Jennifer Aniston became famous for her portrayal of Rachel Green in the popular sitcom "Friends". She is perhaps one of the most popular television actresses of her time. She has a great sense of style and is a trendsetter. She is known for her comic timing.

Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, and grew up in New York City. She is the daughter of actor John Aniston and a former model-actress turned photographer, Nancy Dow. Her parents separated when she was nine years old. Aniston has two half-brothers, John Melick (older) and Alex Aniston (younger). Aniston's godfather was the actor Telly Savalas, her father's best friend.

Aniston attended the New York Rudolf Steiner School and graduated from Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She worked in Off Broadway productions such as "For Dear Life" and "Dancing on Checker's Grave".

Aniston moved to Los Angeles following a stint on Howard Stern’s terrestrial radio show, and immediately began landing supporting roles on several short-lived sitcoms like "Molloy" (Fox, 1989) and "Ferris Bueller" (NBC, 1990-91). After making her television movie debut in “Camp Cucamonga” (NBC, 1990), Aniston featured on the Fox series "The Edge" (1992-93), which helped to further nurture her comic skills, especially as a member of the paranoid, weapons-toting “Armed Family.” Though she was had enough roles to qualify as a working actress – including episodes of “Quantum Leap” (NBC, 1988-1993), “Herman’s Head” (Fox, 1991-94) and “Burke’s Law” (CBS, 1993-95) – by the time she appeared in the film “Leprechaun” (1993), Aniston was prepared to call it quits. But when an agent suggested she drop 30 pounds – which apparently was preventing her from landing better roles – Aniston decided to continue with her efforts. Her persistence paid off when in 1994 she landed the role of Rachel Green on a new sitcom called “Friends.”

And then there was no looking back for Aniston. "Friends" became a phenomenon pushing its actors towards super stardom. It became the most watched and talked about sitcoms on television. The show focused on six close-knit friends struggling to make it good in Manhattan: Monica Geller (Courtney Cox), a would-be chef with an obsession for neatness and order; Rachel Green (Aniston), Monica's pampered best friend from high school who walks out on her groom; Ross (David Schwimmer), Monica's older brother and a paleontologist with an age-old crush on Rachel; Chandler (Matthew Perry), a lovable wise guy who works as a corporate numbers cruncher; Joey (Matt LeBlanc), a struggling actor and resident airhead; and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), an offbeat folk singer and massage therapist.

Perhaps "Rachel Green's" greatest influence in the first few seasons was her hairdo – known simply as "The Rachel” – that was widely copied by young women in the mid-1990s.

In 1995, the mother-daughter relationship, suffered a strain when Aniston's mother divulged some of her childhood details in public. In 1999 Nancy Dow came out with a book "From Mother and Daughter to Friends", which documented their strained relationships while detailing her own life’s ups and downs.

Meanwhile, Aniston made her debut in films with "She's the One" (1996), playing the unhappily married wife of a womanising stockbroker followed by a cameo as an overwhelmed young woman juggling career and motherhood in the otherwise forgettable "'Til There Was You" (1997).

She played the role of an ambitious advertising executive who creates a fake boyfriend to ensure he climb up the corporate ladder in "Picture Perfect" (1997), but it was a box office disappointment. She bounced back with her role of a pregnant woman who forms a bond with her gay roommate in the modest hit, "The Object of My Affection" (1998).

Aniston had a great supporting role in “Office Space” (1999) where she plays a dissatisfied waitress who meets a bored office drone acting out his inner slacker fantasies after a mishap with a hypnotist. In "Rock Star" (2000), she appeared as the love interest of a salesman who joins a heavy metal band.

In 2002, she emerged playing a bored and forlorn Midwestern housewife dissatisfied with her life and pot-smoking husband in "The Good Girl".  Aniston rightly earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead for her performance. She then paired up with Jim Carrey in the widely successful comedy "Bruce Almighty" (2003) playing girlfriend of a man gifted with God's powers which was followed up by "Along Came Polly" (2004) with Aniston playing a free spirit who teaches her risk-fearing new beau how to take chances.

The same year Aniston bid adieu to their long standing sitcom "Friends". Around the same time, Aniston announced her separation with her husband, Brad Pitt. This drew Aniston to a media frenzy, which later affected her reputation.

Aniston had two films hitting the theatres in 2005, "Derailed" which cast the actress and Clive Owen as two married business executives who are blackmailed by a violent criminal after they have had an affair; and Rob Reiner's "Rumor Has It," which starred Aniston as a woman who learns that her family was the inspiration for the book and film "The Graduate" (1967).

Ironically, during the media firestorm surrounding her painful public split from Pitt, Aniston was shooting "The Break-Up" (2006) in Chicago with actor Vince Vaughn, playing a couple struggling to continue to cohabitate in the condo both refuse to leave, despite having ended their relationship. It was speculated that they were a couple, after initial denials they did appear to be together by fall of 2005 but by October 2006, they went their separate ways.

In April 2008, she was linked with songwriter, John Mayer, but four months later they were no longer together.

Her 2008 release was "Marley and Me" with Owen Wilson and she also stars in "He's Just Not That Into You"

Aniston has previously dated musician Adam Duritz and was engaged to actor Tate Donovan.

She married Brad Pitt on July 29, 2000 and for many years their marriage was considered the rare Hollywood success. They announced their separation after rumours began making rounds that Pitt was allegedly romancing actress Angelina Jolie while shooting the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie and Pitt both denied any claims of adultery. Aniston filed for divorce in March 2005 and it was finalised in October 2005. Aniston revealed that her divorce prompted her to reach out to her mother, Nancy, from whom she was estranged for nearly a decade.

Aniston is a supporter of many charity foundations. She is a supporter of Friends of El Faro, a grassroots non-profit organisation that helps raise money for Casa Hogar Sion—an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico and has appeared in a few advertisements on TV for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.