Actress and producer Jennifer Aniston has the look and attitude of a sweet girl-next-door, but underneath that exterior is a strong woman who always seems to smile as she rises above her misfortune. She is best known for her role as the spoiled-little-rich-girl Rachel Green on the comedy Friends, as well as her very public divorce from actor Brad Pitt.

Jennifer Joanna Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, on February 11, 1969, to parents who were both in show business. Her father, a handsome Greek named Yannis Anastassakis (John Aniston), was well-known in the daytime soap world and most notably held the long-standing role of Victor Kiriakis on Days of our Lives.

Her mother, Nancy Dow, was a television and movie actress. Although you rarely hear about them, Aniston has two half-brothers, John T. Melick and Alex Aniston.

After Aniston’s 1987 graduation from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, in New York, she dabbled in Off-Broadway shows, until moving to Los Angeles in 1989. Aniston had a short-lived role as Courtney on the sitcom Molloy, and much longer runs on the FOX comedy The Edge (20 episodes) and the television sitcom Ferris Bueller (13 episodes). Then she hit pay dirt in 1994, with the long-running ten-year-hit, Friends, where she also met, and became best friends with, Courteney Cox. The role of Rachel Green earned her a Golden Globe (2003), a Primetime Emmy Award (2002) and a Screen Actors Guild Award (1996).

What fan of Friends doesn’t remember the glitz, glamour and excitement of Aniston’s marriage to the sweet and sensitive Brad Pitt in 2000, only to be shocked, less than five years later, when rumors surfaced that Pitt was having an affair with his onscreen love, Angelina Jolie. The marriage fell apart and Aniston slowly recovered and moved on to date her co-star in The Break-up, actor Vince Vaughn, model Paul Sculfor and musician John Mayer. The divorce was also instrumental in repairing Aniston’s ten-year-long feud with her mother, a rift that occurred after her mother divulged personal information about Aniston, while on a talk show.

The cheerful coffee-shop waitress from Friends has since moved on to a big-screen career and doesn’t seem to miss her life as a television star, although television fans got a glimpse of Aniston when she appeared to help her friend Courteney Cox on the ill-fated psycho-drama Dirt, and again on a 2008 episode of 30 Rock. Word has it that she may also join her friend on Cox’s new sitcom Cougar Town. It would be a blast to see the two friends pair up again on a comedy, so I hope the rumors come true.