Jennifer Aniston, in full Jennifer Joanna Aniston, (born February 11, 1969, Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.), American actress who achieved stardom on the popular television sitcom Friends (1994–2004) and launched a successful film career.
Aniston’s parents divorced when she was nine, and she grew up with her mother while her father worked as an actor, notably on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Aniston attended the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City and spent several years acting in Off-Broadway productions.
In 1989 she began appearing on television, and she was soon cast in two unsuccessful shows, Molloy (1990) and Ferris Bueller (1990–91); in the latter, which was based on the popular 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, she played Ferris’s older sister, Jeannie. Aniston acted in several other television shows before making her big-screen debut in Leprechaun (1993), a horror film that went largely unnoticed.