Courteney Cox was born on June 15th, 1964, in Birmingham, Alabama, to an affluent Southern family. She is the daughter of Courteney (Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox, a businessman, who later divorced in 1974, moving to Florida.
Raised in the exclusive society town of Mountain Brook, Alabama, Courteney was the baby of the family with two older sisters and an older brother. She was a rebellious teen, and her parents' divorce had a significant impact on her life.
Courteney attended Mountain Brook High School, where she was a cheerleader, tennis player, and swimmer. She received her first taste of modeling in her final year, appearing in an advert for the store Parisians.
After graduating, she left Alabama to study architecture and interior design at Mount Vernon College, but dropped out after one year to pursue a modeling career in New York, after being signed by the prestigious Ford Modelling Agency.
She appeared on the covers of teen magazines such as Tiger Beat and Little Miss, as well as numerous romance novels. She then moved on to commercials for Maybeline, Noxema, New York Telephone Company, and Tampax.
While modeling, Courteney attended acting classes, as her real dream and ambition was to be an actress. She landed a small part in one episode of As the World Turns in 1984 and her first big break was being cast by Brian De Palma in the Bruce Springsteen video "Dancing in the Dark".
In 1985, she moved to LA to star alongside Dean Paul Martin in Misfits of Science, which was a flop. However, a few years later, she was chosen to play Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, psychology major Lauren Miller in Family Ties.
In 1989, Family Ties ended, and Courteney went through a lean spell in her career, featuring in unmemorable movies such as Mr. Destiny with Michael Caine. Fortunes changed dramatically for Courteney when she starred alongside Jim Carrey in the unexpected hit Ace Ventura: Pet Detective in 1994.
A year later, she was cast as Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends, which turned her into an international superstar and led to an American Comedy Award nomination. In 1996, Courteney starred in Wes Craven's horror/comedy Scream, which grossed over $100 million at the box office and won her rave reviews for her standout performance as the wickedly bitchy and smug TV reporter Gale Weathers.
She went on to play this character again in each of the three sequels. Not only did her involvement in this movie lead to critical acclaim, but it also led to her meeting actor husband David Arquette, who played her on-screen love interest Dewey, and life imitated art as the two fell in love for real.
Their wedding took place in San Francisco, at the historic Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, on June 12th, 1999, joined by 200 guests, including Cox's film star friends Liam Neeson and Kevin Spacey.
