Courteney Cox Turns 50: Five Things To Know About the Former ‘Friends’ Star

She’s 50 and fabulous! Courteney Cox turned the big 5-0 this year.  And while she’s best known for her role as Monica Gellar on the hit sitcom Friends, the current Cougar Town star has plenty of surprising moments on her resume. As we celebrate Courteney Cox’s 50^th birthday, here are five things you didn’t know (or may have forgotten) about her.

She’s a music video vixen

One of her earliest jobs was a part in Bruce Springsteen’s 1984  "Dancing in the Dark" video. Cox was famously plucked from the audience in a concert scene and was reportedly paid $350 for her appearance in the classic video. But the Springsteen clip wasn’t her only moment as a music a video vixen. The actress joined the rest of the Friends cast in the video for the Rembrandts’ song "I'll be There For You." (It was the show’s theme song, after all, and Cox even played drummer in the clip.) And yes, that was her in the 1995 video for Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Good Intentions.

She had a long term relationship with a Batman star

While Cox had a high profile marriage to actor David Arquette and was previously linked to Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz, you may forget that she had a long romance—nearly six years—with Batman star Michael Keaton. After their split in 1995, the actress told People, "It's the most important relationship I've ever had, and I think he's the most wonderful person I've ever met…No matter how upset or pissed off I was, Michael could make a little face and crack me up."  Cox is currently dating Snow Patrol rocker Johnny McDaid.

She was almost a Desperate Housewife

She’s had roles on everything from Family Ties to the Scream movies, but can you picture Cox as a desperate housewife? Well, it could have been. The actress was reportedly the first choice for the starring role as Susan Mayer on the Marc Cherry series Desperate Housewives, but Cox passed (she was pregnant at the time) and the role went to Teri Hatcher.

She’s pretty positive there will never be a Friends reunion

Sounds like fans may never know how Monica and Chandler’s parenthood panned out. In an interview on David Letterman’s late night show, Cox said the Friends cast members can’t even get it together for a dinner party, so a sitcom reunion is out of the question. "Let me tell you something,” she said. “There's six friends and I've been trying to put together a cast dinner for 10 years. It doesn't happen.” Cox also downplayed the chances for a movie reunion because the show was shot in the gang’s apartments and the coffee house, and not out and about in NYC like “Sex and the City.” "We did the whole show on a sound stage in Monica's apartment, pretty much, so what are we gonna do?” she said. 2014 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Friends finale.

Her beauty routine includes…

 Thirty years after her we first saw her fresh-faced look in that Springsteen video, Courteney Cox still looks fabulous.  She recently dished to New You about her beauty must-haves, and she’s not shy about admitting she’s used Botox and laser skin treatments. Cox also swears by Mila Moursi’s skincare line, Edward Bess mascara, Laura Mercier under eye cover and tinted moisturizer, and Anastasia eyebrow pencils. The Pantene spokeswoman actually uses Pantene products. She also eats healthy (“Anything green I crave,” the veggie lover said), drinks a ton of water, and alternates Pilates workouts with running, walking and tennis.