with his father prior to his death in 2019. Jack appeared with Perry in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which also starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
“My dad was so excited about that,” Jack said on the Talk is Jericho podcast about acting with his father. “That kind of reinvigorated him and reenergized him. He said, ‘If I never work again, I’m happy with this.’ ”
Following Perry’s death from a stroke in March 2019, Jack vowed to carry on his father’s legacy. He’s done so by attending charity events in Perry’s honor — like the American ICON Awards — and passing on some of the wisdom that he learned from his late father.
“My dad really just taught me to be as nice as you can to everyone you can,” Jack told PEOPLE in May 2019, two months after Perry’s tragic death. “He was from Ohio and he grew up with not a lot of money and I think he never really lost touch with who he was. He was always just a really good guy above everything else.”
Sophie Perry, 24
Luke Perry with his daughter Sophie Perry.
Sophie Perry/Instagram
Perry and Sharp’s daughter, Sophie Perry, was born on June 7, 2000.
While her father may have been a teenage heartthrob, to Sophie, he was just “Dad” growing up.
“I think people forget or don’t realize that in my lifetime he wasn’t famous the way he was during the 90210 era,” Sophie wrote on Instagram Stories in June 2019. “By the time I was old enough to understand all that, he wasn’t as in the spotlight as he is now. And I wasn’t at all public or looked at.”
Though Sophie attended a handful of red carpet events with her famous father as a toddler, it wasn’t until Perry died in May 2019 that she earned more widespread attention — particularly from online trolls.
“Since my dad died I have received a lot of attention online. And most of it has been positive but of course, some people just can’t be nice,” Sophie wrote on Instagram to her 82,000 followers one week after her father’s death.
She continued, “I’m here to say that I did not ask for this attention, I did not ask to be thrown into some virtual spotlight, and while I don’t mean to offend anybody, I’m also not going to cater to any one else’s needs and beliefs … I am going to laugh and smile and live my normal life.”
Luke Perry with his daughter Sophie Perry.
Sophie Perry/Instagram
For Sophie, that “normal life” meant returning to Malawi, Africa, where she had been living and working prior to Perry’s death in March 2019. (She had rushed back home to the U.S. to be with her father after learning about his massive stroke.)
In Malawi, Sophie and two friends served as development instructors who helped build preschools in rural communities — and when they completed their first school in April 2019, she named it after her late dad.
The school wasn’t the only way Sophie has honored Perry since his tragic 2019 death: She’s shared sentimental posts on social media, including childhood photos, birthday messages and Father’s Day tributes.
She also got a mushroom tattoo in his memory. The ink is a nod to the eco-friendly mushroom suit Perry was buried in after he died, which is said to “return your body to the earth without harming the environment,” per the company.
“The mushroom is symbolic of my dad,” Sophie explained in her Instagram Stories in May 2019.
In the years since her father’s death, Sophie has spent most of her time traveling the world, according to her Instagram page — visiting places such as Thailand, Italy and Scotland.
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