Courteney Cox became a global phenomenon overnight when she was cast as Monica Geller on Friends. The Alabama native’s life took a dramatic turn as she rose to fame and wealth.
Courteney Cox’s career was on the rise when she got the Friends role. The 57-year-old was one of the stars in a music video that became famous years ago.
So, how did Courteney Cox enjoy the part of Monica? What is she doing right now? This is everything you need to know about her.
Getting your big break must be a thrilling experience for many artists and actresses, knowing that you are on your way to something huge. Some people get their break as children, while others have to suffer and fight for years before obtaining theirs in their 30s or 40s.
Courteney Cox – ‘Friends’ superstar
However, once that great breakthrough happens, things usually only get better. And for Courteney Cox, that is certainly the case.
The Alabama native was cast in Bruce Springsteen’s music video for “Dancing in the Dark,” which started her career in Hollywood. She soon landed the role of Monica Geller on the renowned sitcom Friends, and her life changed forever.
Courteney Cox has recently worked on a number of different projects, and she has raised a great family and welcomed her children.
At the same time, she has been quite outspoken about plastic sur:gery and facelifts, which she has now completely reversed.
Here’s everything you need to know about Courteney “Monica Geller” Cox!
Courteney Cox was born June 15, 1964, in Birmingham, Alabama. The youngest of four children born to Courteney and Richard Lewis Cox. When she was little, she was teased at school for her surname.
“I hated my last name, but then when my dad ᴘᴀssᴇᴅ ᴀᴡᴀʏ I thought, ‘I’m going to own this and keep this going,’ because there [was no one else] in the family to keep it alive,” she told Howard Stern.
When she was ten years old, her parents split. Courteney Cox moved on to live with her mother and then stepfather, but the div:orce remained with her.
Bruce Springsteen’s music video
In an interview with The Guardian, Cox stated that one of her earliest – if not the earliest – memories is of her parents’ divorce. In terms of what she feels she owes to her parents, she stated, “my mum wasn’t a go-getter so I am thankful that I was able to witness that and be completely the opposite.”
Courteney Cox had no intention of pursuing a profession in acting from an early age. Instead, she desired to be an architect. She attended Mount Vernon College to study architecture before dropping out and moving to New York City, where she began modeling for a job. She was also employed by a music agency.
Courteney’s modeling career did not continue long, although it was not due to a lack of talent. She quickly applied her skills to acting.
Courteney Cox made her big break in 1985, at the age of 21, in a music video rather than a film or a modeling assignment.
Director Brian De Palma had landed the job of producing and directing Bruce Springsteen’s music video for the breakthrough tune “Dancing In The Dark.”
Cox’s big break came when Brian De Palma cast her in the music video for “Dancing in the Dark.” It was shot on June 29, 1984, at Springsteen’s concert at the St. Paul Civic Center in Minnesota, with Courteney Cox playing an adoring fan in the front row.
Toward the end of the video, “The Boss” – who was supposed to be oblivious of Cox’s status as a “fake” fan – summoned Courteney up on stage. They began dancing to the magnificent saxophone solo performed by Clarence Clemons.
First work in television
In retrospect, Courteney Cox felt dissatisfied with her performance in the “Dancing in the Dark” video.
“That was not good dancing on my part,” she said. “I would only [recreates] that as a joke.”
“Dancing In The Dark” was Bruce Springsteen’s first video to be heavily broadcast on MTV. As a result, Cox’s screen time was extensive, which aided her pursuit of a successful career. She barely appeared in approximately 20 seconds of the video, but it helped her gain attention. Courteney Cox appeared in the film Misfits of Science the following year, and her first major role came two years later.
She appeared in the hit comedy Family Ties, and in the early 1990s, she added many smaller roles to her CV, including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, in which she co-starred with Jim Carrey.
Courteney Cox was on her way to a successful acting career, but what happened in 1995 caught her off guard.
Marta Kauffman and David Crane were developing a new program about six friends living in New York at the time. Courteney Cox was cast as Monica Geller, a slightly neurotic and highly competitive character.
Kauffman and Crane first began working on the show in 1993. It debuted on September 22nd, and it was always going to be a hit.
Courteney Cox – Monica Geller on ‘Friends’
Friends is now regarded as one of the most successful sitcoms in history, having aired for ten seasons and 236 episodes.
More than 50 million Americans tuned in to witness the conclusion. Courteney Cox’s performance, alongside Jennifer Aniston as Rachel, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe, Matt LeBlanc as Joey, Matthew Perry as Chandler, and David Schwimmer as Ross, catapulted her to international stardom.
“Let’s face it, she’s adorable and intelligent and really together. She is Monica,” Marta Kauffman said in 1995, referring to Courteney Cox’s responsible and compulsively tidy character Monica on the show.
“I love Monica, because not only is she a grown-up, and that’s good for people to see, but I can bring more of my own personality to her, and I’ve never really been able to do that before,” Cox explained. “She can be goofy and angry and sarcastic and a little bit naughty. People think of her sort as the goody-goody and then prude on the show, but I think she has more s.e.x than any of the others.”
Funny enough, Courteney Cox recognized a lot of herself in her character, who went on to become a legend. In fact, she is what she calls a “neat freak” in real life, exactly like Monica from Friends.
“I don’t use a lint brush or anything, and I don’t iron, but I could easily pick lint off of someone else. I was doing, I think it was The John Stewart Show and I was picking things off of him and I thought ‘oh my god, I’m just like Monica. This is too scary,’” Cox added.
Courteney Cox – net worth & ‘Friends’ salary
Friends became a global success, and Courteney and her co-stars were well compensated. According to reports, the Friends cast received an incredible $1 million per episode in the last seasons.
Even though the last episode aired 17 years ago, the cast is believed to earn around $20 million each year solely from reruns. As reported by The Independent, they receive 2% of the show’s syndication revenue. Netflix reportedly spent $80-$100 million merely to keep the show on its platform till 2019.
Courteney Cox is currently worth approximately $150 million.
Of sure, money can make things easier. However, at the time they shot Friends, Courteney Cox was dealing with a personal issue. Courteney Cox, unlike the rest of the cast, did not get an Emmy nomination during the show’s run.
“Sure. Yeah, it always hurt my feelings,” Cox told Howard Stern. “When every single cast member was nominated but me, it definitely hurt my feelings. I was happy for everybody, and then when it was finally like, ‘Oh, I’m the only one?’ It hurt.”
“I want them to win, I just also want to be part of I’ve never wanted to take anything away from anyone,” she added. “I just sometimes want to be included in certain things. And these girls on the show and the guys, everyone deserved every [nomination].”
Career after ‘Friends’
Courteney Cox might not have won an Emmy while on Friends. However, as time passed, she would receive honors for her several outstanding performances.
Following her time on Friends, Courteney Cox went on to work on other television shows, most notably the sitcom Cougar Town. Cox played Jules Cobb in 102 episodes from 2009 to 2015, and this time, she’d be recognized for her work.
For her appearance in Cougar Town, Cox received a Golden Globe nomination in 2010 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical. In 2021, the actress received recognition from the Friends period when she and her castmates were nominated for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) for the Friends reunion special.
Courteney Cox is still active in the television industry today. According to IMDB, she is appearing in the upcoming television series Shining Vale, which is currently in postproduction.
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Courteney Cox grew up to be not only a global superstar but also a wife and mother.
She married actor David Arquette in 1999, and they had daughter Coco Arquette in 2004.
Family, husband, dating
However, their marriage ended in divorce in 2013, and Cox has since dated musician and record producer Johnny McDaid, well known as the lead singer of the band Snow Patrol.
Over the years, rumors circulated about Courteney Cox undergoing plastic sur:gery and botox treat:ments. And in 2017, she confirmed that it was real.
In an interview with New Beauty, Cox admitted that she had a lot of fillers, but that the industry of cosmetic surg:ery and enhancing your face through various surgical procedures is kind of crazy.
“Well, what would end up happening is that you go to a doctor who would say, ‘You look great, but what would help is a little injection here or filler there.’ So you walk out and you don’t look so bad and you think, no one noticed—it’s good,” Courteney Cox said.
“Then somebody tells you about another doctor: ‘This person’s amazing. They do this person who looks so natural.’ You meet them and they say, ‘You should just do this.’ The next thing you know, you’re layered and layered and layered. You have no idea because it’s gradual until you go, ‘Oh sh*t, this doesn’t look right.’ And it’s worse in pictures than in real life. I have one friend who was like, ‘Whoa, no more!’ I thought, I haven’t done anything in six months, I didn’t realize.”
Courteney Cox – fillers & no-makeup photo
In the end, Courteney Cox concluded that being yourself is the best option. As a result, she dissolved all of her fillers.
“I’m as natural as I can be. I feel better because I look like myself. I think that I now look more like the person that I was, I hope I do,” Cox said.
“Things are going to change. Everything’s going to drop. I was trying to make it not drop, but that made me look fake. You need movement in your face, especially if you have thin skin like I do. Those aren’t wrinkles—they’re smile lines. I’ve had to learn to embrace movement and realize that fillers are not my friend.”
In 2022, Courteney Cox provided a rare glimpse into her future appearance. The Friend’s star used an app to add ten years to her appearance, and many of her fans were astounded.
”I probably won’t wear my hair like this …’ Cox wrote in the caption.
Courtney Cox, like many other Hollywood celebrities, has undergone cosmetic sur:gery. In 2019, she admitted to using lip fillers since she “wasn’t content” with herself and how she looked.”
However, the injections did not improve her self-esteem, so she discontinued them.
”I didn’t realize it until one day I kind of stepped back and went, ‘Oh s***. I don’t look like myself,’” she told People.
Luckily, she now feels better than ever.
”So now I just embrace who I am and getting older with what God gave me, not what I was trying to change,’ she said. I kind of own everything. And the things that I am not as comfortable with myself, they’re things that I continue to work on to grow and change,” Cox said.
And her posting a picture of her ‘old’ filtered face shows that Courtney finally has a healthy relationship with her age and body.
More celebrities should be more relaxed about aging – it’s just a natural part of being human. It’s not something we need to be ashamed of or hide away. Thanks, Courtney, for showing it!
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Courteney Cox was amazing as Monica Geller on Friends. And still, to this day, the classic sitcom is watched around the world.
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