From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge
SHE HAS SOMETIMES BEEN considered cute and frequently been called pretty. But not until she was cast as the overly orderly Monica opposite five goofballs and a monkey on the hit NBC sitcom Friends did Courteney Cox make the leap to gorgeous. "She has amazing eyes and a dazzling, killer smile," says costar David Schwimmer, who plays her brother Ross. "Also, great arms and hands—strong but feminine."

She's tough beyond her 5'5", 108-lb. frame. "I have a little face and a lot of teeth, and that makes me look like a waif," says Cox, 30. "But I'm not fragile." Born in Birmingham, Ala., to Richard, a contractor, and Courteney, a homemaker, Cox moved to New York City after a year of college and says she looked "like a little tomboy" when Bruce Springsteen plucked her out of the audience in his 1984 "Dancing in the Dark" video. She followed up her first leading man with Michael J. Fox (Family Ties), Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) and Michael Keaton, her real-life boyfriend of four years. Now, as one of the top-rated Friends, Cox enjoys star perks such as Courteney's Cabinet, an on-set box brimming with her favorite Bit-O-Honey candy bars. "I love reading about nutrition," says the yoga enthusiast. "I just don't always follow what I read." Concerned about crow's-feet ("they're there, believe me"), Cox says she is "the kind of person who tries every new facial product. I have 150 cleansers in my bathroom." Not that she needs much of anything. "I only have to do three things to look halfway decent," she says. "Curl my eyelashes, fill in my eyebrows and put some lipstick on." Halfway decent? Who's she kidding?