jenifer anistonFriends
When Jennifer Aniston-one of several stars on
the hit television show Friends-appeared butt-naked on the cover
of Rolling Stone, she reached a level of sitcom stardom that few
of her contemporaries could match. In the revealing article,
Aniston not only showed off that famous coiffure, but uncovered a
tan line that spoke to her love of uncomfortable swimwear. But,
at the time, one couldn't help but wonder if there was any
substance behind the big hair and the pleasing posterior. Aniston
grew up around show business. Her father John was a regular on
Days of Our Lives for years; her mother Nancy was an actress and
sometime model; and her godfather was none other than Kojak
himself, Telly Savalas. Aniston had the good fortune to attend a
free-spirited school that encouraged her love of the arts. She
joined the school's drama club, and though she had always been
interested in acting, she soon started to think of it as a career
choice. She also became an dedicated artist, and one of her
paintings was displayed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
She attended New York's High School of Performing Arts (better
known as the Fame school), and after graduation, she worked
off-Broadway and appeared in productions of For Dear Life and
Dancing on Checker's Grave. After two years of occasional theatre
and waitressing, Aniston decided to head for Hollywood, where she
had little luck on auditions until her agent advised her to shed
thirty
pounds. (Aniston went through Nutri/System and gave a testimonial
about the program on The Howard Stern Show) Soon she found work
on several failed television shows, including Ferris Bueller,
Molloy, The Edge, and Muddling Through. It wasn't until she
landed the role of Rachel Green in Friends that she became a
household mane-scores of women flocked to their hairdressers to
demand the Rachel 'do. Aniston emerged as "the sexy
Friend," although co-stars Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow
could hardly be considered short on looks. Aniston tributes and
temples erupted in megabytes of fan pages all over the Internet,
and her followers didn't just watch the show with the sound
turned down (fans Beavis and Butt- Head suggested this for
optimal viewing pleasure), but compiled episode lists and spent
hours discussing whether Rachel and Ross (David Schwimmer) would
finally break the sexual tension and just do it.
The fact that Aniston has managed to gain such a following for
playing a ditsy, spoiled waitress who's a little on the bitchy
side is a tribute to her appeal. Aniston and her castmates have
parlayed their fame into quite a cash cow. (Did someone say cow?
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that white mustache Aniston
donned when she appeared with Kudrow in print ads for milk.) She
has also plugged a video tutorial for Windows '95 with Matthew
Perry, and has mugged with all her Friends for Diet Coke.
She even appeared in an esoteric NBC public service announcement, where she declared with a soulful gaze: "Smart is sexier than stupid any day." Every Friend has a movie deal, and Aniston is leading the pack as far as film roles go. She made She's the One for director Edward (The Brothers McMullen) Burns on her weekends off from Friends, which raised the ire of Schwimmer, who said, "No one can convince me that it doesn't harm the quality of the show that people have to fly on Friday to New York to shoot for two days and come back late Sunday night to be back at work Monday." Aniston shrugged off the criticism, and has gone on to complete 'Til There Was You, Dreams for an Insomniac, and Picture Perfect. Better received than all her initial movie roles was her wistful, charming lead performance in Nicholas Hytner's witty adaptation of the Stephen McCauley novel The Object of My Affection, in which Aniston played a social worker who falls in love with her gay roommate. Also in the pipeline for Aniston are three comedies for Twentieth Century Fox-Office Space, Animal Husbandry, and How to Date a Congressman.