The stunning television star Courteney Cox rose to prominence in 1994 with the hit NBC sitcom “Friends”, and has since juggled ten years of the show with a burgeoning film career and a child with actor David Arquette.
Cox was raised in the upper-class society town of Mountain Brook, Alabama after her birth in Birmingham on June 15, 1964. Cox’s father, a wealthy businessman, moved to Florida in 1974 after her parents’ divorce, and Cox remained in Alabama with her mother. After high school, where she had an early introduction to modeling in an ad for the store Parisians, Cox briefly studied architecture at Mount Vernon College but left after a year to model in New York City. She soon got a small part on the soap opera “As the World Turns”, and achieved brief fame for her appearance in the infamous Bruce Springsteen video “Dancing in the Dark”. Cox soon moved to L.A., where she beat out flocks of young actresses for a meaty role alongside Michael J. Fox in “Family Ties”. The show ended in 1989, and Cox found little interesting work for the next five years. Before “Friends” began airing, however, Cox starred with Jim Carrey in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”, which jump-started the comedian’s career and was a surprise box office smash.
“Friends” changed everything for the gorgeous actress, just as it did for the show’s entire cast, who were all relative newcomers at the time. The success of the show, which only grew as the 90s crept on, helped Cox grab a terrific part in Wes Craven’s 1996 teen horror film “Scream”. Her character, the nosy reporter Gale Weathers, was reprised by the actress in both of the film’s hit sequels. After the “Scream” trilogy, Cox continued with “Friends” and starred in several low-budget films in addition to a lead role in the box office dud “3000 Miles to Graceland” with Kevin Costner.
After dating Michael Keaton in the early 90s, Cox married her charming “Scream” co-star David Arquette on June 12, 1999 in San Francisco. Their daughter Coco Riley was born in 2004 and the pair is expecting another child in the fall of 2006. The adorable couple is currently co-executive-producing a series for FX called “Dirt” which Cox will star in, and she will be seen later this year in “Zoom” with Tim Allen, as well as her husband’s first directing project, the horror film “The Tripper”.