From an '80s music video to Friends fame: A look at Courteney Cox's life and career in pictures
Over the course of her decades-long screen career, Courteney Cox has played everything from our "friend" to a strong-minded investigative journalist.
The actress has racked up some memorable roles in the '90s sitcom Friends and as Gale Weathers in the horror film franchise Scream.
From her marriage to David Arquette to welcoming her daughter and finding love again with Snow Patrol singer Johnny McDaid, Cox has lived a colourful life in the public eye.
But before she became known as Monica Geller, the actress had some humble beginnings and a surprise breakout role thanks to one A-lister.
Scroll on to see Courteney Cox's life in pictures from the
From humble beginnings...
Courteney Cox was born on June 15, 1964 as the youngest child with two sisters and a brother.
The actress and her siblings grew up in Alabama. By the age of 10 her parents had divorced, an event that Cox told The Guardian was her "most impactful" memory.
"My mum wasn't a go-getter so I am thankful that I was able to witness that and be completely the opposite," she said in the 2019 interview of how her parents shaped her.
After graduating from high school and before becoming the movie star we know her as today, Cox moved to New York and pursued modelling.
1984: Dancing in the Dark music video
Before she was Monica Geller, Courteney Cox's career was launched with some help from one very famous musician – Bruce Springsteen.
In 1984 Cox was seemingly plucked from the crowd by the A-lister to join him on stage for a boogie in the Dancing in the Dark music video.
With a Springsteen shirt on and a shaggy haircut, Cox clearly made her mark, going on to land Friends and the Scream franchise a decade down the track.
"I thought I was in the wrong place," Cox recalled on the Howard Stern Show in 2022 about the audition process.
"I was like, 'I don't know what they're doing, but I can't even bend my leg. Like, this is it'.
"It was so embarrassing. I think that's why I got it, because I was literally like [nervously saying], 'OK'. I think that's what they wanted, a fan that just couldn't believe it."
1985: Making history with a Tampax ad
A decade before her screen career really took off, Cox made history in 1885 as the first person to say the world "period" in a TV ad in the US.
"It can actually change the way you feel about your period," she says in the advert while rolling on some leg warmers.
1994: The role of lifetime
After several film credits through the '90s in Destiny and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective among others, Cox landed the biggest role of her career in 1994.
Alongside newcomers Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matthew LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, Cox was cast in a new sitcom originally titled Insomnia Café.
The show would of course go on to become Friends and launch Cox and the other five lead stars to superstardom.
Cox originally read for the role of Rachel Green, which would go to Aniston, before being cast as Monica Geller.
In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Cox's late co-star Matthew Perry recalled what the actress told the rest of the cast shortly after they'd met and the show aired.
"There are no stars here. This is an ensemble show," Perry said Cox told them.
Pictured is a snap Cox later shared of the cast on a plane on their way to Vegas in 1994, just before the show premiered.
"The one where the six of us went to Vegas and no one knew we were F.R.I.E.N.D.S yet," she captioned the pic.
According to Jennifer Aniston during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019, the sitcom's director James Burrows sent them to Vegas to soak up their pre-fame.
"This world can be pretty dark, and you guys gotta really stick together and take care of each other,'" Aniston recalled the director telling them at the time.
"And we took that to heart for sure, obviously. And then he handed us each a couple hundred bucks and said, 'Now go into the casino and go gamble because this is the last time you'll be able to walk into a casino anonymously."
Years later and we now know that Burrows was right – the show became a smash hit and with it Cox was a household name.
Speaking to Today in 2022, Cox opened up about becoming famous after the show, recalling the Vegas trip as the last time the six of them could be in a casino unnoticed.
"I mean, I don't wanna sound like, 'Look at us'. We're not, you know, the Beatles. But people feel like they know you," she said.
"If we were all to walk down the street, six of us, it would be, I think it would be really interesting to people."
Scream also brought a new love into Cox's life.
While on the set of the original 1996 film, Cox met her future husband David Arquette who happened to also star as her on-screen love interest Dewey Riley.
The pair took their romance into real life with Arquette telling People in 2022 that director Craven had a big part in it.
"[He was] like, 'David, you know she likes you and you should really get your stuff together'," Arquette recalled.
"He gave me a real man-to-man talk and that had an impact on the course of my life."
1997: Return to Scream
After meeting and falling in love on the first Scream set, both Arquette and Cox reprised their iconic horror characters for a sequel film the next year.
Scream 2 was released in 1997 and starred the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jada Pinkett Smith as newcomers to the growing star-studded franchise cast.
In 2022, Arquette opened up about the filming experience with his ex-wife on the Late Night With Seth Meyers.
"But thank god for Wes Craven because I got a baby out of it. I mean, not Wes Craven, thank Courtney Cox! No, the first Scream we were falling in love, the second Scream, she hated me," Arquette joked.
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