Courteney Cox was born in Birmingham, Alabama on June 15th, 1964. She is the youngest of four children born to Richard, a contractor, and mother (also named) Courteney, a homemaker. When Cox was ten her parents divorced after 19 years of marriage. Cox and her siblings stayed with their mother but she secretly blamed her mother for the breakup and idolized her father. Her childhood fantasy was to see her parents reunite and for things to be the way they were, however, both parents eventually remarried.

She attended Mountain Brook High, in Birmingham and worked after school at a pool supply store. She even saved enough money to purchase her own car at 16 and enjoyed activities like tennis and cheer-leading. She graduated high school in 1982 and studied architecture at Mt. Vernon College in Washington.

Near the end of her 1st and last year at college, she met her step-fathers nephew, Ian Copeland. Although Copeland was 15 years her senior, a romance formed. Cox had an ambition to model and Copeland encouraged her and suggested acting as well. She found work in ads for Noxema and Maybelline and had a small role on the soap opera "As the World Turns." Her career was advancing but her relationship with Copeland wasn’t and the couple split.

It wasn’t until 1984 that Cox received national attention. It was in the Bruce Springsteen video "Dancing in the Dark" as the girl Springsteen pulled on stage to dance with at the end. The job paid $350, but the exposure was enough to launch her into other work in show biz.

In 1985, Cox was cast as Lauren, Michel J. Fox’s girlfriend on "Family Ties." Unfortunately the end of the series brought her career to a stand still as well. She continued to work steadily but the roles went virtually unnoticed.

In 1994 things started to change for the raven haired beauty. She was cast in the hilarious comedy "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" with Jim Carrey. Soon after she landed the part of Monica Geller on the mega-hit TV series "Friends."

She has gone on to have great success with the popular horror flick’s "Scream" and "Scream 2." Not only was the movie a great success it is where she met David Arquette. The couple married last year.