Courtney Cox Arquette

Courteney Cox (born June 15, 1964), also known as Courtney Cox Arquette, is an American actress, film producer and former model, best known for her role as Monica Geller on the sitcom Friends. She has also starred in Dirt, Scrubs and the Scream trilogy.

Courteney Cox first came to prominence in the 1984 music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" (in which she was the girl pulled onstage to dance with Springsteen). Cox is also notable for being the first person to use the word "period" on U.S. television in its physiological sense, in a 1985 advertising campaign for Tampax brand tampons. Her early film roles include Masters of the Universe (1987) and Cocoon: The Return (1988). Her early television work includes a starring role in the short-lived television series Misfits of Science (1985), and later a recurring role (1987-89) on the TV series Family Ties as Lauren Miller, the girlfriend of Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox). She had a supporting role as Jewel, the hard-as-nails assistant to James Belushi's character, in the 1990 fantasy film Mr. Destiny. In 1994, shortly before the debut of Friends, Cox appeared with Jim Carrey in the film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and on Seinfeld in The Wife episode as Jerry's girlfriend named Meryl.

Later in 1994, Courteney Cox was asked to audition for the part of Rachel Green on a new sitcom called Friends, but she was instead cast as the character Monica Geller. At first the most famous cast member of the new show, Cox joined fellow castmates Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) for what would become her most famous role, lasting for 10 seasons until 2004. According to the Guinness World Book of Records (2005), Cox (along with her female costars) became the highest paid TV actress of all time with her $1 million-per-episode paycheck for the tenth season of Friends.

Between seasons 5 and 6, Cox married David Arquette and changed her name to Courteney Cox Arquette. An in-joke reference to this is made in the opening credits of the episodes The One After Vegas, where the rest of the cast and executive producers have "Arquette" added to their names. The dedication "To Courteney and David, who did get married" appears during the fade out to the tag scene.

Since 2007, Cox has starred as Lucy Spiller, a cynical tabloid editor, in Dirt, a television drama for the FX network. Cox and her husband, David Arquette, are the executive producers of the series. According to Cox, the series was canceled after the second season in 2008. In July 2008, Entertainment Weekly announced that Cox had signed on to star in a three episode arc for the television series Scrubs. In August 2008, it was announced that there will be a fourth film in the Scream series, and that they want the original actors to reprise their roles.

On October 30, 2008, TV Guide reported that Cox will be starring in a pilot for a new single-camera comedy series on ABC called Cougar Town from Bill Lawrence. Cox will be playing a newly single 40-year-old mother.