Jennifer Aniston - America's sweatheart
Five hours and 16 minutes. That's how long it took Jennifer Aniston, 53, to reach one million followers on Instagram. That was in October 2019. And even though she had held back on social media for years, well, a reunion dinner for the cast behind the TV series Friends at actress Courtney Cox's house was just what it took to secure an explosive debut on Instagram. The first picture she posted was a selfie-esque photo of dinner guests. And it went almost viral among millions of fans worldwide.
A debut like that was only possible due to the success of Friends, a series that is often referred to as not just Jennifer Aniston's, but the TV media's biggest hit series ever. It was certainly a series in which she, as character Rachel Green, created a role model for millions of women worldwide. And with her hairstyle, she created a whole new trend: side parting and curved ends that gently slide towards the neck.
The fact that Jennifer Aniston generated over one million followers on Instagram in record time says a lot about her popularity. Since 1995, she has been a regular paparazzi magnet and almost a fixture in Hollywood tabloids. But it was never a secret that the young Jennifer Aniston had a big future on the silver screen.
Kojak was her godfather
She was born in Los Angeles in February 1969. Her father was an actor – and one of his best friends, Telly Savalas, was her godfather (known as the bald detective in the crime series Kojak). It wasn't a particularly happy home. Her parents divorced when she was nine. 'Growing up in a household that was destabilized and felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to each other, and witnessing certain things about human behaviour […] made me think: “I don’t want to do that.” […] You can either be angry or be a martyr, or you can say, “You’ve got lemons? Let’s make lemonade.”' she told fellow actress Sandra Bullock in an interview a few years ago.
But one thing she stuck to is the joy of acting. A joy she brought with her from her childhood home and her school – The Waldorf School – where she stood on a stage for the first time at the age of 9. Her good fortune, perhaps, was that with an actor father, she wasn't forced to try for a college degree that she most likely wouldn't have finished. Instead, she was accepted to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, New York. At LaGuardia, she practised both modern and classical theatre. Chekhov's Three Sisters is an example. And after finishing school, she started her career in the theatre.
Mostly on smaller stages far off Broadway – and far from rewarding enough for her to do without her job as a telephone salesman. This was soon about to change.
A decade with Friends
As the '80s turned into the '90s, it was TV shows that led the way for Jennifer Aniston's career. With regular parts in series like Malloy (1990), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1990), Quantum Leap (1992) and Muddling Through (1994). Not the big successes. But she could finally wave goodbye to her sideline as a telemarketer.
And then, in the middle of the decade, came the big break through. Depressed and exasperated by her recent failures, she happened to run into Warren Littlefield, the head of NBC Entertainment, at a gas station in Los Angeles. A few months later, he remembered Aniston and invited her to audition for the role of Monica Geller in his new series called Friends.
The role went to Courtney Cox, but Aniston excited everyone with her charisma and grace and was offered the part as Rachel Green. A part she filled to perfection for the next 236 episodes of the series, often described as the best in the world.
The huge success of Friends in the '90s made Jennifer Aniston America's highest paid entertainer. From 2001 and the following 15 years, she appeared on the Forbes Top 100 list that ranks actors by both earnings and fame. Today, the financial magazine estimates her personal fortune to be well above $200 million.
In between the shooting of Friends, she found time to boost her earnings with a string of mega-hits: Bruce Almighthy (2003), Along Came Polly (2004) and Love Happens (2009). When the final episode of Friends aired in 2004, it also marked a beginning and an end in Aniston's career. From then on, she turned down the TV medium and looked towards motion pictures. In fact, apart from a few guest appearances, she took a break from TV for a full 14 years.
#metoo
That is, until she reappeared on the 2019 hit The Morning Show. A series that takes its cue from today's biggest challenge for the masculine part of the American entertainment industry: The #metoo movement. Here she plays a news anchor at an American TV station based in Manhattan, where her colleague of many years has been dismissed due to accusations of sexual assault. With Reese Witherspoon as partner, her job is to restore the station's reputation.
For Jennifer Aniston herself, it was an opportunity to confront ghosts of the past. During the trial of film producer Harvey Weinstein, she recounted how, while filming the 2005 movie Derailed, she was pressed against a wall in a dressing room and inappropriately fondled. Something that in court made Weinstein exclaim: She should be killed! It is, she says, "an experience that has followed me. Obviously, it does not stand alone. Many have experienced things that are much worse. But unfortunately, I don't believe it's over yet."
Dreams of marriage
Through the years, Jennifer Aniston's fame has skyrocketed. A celebrity with more than 40 million followers on Instagram. She has been heard. And she has been followed closely. Like when a now iconic photo was taken of her and Brad Pitt at an awards ceremony, which – if you think the movement through – might end in an embrace?
Now why is that interesting? Because Jennifer Aniston is a star showered with honours and awards, good-looking and wise, and often, by the public, portrayed as America's Sweatheart. And when she first ran into Brad Pitt in 1998, it sparked. The two were married in 2000 at a lavish wedding in Malibu. It was truly a media wedding. The paparazzi had a field day. But the marriage didn't last.
All of America sighed when in January 2005 Jennifer Aniston announced that the two actors were divorcing. And when it was brought to light that the reason was Brad Pitt's affair with Angelina Jolie, the country broke in half. So much so that you could see T-shirts with the captions 'Team Jolie' and 'Team Aniston' on the streets.
But unlike many other Hollywood divorces (including Brad Pitt's later divorce from Angelina Jolie), this one ended peacefully. As Jennifer Aniston told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview 10 years later, "No one but circumstances were to be blamed for the divorce." Later – in 2015 – she married screenwriter and actor Justin Theroux. But even this relationship didn't last more than a few years.
Perhaps this is where the American public go searching for their Team Aniston T-shirts. Because it would be a near self-fulfilling prophecy if Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were to get back together 17 years after their break-up. There's no doubt that should it happen, a great part of the film industry would find it a minor miracle. A personification of the concept of America's Sweatheart. Time will tell.
The text is translated by Pernille Kaufmann. See more here