Lisa Valerie Kudrow (born July 30, 1963) is an American actress. She gained worldwide recognition in the '90s for portraying Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Kudrow has appeared in many films including Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), Analyze This (1999), Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), Happy Endings (2005), P.S. I Love You (2007), Bandslam (2008), Hotel for Dogs (2009) and Easy A (2010).
Lisa Kudrow was born in Encino, Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Nedra S. (née Stern), a travel agent, and Dr. Lee N. Kudrow (born 1933), a headache specialist and physician. Her ancestors emigrated from Belarus and lived in the village of Ilya, in the Minsk area, and her great-grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust. Kudrow was raised in a middle-class Jewish family and has an older sister, Helene Marla (born 1960), and an older brother, Santa Monica neurologist David B. Kudrow (born 1957). She is the niece of composer/conductor Harold Farberman. In 1979, at the age of 16, she underwent rhinoplasty to reduce the size of her nose.
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Crane, Kauffman and Kevin Bright, with numerous others being promoted in later seasons.
Kauffman and Crane began developing Friends under the title Insomnia Cafe in November/December 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, with whom they had previously worked, and together they pitched a seven-page treatment of the series to NBC. After several script rewrites and changes, including a second title change to Friends Like Us, the series was finally named Friends and premiered on NBC's coveted Thursday 8:30 pm timeslot. Filming for the series took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California in front of a live studio audience. After ten seasons on the network, the series finale was promoted by NBC, and viewing parties were organized around the U.S. The series finale (the 236th episode), airing on May 6, 2004, was watched by 51.1 million American viewers, making it the fourth most watched series finale in television history and the most watched episode of the decade.
The American situation comedy television series Friends was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, and produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television for NBC (National Broadcasting Company). The series began with the pilot episode, which was broadcast on September 22, 1994; the series finished its ten-year run on May 6, 2004, with 236 episodes. Each episode excluding the series premiere and finale has a title which starts with "The One...". They are, on average 22 minutes long, for a 30-minute timeslot including commercial breaks. Several episodes in season seven were produced for a "super-size" 40-minute timeslot to compete with the CBS reality series Survivor.
The series narrative follows six friends living and working in New York City: Rachel Green, Monica Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Ross Geller, played by Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer respectively. All episodes were filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California; no location filming was done specifically in New York. The fourth season finale, "The One with Ross's Wedding", however was filmed on location in London, England in front of a British studio audience.
Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress, film director, and producer. Aniston gained worldwide recognition in the 1990s for portraying Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Aniston has also enjoyed a successful Hollywood film career. She gained critical acclaim for her performances in the independent films She's the One (1996), Office Space (1999), The Good Girl (2002) and Friends with Money (2006). She has had her greatest commercial successes with the films Bruce Almighty (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Marley & Me (2008), Just Go with It (2011) and Horrible Bosses (2011). Aniston was selected for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father is Greek and a native of Crete, while her mother was born in New York City. One of Aniston's maternal great-grandfathers was an Italian immigrant; her mother's other ancestry is Scottish, Irish, and a small amount of Greek. Aniston has two half-brothers, John Melick, her maternal older half-brother, and Alex Aniston, her younger paternal half-brother. Aniston's godfather was actor Telly Savalas, one of her father's best friends. As a child, Aniston lived in Greece for one year with her family. They later relocated to New York City. Aniston attended the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, and graduated from Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She worked in Off Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave, and supported herself with several part-time jobs, which included working as a telemarketer, waitress, and bike messenger. In 1989, Aniston moved back to Los Angeles.
Courteney Bass Cox (born June 15, 1964) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends, Gale Weathers in the horror series Scream, and as Jules Cobb in the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, for which she earned her first Golden Globe nomination. Cox has also starred in Dirt produced by Coquette Productions, a production company created by herself and husband at the time David Arquette.
Courteney Cox was raised in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, the daughter of businessman Richard Lewis Cox (January 28, 1931 – September 3, 2001) and his wife Courteney (née Bass, later Copeland). She has two older sisters, Virginia and Dottie, and an older brother, Richard, Jr. Her parents divorced in 1974 and her mother then married businessman Hunter Copeland (uncle to music promoter and business manager Ian Copeland). After graduating from Mountain Brook High School, Cox left for Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C., but did not complete her architecture course, opting instead to pursue a career in modeling and acting.