Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress. She rose to international fame for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends from 1994 to 2004, which earned her Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. Since her career progressed in the 1990s, Aniston has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses, as of 2023.[1][2]
Jennifer Aniston
- Actress
- producer
1987–present
The daughter of actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow, she began working as an actress at an early age with an uncredited role in the 1988 film Mac and Me. Her first major film role came in the 1993 horror comedy Leprechaun. She has since starred in a string of successful comedy films such as Office Space (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Marley & Me (2008), Just Go with It (2011), Horrible Bosses (2011), We're the Millers (2013), Dumplin' (2018), and Murder Mystery (2019). Aniston also starred in the acclaimed independent films The Good Girl (2002), Friends with Money (2006), and Cake (2014). She returned to television in 2019, producing and starring in the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Aniston has been included in numerous magazines' lists of the world's most beautiful women. Her net worth is estimated as $300 million, and her box office gross is over $1.6 billion worldwide.[3] She is the recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is the co-founder of the production company Echo Films, established in 2008.
Early life
Aniston was born on February 11, 1969, in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles[4][5] to Greek-born actor John Aniston and actress Nancy Dow.[4] One of her maternal great-grandfathers, Louis Grieco, was from Italy.[6] Her mother's other ancestry includes English, Irish, Scottish, and a small amount of Greek. Her father's ancestry is from the Greek island of Crete. Aniston has two half-brothers: John Melick, her older maternal half-brother; and Alex Aniston, her younger paternal half-brother.[4] Her godfather was actor Telly Savalas, one of her father's best friends.[4][7]
Her family moved to New York City when she was a child.[4] Despite her father's television career, she was discouraged from watching television, though she found ways around the prohibition. When she was six, she began attending a Waldorf school.[8] Her parents divorced when she was nine.[9]
Having discovered acting at age 11 at the Waldorf school,[9] Aniston enrolled in Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she joined the school's drama society,[10] and where Anthony Abeson was her drama teacher.[11] She performed in The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry and Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov.[12]
Career
1988–1993: Beginnings
Aniston first worked in off-Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave,[4] and supported herself with part-time jobs including work as a telemarketer, waitress and bike messenger.[4] In 1988, she had an uncredited minor role in the critically panned sci-fi adventure film Mac and Me. The next year, she appeared on The Howard Stern Show as a spokesmodel for Nutrisystem,[13] and moved back to Los Angeles.[14]
She obtained her first regular television role on Molloy in 1990 and appeared in Ferris Bueller, a television adaptation of the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off; both series were quickly canceled. She starred as a teenager going to summer camp in the made-for-television film Camp Cucamonga (1990), and as a spoiled daughter followed by a vengeful leprechaun in the horror film Leprechaun (1993).[15] A 2014 retrospective from Entertainment Weekly identified Leprechaun as her worst role,[16] and Aniston herself has expressed embarrassment over it.[17]
Aniston also appeared in the two failed television comedy series The Edge and Muddling Through,[18] and guest-starred in Quantum Leap, Herman's Head and Burke's Law.[19][20]
1994–2004: Friends and worldwide recognition
Depressed over her four unsuccessful television shows, Aniston approached Warren Littlefield at a Los Angeles gas station asking for reassurance. As the head of NBC entertainment, he encouraged her to continue acting, and a few months later helped cast her in Friends,[21][18] a sitcom set to debut on NBC's 1994–1995 fall lineup. The producer wanted Aniston to audition for the role of Monica Geller,[22] but Courteney Cox was deemed more suitable, and Aniston was cast as Rachel Green. She was also offered a spot as a featured player on Saturday Night Live, but turned it down in favor of Friends.[23] She played Rachel until the show ended in 2004, when Aniston took a 15-year hiatus from television save for occasional guest roles.
In the media
Wealth
Aniston is one of the world's highest-paid actresses as of 2018.[123] She has been on the Forbes Top Earning Actresses list for 15 years, every year since 2001—and since then also on its Celebrity 100 list (based on "earnings and fame"), topping it in 2003.[124][125] According to Forbes, in October 2007, Aniston was the best-selling celebrity face of the entertainment industry.[126]
The magazine estimated her net worth at $110 million in 2007,[127] and $200 million in 2017.[128] It listed her earnings as $19.5 million in 2018.[129]
Other ventures
Aniston has appeared in commercials and music videos throughout her career. After starting on Friends, Aniston and her co-star Matthew Perry shot a 60-minute instructional video for the release of Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system.[172] The next year she appeared in commercials for L'Oréal hair products.[173]
Under a contract with Elizabeth Arden, Inc.,[174] Aniston worked for over a year on her first perfume, which was released in July 2010.[175][176] Original plans called for the perfume to be named "Lolavie by Jennifer Aniston", but to avoid confusion with a similarly named perfume, the name was changed to simply "Jennifer Aniston".[177] In 2014, she launched her second perfume, named J,[178][179] followed by Near Dusk (2015),[174] Beachscape (2016),[180] Luxe & Chapter One (both in 2017), Chapter Two (2018), Silver & Solstice Bloom (both in 2020).[181][182] In 2021, Aniston launched the LolaVie haircare company.[183]
Since 2007, she has worked in a publicity campaign for the drink SmartWater; on March 7, 2011, she released a YouTube video for SmartWater, Jennifer Aniston Goes Viral, which tripled online interest in the product within 24 hours of its release.[184] In 2012, Aniston co-founded hair care brand Living Proof and also became its spokeswoman. She left when the company was sold to Unilever in 2016.[185] In January 2013, she became the new spokeswoman of Aveeno Skincare.[186] She replaced Daniella van Graas as Aveeno's spokesmodel and became its new "face". Reportedly, Aniston is paid "eight figures" for her endorsement.[187] She became the new face of Emirates airline in 2015,[188] which was reportedly a success.[189] For pharmaceutical company Shire, she appeared in a 2016 campaign raising awareness about chronic dry eye.[190][191]
She appeared in the 1996 Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers music video for "Walls", and in 2001, in Melissa Etheridge's music video for "I Want to Be in Love".[192] She also appeared in a Heineken commercial.[173]
Along with Brad Pitt and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, Aniston founded the film production company Plan B Entertainment in 2002,[193] although she and Grey withdrew in 2005.[194][195] In 2008, she and producer Kristin Hahn formed Echo Films.[196]