Rachel Karen Greene is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Jennifer Aniston. Aniston received an Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe for her performances.
Rachel was born on May 5, although in the episode entitled "The One With Chandler's Dad," a policeman reviews her driver's license and notes that she's an Aquarius. She grew up in Long Island with her mother Sandra (played by Marlo Thomas), her father Leonard (Ron Leibman) and her two sisters, Jill (Reese Witherspoon) and Amy (Christina Applegate). Her father is a doctor and her family is shown to be incredibly wealthy; Rachel states that they owned a boat and that she had her own pony. She and her sisters are portrayed to be vain and spoiled. She is described as being the most popular girl in her high school and was a head cheerleader. Despite her popularity, her best friend was the formerly fat and unpopular Monica Geller (Courteney Cox). Rachel was close to Monica's family when she was in high school, so she already knew Monica's older brother Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), who harbors a long unrequited love for her, and Ross's best friend from college Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry).
Rachel first appears in the Pilot episode when she comes into Central Perk in a soaking wet wedding dress. Rachel had crawled out of a bathroom window before her wedding ceremony to run away from her wedding to Barry Farber (Mitchell Whitfield) because she realized that she didn't really love him. Monica, whom she hasn't seen in years, invites her to stay with her at her apartment. It is in this episode that she first meets Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc), having already met Ross and Chandler while growing up.
