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Friends (TV Series 1994–2004) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
The One Where Rachel Quits: Directed by Terry Hughes. With Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc. Ross accidentally breaks a little girl's leg and tries to help her sell boxes of cookies which recreates Monica's childhood fixation.
- (5.3K)
- Comedy, Romance
- Terry Hughes
- 1996-12-12
She is best known for her role as Janice on the television sitcom Friends (1994–2004), and Anita on Ellen (1994–1996). In addition to her acting and voiceover work, she is a singer, songwriter, choir director, and workshop facilitator. [1]
Feb 20, 2024 · Maggie Wheeler will appear in HBO Max's upcoming 'Friends' reunion special. Let's dive into the life and career of the actor behind Janice.
- Overview
- Main characters
- Recurring characters
- Characters appearing in only one season
- Minor characters
- Special cameo appearance
- References
The following is a list of characters from the American sitcom Friends. It concerns six young people living in Manhattan and trying to find love, life and laughter.
•Rachel Karen Greene (Jennifer Aniston) is the spoiled but warm-hearted and likeable daughter of a rich vascular surgeon and his wife. Rachel is introduced into the series in the first episode after she leaves her fiance Barry at the altar, and attempts to live independently without any financial support from her parents.[e 1] She flees from her almost-wedding to New York City, to find her friend from high school Monica Geller. Rachel then moves into Monica's apartment and meets Phoebe Buffay, Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani. Rachel already knows Ross Geller as he is Monica's brother and they all three went to the same high school. Rachel's first job as an independent woman is as a waitress at the coffee house Central Perk, (which is the central hub of the six friends) but she later becomes an assistant buyer, then personal shopper at Bloomingdale's, and a buyer at Ralph Lauren Corporation.
A great deal of Rachel's life throughout the series revolves around her relationship with Ross Geller. At the end of season seven, during Monica's and Chandler's wedding, it is revealed that Rachel is pregnant and that Ross is the father. The baby is the result of a one-night stand between Rachel and Ross. Initially, Rachel is determined to raise the baby on her own until she realizes she needs Ross' help. Eventually Rachel moves in with Ross so he can help with the pregnancy. When the baby, a girl named Emma, is born towards the end of the eighth season, Rachel makes the decision to remain living with Ross (although the two are not involved in a relationship and it is purely for Emma's benefit). However they get into an argument and Rachel moves back in with Joey, with whom she has a brief relationship.
During the tenth season, Rachel is offered a job with Louis Vuitton in Paris. She accepts and prepares to move herself and Emma. However, in the final episode of the series, "The Last One", it is revealed that she ultimately declines the job offer and famously "gets off the plane". Rachel and Ross get back together and reconcile towards the end of the episode.[e 2] In 2019, Jennifer Aniston began filming a new sitcom The Morning Show which co-stars Reese Witherspoon who played Rachel's sister Jill Greene in two episodes of Friends.
•Monica E. Geller (Courteney Cox) is the mother hen of the group, who is known for her obsessive-compulsive and competitive nature. Monica is often jokingly teased for having been an extremely overweight child by the others, especially her brother Ross. In "The One with the Football", Ross even says to her, "Cheater, cheater, compulsive eater."
Monica is an intelligent, kind-hearted person who works primarily as a chef throughout the show.
In the second season, Monica falls for her father Jack (Elliott Gould)'s friend, Richard Burke (Tom Selleck). Despite the twenty-one year age difference, Monica and Richard are happy, and her parents accept their relationship. However, as a result of Monica yearning for a family but Richard having already had one, they break up at the end of season 2. Monica then pursues a chain of various men until she unexpectedly begins a relationship with her longtime friend, Chandler Bing, at the end of the fourth season, during her brother Ross' wedding to Emily Waltham. Monica and Chandler try to hide it from the rest of the friend group for the first half of Season 5, but by the end of the season, everyone finds out. After their first year anniversary at Vegas, they move in at the beginning of Season 6 and get engaged by the season finale. After their marriage, Monica and Chandler try to conceive children, but after visiting the fertility clinic it is revealed that Monica is infertile. In the final season of the series, they adopt two children - Erica and Jack.
Season 1
•Jack (Elliott Gould) and Judy Geller (Christina Pickles): Ross and Monica's parents. In early appearances, Jack frequently makes inappropriate comments, which he punctuates by exclaiming "I'm just saying...!" Judy often makes condescending remarks about Monica's lack of a love life and sometimes forgets her daughter even exists, while simultaneously favoring Ross. Jack is more balanced in his attention and care towards both Ross and Monica. Despite each of them having their own quirks, however, they are both occasionally dumbfounded by the crazy antics of their son and daughter, such as Ross' disastrous wedding to Emily and Monica's ridiculous speech at their 35th anniversary party. They are also sometimes bemused by the antics of the other four friends, such as idiotic or crazy comments from Phoebe and/or Joey, a revolting trifle cooked by Rachel which Joey is happy to eat and Chandler entering a coed whirlpool alongside Jack without wearing anything underneath the towel wrapped around his waist. Pickles was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance in "The One Where Nana Dies Twice".[e 3] The Seattle Times ranked Jack and Judy jointly as the second best guest character of the series in 2004. •Barry Farber (Mitchell Whitfield): Rachel's jilted ex-fiancé. Barry, an orthodontist, decides to go on his and Rachel's honeymoon with her maid of honor Mindy, and soon begins a relationship with her. Their relationship hits a rough patch when he and Rachel consider getting back together.[e 4] He decides to stay with Mindy, and the two are later married. Rachel is invited to the wedding, but receives a cold reception for jilting Barry while she is there, and a ridiculous speech from Ross which bemuses everyone in the room doesn't exactly improve the situation for her, until she, in a desperate attempt to salvage some pride, walks onto the stage where the microphone is and starts singing.[e 5] Barry and Mindy are said to have divorced five years later, after she found out he was cheating on her.[e 6] Barry's last name is given as "Finkle" in the pilot and "Farber" in every other appearance except in "The One With The Flashback",[e 7] where he is referred to as "Barry Barber". He has also been called "Barry White", and is possibly named as an homage to long-time NY talk show host Barry Farber. Barry is portrayed as a horrible, selfish little man who cheats, lies, and belittles other people. Getting both Rachel and Mindy to fall for him also suggests that he is manipulative. In "The One That Could Have Been" he and Rachel are married and she catches him in bed with the neighbor's dog walker. •Carol Willick (Anita Barone for character's debut episode, Jane Sibbett thereafter) and Susan Bunch (Jessica Hecht): Ross' lesbian ex-wife, who came out before the pilot, and her partner. She dumped and divorced Ross to be with Susan. In the second episode of the series, Carol tells Ross that she is pregnant with his child,[e 8] and is having it with her partner Susan. Carol and Susan are often bemused by Ross' quirks throughout his onscreen appearances with them. Susan does not attempt to hide her contempt of Ross and vice versa, but they briefly put aside their differences when Carol gives birth to a boy, whom they all agree, after weeks of argument, to name Ben.[e 9] Carol and Susan get married in "The One With The Lesbian Wedding"[e 10] and make irregular appearances until "The One That Could Have Been, Part 2" (Susan),[e 6] and "The One With The Truth About London" (Carol). Ross and Carol are on good terms after their divorce. Ross and Susan still hate each other, for Susan for cheating and stealing Carol from him. [e 11] Carol and Susan were based on creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane's best friends in New York: "We didn't create them for any particular political reason or because of lesbian chic. It was just an opportunity to tell a really interesting story." The characters were called a positive example of a gay couple on television by GLAAD. Jessica Hecht originally auditioned to play Monica. •Gunther (James Michael Tyler): The manager of the Central Perk coffee house, who first appears as a background character in "The One with the Sonogram at the End". He is a former actor who once played Bryce on All My Children before that character was "killed in an avalanche."[e 12] Gunther develops an unrequited crush on Rachel in the third season, which he keeps to himself until "The Last One".[e 13] Apart from Ross, whom he dislikes, he is on reasonably good terms with the rest of the gang despite occasionally being annoyed by wacky antics or comments from them. His motivation for disliking Ross is jealousy (as he is aware of Ross' relationship with Rachel), which is made clear numerous times; most notably in "The One With The Morning After" when he reveals to Rachel that Ross (who mistakenly thought at the time that his relationship with her was over—"We were on a break!") got drunk and cheated on her.[e 14] . This increases when Rachel and Ross have a child together. Gunther appears in nearly every episode, but only occasionally calls attention to himself and almost never has a large role in the plot of an episode. In "The One With The Stain",[e 15] Gunther is shown to be fluent in Dutch (although with a hint of an American accent), calling Ross an "ezel" as he converses with him. James Michael Tyler was cast as Gunther because he was the only extra who could competently work the coffee machine on the Central Perk set. Tyler appears as Gunther in a co-host voice-over in the Friends trivia game for PS2, PC and Xbox, and in the board game Friends: Scene It?. The Seattle Times ranked Gunther as the eighth best guest character of the series in 2004. When asked in 2009 by Heatworld.com what Gunther would be doing "now", Tyler joked, "He'd probably have a very traditional marriage, with lots of white-haired babies running around with hair brighter than the sun." Aside from the main cast, he appears in the most episodes. •Marcel (live animal actor): A Capuchin monkey that Ross initially keeps as a pet, and who provides comic relief for his geeky master. One time Rachel loses him in the city, and calls Animal Control—only to learn from Ross that Marcel is an illegal exotic animal that cannot be kept in the city. After unsuccessfully trying to prevent animal control officer Luisa (Megan Cavanagh) from discovering that they are harboring an illegal exotic animal and bemusing her with their wacky behavior throughout these unsuccessful attempts, Rachel, Monica, Ross and Phoebe learn that Luisa is a former classmate of Rachel's and Monica's who upon recognizing Rachel attempts to spite her for snubbing her in high school by attempting to confiscate Marcel. To prevent this, Rachel threatens to tell Luisa's boss about how she shot Phoebe "in the ass with a dart" that had been meant for Marcel. Later, as Marcel sexually matures and begins to hump everything, Ross has to give him away to a zoo—"where he can have access to regular monkey-lovin'." Ultimately, Ross finds out that Marcel then got stolen from the zoo and taken into a life of show business, and—after starring in a liquor commercial—is starring in a movie in New York, where they are reunited one last time. In a later season Ross questions why he had a monkey as a pet. Despite Marcel being male, the character was portrayed by a female monkey named Katie. •Janice Litman Goralnik (née Hosenstein) (Maggie Wheeler): Chandler's on-again, off-again girlfriend for the first four seasons. Janice is one of the few characters besides the six main friends who appears in all of the Friends seasons. She has a nasal voice and a thick New York accent that sounds so irritating that it makes Chandler want to break up with her, but at the same time he does not want to hurt the nonetheless good-natured Janice's feelings, and while making a hand gesture in the midst of an attempt to break up with her without upsetting her, he accidentally pokes her in the eye in "The One With The East German Laundry Detergent" and although Phoebe is eventually able to explain to Janice on his behalf that he wants to end their relationship and get her to agree to break up with him without upsetting her in the process, he gets back together with her for New Year's and for Valentine's. When Chandler, in the wake of Mr. Heckles' death, resolves not to die alone, he is disappointed to discover that she is married and pregnant. In "The One With Barry And Mindy's Wedding", Chandler arranges a meeting with a mystery woman over the Internet, who turns out to be Janice. Their relationship lasts into the third season, when Janice decides to leave her husband to be with Chandler. Later, Joey sees Janice kissing her husband, who runs a mattress business. Chandler dumps her in "The One With The Giant Poking Device". When Janice returns to his life, Chandler, who eventually comes to find her insufferable due to the irritating sound of her voice, pretends to be moving to Yemen to get away from her. In a later episode, the tables are turned on the annoying natured Janice when she has a brief fling with Ross shortly after he has broken up with Emily, as he is unhappy and spends the entire date complaining about everything, causing her to find him insufferable and leave him (Ross had expected the reverse to eventually happen, but had been happy to date someone who listened so well to him in the meantime). She also makes a cameo on a "discovered" mix tape that Chandler plays for Monica, not knowing Janice's voice is on it. When Chandler and Monica become engaged, she tries to interfere with their wedding plans—leaving only when Monica states that Chandler still has feelings for Janice, which isn't true. When Ross and Rachel await the birth of their daughter Emma, she is placed in the same labor room as Rachel at the hospital; she later gives birth to a son, Aaron, who she jokes will be Emma's future husband. As Monica and Chandler make plans to have children, she offers Chandler advice and support at a fertility clinic. In "The One Where Estelle Dies", she comes close to buying a house next door to the one Monica and Chandler want to buy. To get rid of her, Chandler pretends he still loves her, causing her to (as he had hoped) become fearful that he will end up ruining his marriage and she will end up ruining her own (as she still loves Chandler as well) if she lives next door to him, so she decides not to buy the house after all and walks out of Chandler's life seemingly for good, but does kiss him one last time before she does, much to his surprise. Presumably due to being amused by their wacky, quirky, goofy personalities, Janice seems to enjoy spending time with the six friends, which is somewhat ironic and very much inconvenient for them since none of them can stand to be around her (although she seems to be completely blind to the fact that they feel this way, showing almost no awareness whatsoever of the fact that they hate having to put up with her), due to the unbearably irritating nasal New York accent she speaks with, and the likewise unbearably annoying way she laughs whenever she does. She also emphasizes each word of her catchphrase, "Ohhh—myyy—Gawd!", and Chandler sometimes imitates her doing this. Janice briefly dates Ross after he learns that Emily, his second ex-wife, is getting married again. •Mr. Heckles (Larry Hankin): Monica and Rachel's downstairs neighbor, a domineering, highly unusual elderly man who constantly complains about the noise, even though the six friends are being perfectly decent in volume whenever he claims that they are disturbing him. His reason for this is never revealed, until "The One Where Heckles Dies", in which the group discover that the noises being made in their apartment are apparently amplified in his, and when Chandler hears banging coming from the above room while in Heckles' apartment (although it is never revealed exactly what the people upstairs were doing to cause the banging) it annoys him so much that he inadvertently imitates Heckles by banging on the roof with his broom.[e 16] He appears in "The One with Two Parts, Part 1" before dying in "The One Where Heckles Dies". As a last spiteful act, he leaves all of his junk to "the noisy girls in the apartment above mine". He makes a final cameo appearance in "The One With The Flashback", set in 1993, where he complains that Phoebe's noise is disturbing his oboe practice (even though he doesn't actually play the oboe), and inadvertently (and cruelly) causes Joey to be Chandler's roommate. He usually states that items are his, and when the other person states that he doesn't have one, Mr. Heckles says that he could have one. For instance, when Rachel and Phoebe are searching for the owner of a lost cat, Mr. Heckles said "Yes, that's my cat." They told him he didn't have a cat, to which he responded "I could have a cat." According to Mr. Treeger, Mr. Heckles died of a heart attack, while banging on the ceiling with his broomstick. His first appearance in the series was in Season 1 episode 7, "The One With The Blackout", where he is credited "as the Weird Man". •Paolo (Cosimo Fusco): an Italian neighbor in Rachel's building, who Rachel falls for in "The One with the Blackout". They start dating, making Ross jealous. She dumps him after he gropes Phoebe, but has a last one-night stand with him in "The One With Ross' New Girlfriend". In the Italian version of the show, Paolo's name is changed to Pablo and his nationality is Spanish. •Terry (Max Wright): the manager at Central Perk (before Gunther takes the title), who does not hide the fact that he thinks Rachel is a terrible waitress—and Phoebe is "so bad" as a musician. He denies her an advance on her wages in "The One Where Underdog Gets Away". The role of Terry was conceived by bosses at NBC who felt the show needed an older guy to advise the group. •"Fun Bobby" (Robert) (Vincent Ventresca): Monica's alcoholic boyfriend. In his first appearance in "The One With The Monkey", his "fun" is sapped at Monica's New Year's party after his grandfather died, but his depression doesn't stop Monica, annoyed that he's "bringing her party down" from putting a party horn in his mouth and forcing him to blow on it, to his bemusement. In "The One With Russ", the gang discovers that alcohol puts the "fun" into Fun Bobby. Monica tries to wean him off drinking but regrets it when he becomes extremely boring. Monica then began drinking on their dates, so that she could sit through his mind-numbingly dull stories. It is revealed in the episode "The One with Phoebe's Husband" that the underwear on the telephone pole was Monica's when she was having sex with Fun Bobby on the terrace. •David, "the Scientist Guy" (Hank Azaria): a physicist with whom Phoebe falls in love in "The One with the Monkey", when he receives an academic grant for a three-year research trip to Minsk. After a quarrel with his research partner Max, David decides to take the trip, breaking Phoebe's heart. Seven years later, he returns to New York for a brief visit and shares an evening with Phoebe. Two years later, he returns again in "The One with the Male Nanny" and has a finger fight with Phoebe's boyfriend Mike. He and Phoebe resume their relationship in "The One with the Donor" when he's back from Minsk permanently. In "The One in Barbados—Part 1", David proposes to Phoebe but is turned down in favor of Mike Hannigan. In 2003, Azaria was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance. Azaria originally auditioned for the role of Joey. •Max (Wayne Pére): David's partner with whom he has a quarrel. •Nora Tyler Bing (Morgan Fairchild): Chandler's mother, a best-selling erotic novelist whose works include Euphoria Unbound, Euphoria At Midnight and Mistress Bitch. She first appears in "The One With Mrs. Bing" where she meets the gang while on a book tour in New York. After dinner, she kisses Ross. She makes a cameo appearance in the flashback scenes of "The One with All the Thanksgivings" and later appears in "The One With Monica And Chandler's Wedding" and "The One After 'I Do'". The Seattle Times ranked Nora and her ex-husband jointly as the fifth best guest characters in 2004. •Ursula Pamela Buffay (Lisa Kudrow): Phoebe's identical twin. Kudrow originated the role of Ursula in the sitcom Mad About You, playing her as an inept waitress at Riff's who frequently forgets orders.[m 1] Ursula is every bit as odd as Phoebe is, but, unlike her sister, Ursula is a selfish, amoral, abrasive, brazen, hedonistic, crude and unpleasant individual who is so self-absorbed and self-centered that she often forgets things, usually treats Phoebe with disdain and is not liked by anyone who truly knows her. Phoebe refers to Ursula as her "evil twin." She first appears in Friends in "The One With Two Parts, Part 1":[e 17] Chandler and Joey are eating at Riff's and mistake Ursula for Phoebe. Joey becomes attracted to Ursula and they start dating. Ursula tells Phoebe that she is bored with Joey and sarcastically claims that he is smart enough to figure this out on his own without her having to actually tell him (implying his stupidity irritated her, hence her naturally nasty reaction), so Phoebe pretends to be her sister to let Joey down gently. In the same episode, Helen Hunt and Leila Kenzle cameo as their Mad About You characters Jamie Buchman and Fran Devanow, in a scene where they mistake Phoebe for Ursula in Central Perk. Ursula next appears briefly in "The One With The Jam", where she is being stalked by a man (David Arquette) who mistakes Phoebe for her. Phoebe naively begins a relationship with the man in question, but ends it with him when he can't get over his obsession with Ursula. In "The One with the Jellyfish" Phoebe tells Ursula that she has met their birth mother (Teri Garr), but Ursula already knows about her. In "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry", Phoebe starts getting unwanted attention from men, and discovers that Ursula is starring in pornographic films using Phoebe's name, including a film called "Buffay The Vampire Layer". Phoebe gets revenge by claiming Ursula's cheques and embarrassing her many male fans. Flashbacks in "The One Where They All Turn Thirty"[e 18] reveal that Ursula sold Phoebe's birth certificate to a Swedish runaway, and that both sisters are 31, not 30. In "The One with the Halloween Party",[e 19] Ursula introduces Phoebe to Eric (Sean Penn), her fiancé. Phoebe is horrified that Ursula has told Eric that she is a teacher, a member of the Peace Corps, a non-smoker, and attends a church group (all lies). The series finale of Mad About You, set 22 years into the future, reveals that after a successful porn career, Ursula becomes Governor of New York.[m 2] •Mindy Hunter-Farber (Jennifer Grey in "The One With The Evil Orthodontist", and Jana Marie Hupp in "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding): Rachel's maid of honor at her abortive wedding to Barry. Mindy and Rachel were best friends while growing up and their friendship is tested after Rachel discovers Mindy and Barry are seeing each other. She asks Rachel to be her maid of honor and dress in a garish pink dress. Mindy marries Barry in "The One With Barry And Mindy's Wedding"; but he later cheats on her and she has divorced him by "The One That Could Have Been, Part 1". •Ben (Various actors, 1995–1999; Cole Sprouse, 2000–2002): Ross and Carol's son, born during "The One with the Birth".[e 9] Ben is played as an infant by Michael Gunderson, by brothers Charles Thomas Allen and John Christopher Allen from Season 3 to 5, and by Cole Sprouse from Season 6 to 8. Ben never shares any scenes with his half-sister, Emma. •Julie (Lauren Tom): an old graduate school colleague of Ross', whom he meets again while on a trip to China; she first appears in the final scene of the season 1 finale. During the entire time Julie and Ross were dating, Rachel hated the relationship because about a week before Ross came home from China, Rachel discovered that Ross was in love with her. This made Rachel's feelings for Ross grow at a fast rate, making her jealous of Julie's relationship with him. Ross breaks up with Julie upon discovering that Rachel has fallen for him. After her break-up with Ross, she is then shown to meet Russ, a Ross doppelgänger also played by David Schwimmer, and begin a romance. •Steve (Jon Lovitz): a restaurant owner and drug addict whom Phoebe knows. In 1995, in "The One With The Stoned Guy", Monica tries to impress him in an attempt to get a job at his restaurant, and Phoebe tells him he is welcome to go to her apartment and try her food there, but he gets stoned on the journey there and consequently acts obnoxious. At the end of the episode, Phoebe punishes him by giving him a very painful massage. His drug problem eventually causes him to lose his restaurant, and, in 2003, Phoebe later fixes Rachel up with him (and Joey arranges for Ross to be stood up) on a blind date, as part of a secret strategy to get Rachel and Ross back together.[e 20] •Ugly Naked Guy (Jon Haugen): an obese tenant in the apartment in the building across from Monica's apartment—who frequently, perhaps invariably, is naked with the drapes open—so the gang is frequently commenting on his activities—playing cello, wearing "gravity boots", etc. He is first mentioned in the second episode of the series,[e 8] but only appears twice: first, his belly and an arm are shown in "The One With The Giant Poking Device"[e 21]—in which he is being poked from across the street by the gang (who think he is dead) with a long device made from chopsticks; second, a rear view of him from head to waist is shown in "The One Where Everybody Finds Out"[e 22] (his final show)—in which he is moving out of his apartment and Ross tries gets the apartment by ingratiating himself with Ugly Naked Guy by cavorting with him in the nude. (In "The One With The Flashback",[e 7] it is learned that he used to be "Cute Naked Guy", but then, in 1993, started putting on weight.)
Season 2
•Mr. Treeger (Michael G. Hagerty): the superintendent of Monica's building. Treeger first appears in "The One Where Heckles Dies",[e 16] where he shows Heckles's lawyer where Monica and Rachel live. He next appears in "The One with Phoebe's Dad",[e 23] where Monica thinks he is playing hardball by not mending her broken radiator, and Treeger is left bewildered as Ross, Monica and Rachel repeatedly attempt to convince him to have it fixed despite his attempts to explain that he won't be able to replace the knob Ross accidentally broke off because the shop does not open until the following Tuesday. Later, when Joey rebuffs him for putting down Rachel,[e 24] he threatens to have Monica and Rachel evicted unless Joey helps him practice ballroom dancing to impress a woman (as Monica is illegally subletting the apartment which actually belongs to her late grandmother, to Treeger's irritation). In "The One with the Free Porn",[e 25] he cleans the shower drain of Chandler and Joey's newly-won apartment, and warns them never to turn off their TV after they start receiving free porn. In his final appearance, "The One Where Rachel Tells..."[e 26] he has a fireman break down the door to Monica's apartment after Joey tells him he smelled gas. He was also mentioned in the series finale when Monica said to everyone he need their keys to her and Rachel's apartment. •Estelle Leonard (June Gable): Joey's talent agent. Gable made her first appearance as Estelle in "The One with the Butt" but the scene was cut for timing reasons although it is included in the DVD version of season 1 (she is still mentioned after Joey's play in the original episode that aired). She makes her first proper appearance in "The One with Russ", when, after Joey tells Estelle he is fed up of poor roles, she gets him a recurring part in Days of Our Lives. She witnesses Marshall Townend read a critical review of a play he had directed which Joey had starred in and along with everyone else in the room is bemused by the quirks of both Joey and Marshall in "The One with the Screamer". Although she is shown to be supportive of Joey's career in this episode, in another she willfully sabotages it ("The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance") after getting the impression that Joey has left her, which he in reality hadn't. She dies in the last season; Joey gives a speech at her memorial service, where it is revealed that her only other client is Al Zebooker, a man who eats paper. (Zebooker is apparently often irritated by the fact that Joey can't remember his real name and only ever refers to him as "the guy who eats paper"—as he leaves a phone message to Joey referring to himself as this in a weary tone of voice.) June Gable also played the nurse in "The One With The Birth" , her first appearance in the series original broadcast run. When Gable auditioned for the role, she played Estelle quite plainly and was encouraged to "go away and do something with her". She returned to the audition room wearing a "fat suit" and eating a sandwich from a delicatessen, which she stubbed out a cigarette on. The performance was used in the deleted scene of "The One With The Butt".[e 27] Her age is never given but Gable believed that she was in her 80s. In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Estelle as the sixth best guest character of the series. Gable also plays the nurse who delivers Ben in "The One with the Birth". •Dr. Richard Burke (Tom Selleck): An ophthalmologist and best friend of Jack Geller. Richard is introduced in "The One Where Ross And Rachel… You Know" when Monica caters an event at his apartment. He begins to date her despite being 21 years older, infuriating Monica's parents when they find out. He and Monica break up in "The One With Barry And Mindy's Wedding"[e 5] when he tells her he does not want more children, his own having already reached adulthood. Despite the two still being in love, they cannot reconcile this difference, and are both devastated for months. He makes a brief voice cameo in "The One Where No One's Ready", and later they briefly attempt to rekindle their romance as "friends" before accepting that the reasons they broke up remain valid in "The One Where Monica and Richard Are Just Friends". In "The One With The Proposal, Part 1", he proposes to Monica after she leaves Chandler, who's planning to propose but pretends to be against marriage because he "wants it to be a surprise". Eventually, Chandler comes to his apartment searching for Monica and tells Richard of his own proposal plan. Richard seems to lack sympathy for Chandler at first, responding to Chandler explaining away his plan to make Monica initially think he was against marriage by stating it had "worked very well". However, when Chandler angrily tells him he has no right to ruin another man's relationship with her because he's already ruined his own, he realizes Chandler is right and tells him, "You go get her, Chandler. And can I give you a bit of advice? If you get her, don't let her go. Trust me"—noting that he hates the fact that he is a nice guy when Chandler thanks him. His apartment is put up for sale in Season 9, in "The One With Ross' Inappropriate Song".[e 28] but Richard is not seen. While there, Chandler finds out that Richard made a sex tape with Monica which he steals and watches, but he and Monica later discover that Richard taped over her, relieving Chandler but leaving Monica feeling insulted. All of Selleck's entrances in Season 2 had to be refilmed after the audience left because "it was like The Beatles with the screaming and the applause". For his appearance in "The One with the Proposal", Selleck was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Richard as the third best guest character of the series. •Sandra Greene (Marlo Thomas): Rachel's overprotective mother. In "The One with the Lesbian Wedding", she announces to Rachel that she never loved Rachel's father and is divorcing him. ("You didn't marry your Barry, honey—but I married mine.") She later accompanies everyone to Carol and Susan's wedding. In "The One with the Two Parties", she arrives at Rachel's birthday party and is unaware for the whole night that her ex-husband is also there, as the six friends successfully prevent them from finding out each other are there by setting up two different parties, bemusing them both with their strange, wacky behavior in the process; Joey even ends up kissing Sandra to distract her from her ex-husband's departure. In "The One with the Baby Shower", she is invited at the last minute to attend Rachel's baby shower, where she offers to move in with Ross and Rachel to help with the baby's first months; Ross and Rachel first accept, then change their minds. Unlike Rachel's father, she seems to have a good relationship with Ross. For her appearance in "The One with the Lesbian Wedding", Thomas was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.Template:Citation needed •Frank Buffay Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi): Phoebe's half-brother by their father. In "The One with the Bullies", Phoebe meets him after finding the courage to knock on her father's suburban door, but learns from Frank Jr.'s mother (played by Laraine Newman) that her father walked out several years ago. Frank later visits the city where he hits on Jasmine, one of Phoebe's coworkers, and mistakes her massage parlor for a whorehouse. He eventually falls in love with and becomes engaged to Alice Knight, his old home economics teacher who is 26 years his senior. Frank and Alice ask Phoebe to be a surrogate mother for their child, and she later gives birth to their triplets, whom she then says goodbye to in an emotional scene in "The One Hundredth". Frank makes a final appearance in "The One Where Ross is Fine", when he and the triplets meet Phoebe at Central Perk. Previously, Ribisi appeared in "The One with the Baby on the Bus" as a stranger who leaves a condom rather than money in Phoebe's guitar case when she is singing in the street, and then comes back to retrieve it. It was never addressed if this was intended to be the same character as Frank, who had not yet been introduced by name. In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Frank as the fourth-best guest character of the series. •Leonard Greene (Ron Leibman): Rachel's father, an unpleasant, crude, brazen, bad-tempered, abrasive and rather amoral vascular surgeon; although he is genuinely affectionate and usually good-natured towards his daughter, he is generally a nasty, mean-spirited bully who is quick to insult anyone who, even by accident, irritates him in the slightest way. He takes an instant dislike to his daughter's boyfriend Ross when the latter refers to Leonard's profession as "a game" in "The One With The Two Parties". Later, when Ross and Rachel conceive a child (Emma), he becomes furious that they're not engaged because he does not want his grandchild to be a bastard. He ends up going to Ross' apartment and shouting at him because Rachel, afraid of Leonard's anger, lied to him and claimed that Ross refused to ask her to marry him. Rachel eventually has to clarify the situation for him. He has a heart attack in "The One Where Joey Speaks French" and is recovering in the hospital when Ross turns up with Rachel, though he once again is unable or unwilling to be nice to him. Although Leonard, like his daughter Amy, was a deliberately unpleasant and unlikeable character, the comic relief he provided caused him, again like his daughter Amy, to become memorable as a character fans "loved to hate."
Season 3
•Mark Robinson (Steven Eckholdt): Rachel's boss at Bloomingdale's, who first appears in "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister". Ross is jealous of Mark as he mistakenly suspects that he and Rachel are having an affair. It is Mark's presence at Rachel's apartment after he offered to provide her with comfort after her fight with Ross which leads Ross, overhearing his voice in the background after phoning Rachel and mistakenly thinking he is there to have sex with her, to become convinced that his relationship with her is now over. After angrily hanging up, he gets drunk and sleeps with Chloe, which ultimately ends Ross and Rachel's relationship. Later, Mark asks Rachel on a date and she accepts, however she rejects his advances when she realizes she only accepted the offer to get back at Ross. That is the last time Mark is seen until "The One with Princess Consuela", where he informs Rachel of a job in Paris. Ross fails to recognize him but becomes jealous all over again once reminded, even declaring his extreme hatred of Mark and forbids Rachel of going to dinner with him. It is also revealed that since his previous appearance he has married and had kids (twins, actually) - once informed of this, an embarrassed Ross wonders "Should we send something?" Ultimately Rachel rejects the job Mark offered her to remain with Ross. •Sophie (Laura Dean): Mark's replacement. Sophie is frequently victimized by her boss Johanna and occasionally bewildered by ridiculous comments from Chandler (who had a brief relationship with Joanna). In the episode "The One Where They're Going To Party", she is ecstatic about Joanna's death. It's unknown what happened to Sophie after their department is closed down. •Alice Knight (Debra Jo Rupp): Frank Jr's wife and also his old economics teacher who is 26 years older than he is and first appears in "The One With The Hypnosis Tape". Alice was only scheduled to appear in the one episode but was brought back for a recurring role after the surrogacy storyline—which was created when actor Lisa Kudrow became pregnant. •Joanna (Alison LaPlaca): Rachel's boss, who despite being occasionally bewildered by his ridiculous comments, dates Chandler in two episodes. She is hostile to her assistant, Sophie, but usually good-natured towards Rachel. After deliberately sabotaging Rachel's promotion in order to keep her, she finally offers Rachel a promotion within her own department, but is knocked down and killed by a cab before she can effect it. Joanna replaced Mark after he left for a better job. •The Chick and The Duck (Live animal actors): Chandler and Joey's pet birds. In "The One With a Chick and a Duck.", Joey adopts a chick from an animal sanctuary, misunderstanding a news report about people who buy chicks and then find they cannot properly care for them. Encouraged by Phoebe to return the chick, but discovering that the animals would be euthanized, Chandler, who went to give the chick back, returns home with the chick and a duck. Chandler and Joey treat the chick and the duck as their own children—at one point, Chandler punishes the duck by sending him out to the hall ("You stay out here and think about what you did!"). Chandler briefly names the chick "Yasmine", after Baywatch actress Yasmine Bleeth (the chick later, however, turns out to be a rooster, not a hen); and in "The One With Ross' Thing", Chandler refers to the possible offspring of the duck and the chick as "Dick", while Joey refers to it as "Chuck". By Season 6 the animals disappeared; the duck was mentioned but not seen in Season 7. In the final episode of the series,[e 13] Joey bought Chandler a new duckling and chick as a housewarming gift—which Joey names "Duck Jr." and "Chick Jr."—and it is revealed that the original birds died a while ago, and Chandler, not wanting Joey to be upset about it, told him that they had gone to live on a farm, where visitors were not allowed. •Doug (Sam McMurray): Chandler's new boss in "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion".[e 29] Doug enjoys calling Chandler "Bing!" and slapping his male colleagues on the butt. Monica and Chandler play a game of tennis with Doug and his wife, who are left exhausted, irritated and bewildered by Monica's ridiculously overly-competitive attitude in "The One with Chandler's Work Laugh" (January 21, 1999; Season 5, No. 12). In this episode, it is implied that he, his wife, and the rest of Chandler's co-workers all dislike Joey, whom Chandler claims damaged his reputation in their eyes (presumably with all his stupidity) after he invited him to a work office party, damage repaired by Monica when he invited her to a different one. In "The One with Ross' Step Forward" (airdate December 13; 2001; Season 8, No. 11), he invites Monica and Chandler to dinner to celebrate his divorce. To get out of it, Chandler pretends that he wants to be on his own because he and Monica have split up but it backfires when Doug, who despite his seemingly cheerful and relieved attitude towards his divorce is in reality clearly depressed over it, tries to cheer Chandler up by taking him to strip clubs, drunkenly throwing cans at birds and throwing (Doug's) wedding ring into the gutter (Chandler had refused Doug's offer at first, but then made the mistake of thoughtlessly stating his reason for this as being that Monica wouldn't appreciate it, only to then be forced to correct himself upon seeing Doug's confused expression). •Bonnie (Christine Taylor): Phoebe's formerly bald friend, whom she sets up with Ross in "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion". Rachel met Bonnie two years prior to the events of this episode, and remembers her as a "weird bald chick"; however, when Rachel meets her she is horrified to see that her hair has actually grown back and she is actually a very attractive woman. Since Rachel still has feelings for Ross, she, in a successful attempt to make Bonnie less attractive to him, convinces her to shave her hair off again in "The One at the Beach" (airdate May 15, 1997; Season 3, No. 25). She makes a brief appearance at the beginning of "The One with the Jellyfish", when Ross decides to dump her and get back together with Rachel. He implies that he made a dreadful mess of breaking up with her, both upsetting and enraging her in the process. The actress playing Bonnie, Christine Taylor, would later marry Ben Stiller who had previously played Tommy, Rachel's date, in "The One With The Screamer". •Phoebe Abbott (Teri Garr): Phoebe's birth mother. Phoebe tracks her down in "The One at the Beach", believing her to be a friend of Lily's. She reveals her parentage at the end of the episode and makes amends with Phoebe in "The One with the Jellyfish". Later, when Phoebe wants to be a surrogate mother for Frank and Alice's child,[e 30] she lends Phoebe her puppy to demonstrate how difficult it is to give up children after carrying them.
These characters appear in only one episode.
•Frances (Audra Lindley): Phoebe's adopted grandmother by her adopted mother Lily. Her only appearance is in "The One With Phoebe's Dad", where she reveals to Phoebe that the person in the pictures she keeps around the house is not Phoebe's father, which motivates Phoebe to try to track down her real father. Though the character appears in only one episode, she is mentioned in a few more, including in season 5's "The One with Joey's Bag", where it is revealed that she has recently died and Phoebe plans her funeral. Phoebe inherits her grandmother's yellow taxi and apartment. She keeps the taxi until the very end of the series.
•Frank Buffay Sr. (Bob Balaban): Phoebe, Ursula, and Frank Jr.'s father. He shows up at Phoebe's adoptive grandmother's funeral looking for his late wife, Lily. His defense for abandoning Phoebe and Ursula is that "I was a terrible father", and he shares a "lullaby" he used to try to sing to them, which has a striking resemblance to Phoebe's "Smelly Cat".
•The Judge (Conchata Ferrell) presides over the attempt of Ross and Rachel—who got married in Las Vegas while drunk—to get an annulment; she informs them that they have to get a divorce instead.
•Cassie (Denise Richards): a cousin of Ross and Monica who comes up to stay with Monica and Chandler. As the little girl has grown into a supermodel, with mesmerizing hair, since they last saw her, Chandler can't stop staring at her beauty which requires her to stay at Ross' apartment instead. Ross can't help staring at her as well, and while watching a movie convinces himself that she "wants it" too. He makes a move, and Cassie's negative reaction leaves him speechless for what seems to him like an eternity. Finally, he says, "I—haven't had sex in a very long time," which leaves Cassie disgusted. Later on, Cassie moves on to Phoebe's apartment, but Phoebe has the same reaction as Chandler and Ross, and thinks she should ask her out as Cassie is not her cousin. Denise Richards later married Charlie Sheen who played Ryan earlier in the series.
•Will Colbert (Brad Pitt): formerly overweight friend of Monica from Ross' class in high school with a grudge against Rachel. Monica invites him over for Thanksgiving dinner in "The One With The Rumor" (airdate November 22, 2001; Season 8, No. 9). Will has lost 150 pounds and now looks great—which makes Phoebe flirt with him. Here they find out that Will hates Rachel due to all the bullying he had suffered at her hands in high school and had co-founded the "I Hate Rachel Greene Club" with Ross and spread rumors about her being a hermaphrodite. He is last seen looking bemused but amused when Joey enters the room wearing Phoebe's maternity pants (under the deluded belief that he would need to change into a new pair of pants to achieve his goal of eating an entire turkey all by himself). Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston in real life at the time, and his given name is in fact "William".
•Dick Clark ("The One with the Monkey")
•Jay Leno ("The One with Mrs. Bing")
•Jean-Claude Van Damme ("The One After the Superbowl: Part 2")
•Isabella Rossellini ("The One with Frank Jr.")
•Robin Williams and Billy Crystal ("The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion")
•Charlton Heston ("The One with Joey's Dirty Day")
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Oct 10, 2020 · Friends wouldn't be Friends without its strong female characters, both the three main leads of Monica, Rachel and Phoebe, and the supporting women.
Sep 17, 2020 · For 10 seasons of Friends, actress Maggie Wheeler appeared in the recurring role of Janice Litman-Goralnik née Hosenstein - the on-again-off-again girlfriend of Chandler Bing. Watch the full story above
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