Kudrow, Lisa Marie Diane (1963- )

US actor. She made a name for herself during the 1990s on the popular US television series Friends (1994-2004), playing the endearing, new-age Phoebe, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1998. She also achieved critical acclaim for her roles in the films The Opposite of Sex (1998), Analyze This (1999) and its sequel Analyze That (2003), Lucky Numbers (2000), All Over the Guy (2001), and Happy Endings (2005).

She was born and grew up just outside Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, with a degree in biology, Kudrow moved back to Los Angeles, where she took up acting. She became a member of the Los Angeles improvisational comedy group the Groundlings. After a series of small television roles on popular comedy series such as Cheers and Newhart, she landed a regular part as Ursula, an airheaded waitress, in the comedy Mad About You. Her character Phoebe in Friends is Ursula's ‘twin sister’. Her first major film role was in the light comedy Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), in which she starred opposite Mira Sorvino.