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Before becoming a 'Friend,' Courtney Cox starred onstage beside The Boss...

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11 Jan 2022
5 min read
Question: this actress danced on stage with bruce springsteen in his "dancing in the dark" video...

Prior to becoming one of the nation’s best Friends, Alabama-born actress Courtney Cox was already, well, Boss.

In 1984, as her performing career was getting underway and she was still three years away from a co-starring turn as Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend Lauren on Family Ties, Cox was selected from a casting call to appear in the video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.”  The biggest hit on the Boss’s world-beating Born in the U.S.A album, “Dancing” spent four weeks as No. 2 hit on the Billboard’s Hot 100 charts.

As for the accompanying video, the original concept of filming Bruce actually dancing in the dark against a black screen didn’t prove a winner; aiming for more, the concept of a live concert video arose, and Brian De Palma (a year removed from directing Scarface and three years before helming The Untouchables) was chosen to direct.

Filmed at the St. Paul Civic Center in late June of ’84, amid what was the kickoff of the album’s tour, the live concert video was actually shot over two nights – the first for pure video capture, and the latter, specifically on the 29th of June, during the live show.

The pre-selection of Cox as the young woman to dance with him onstage was unbeknownst to the Boss, as was the fact that the actress had been flown in from New York for the part.

Taking place midway into the show – allowing Springsteen appropriate time to lather – the crop-haired Cox (just 20 at the time) joins Bruce onstage to dance along to “Dancing”, while she dons a Born tour concert T-shirt.  To ensure the director has opportunity to get what he wanted from the shoot, Bruce actually performed “Dancing” twice during that show.

The memorable video wasn’t lost on the MTV generation, as “Dancing” would win the network’s award for “Best Stage Performance in a Video” (beating out heavyweights likes of David Bowie, Tina Turner and Duran Duran in the category that year).

For Cox, the dancing continued with the ensuing Family Ties role, before she landed the part as Monica Geller on Friends (though she initially auditioned for the part of Rachel); co-starring for 10 seasons on one of the most popular sitcoms in television history, Cox would also land memorable parts in 1994’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and as journalist Gale Weathers in all five Scream movies.

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