This is a list of recurring characters on the American sitcom Friends. For characters who recurred only as partners of the six Friends, see List of significant others of Friends.

Family members

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Charles Bing

Charles Bing is the father of Chandler Bing. Played by actress Kathleen Turner, Charles Bing is a transvestite once married to Nora Tyler Bing

Nora Tyler Bing

Nora Tyler Bing is the mother of Chandler Bing. An adult novelist, she divorced Charles Bing when she learned of his transvestitism. Their divorce triggered Chandler to start using humour as a defence mechanism.

Jack Geller

Jack Geller is the father of Monica and Ross, and husband to Judy Geller.

The character is played by Elliott Gould. Jack Geller is most known for his ill-timed, inappropriate comments, such as addressing a British character as a "thieving, would be speaking German if it weren't for us, cheap little man". He also smokes cigarettes, abeit secretly; he claims that cigarettes Ross finds around the house are Judy's.

Judy Geller

Judy is the mother of main characters Monica and Ross, and is married to Jack Geller. She is always critical of Monica, in particular her usual lack of a boyfriend, and favors Ross. Her intense (albeit well-meant) criticism of Monica may in some way be responsible for Monica's obsessive sense of cleanliness and order. Her constant criticism of Monica's failures and pride in Ross's work, as well as her family religion, places her in the Jewish mother stereotype. She is played by Christina Pickles.

Leonard Green

Leonard Green is the father of Rachel Green. He was portrayed by Ron Leibman. As played by Leibman, he is an overbearing perfectionist who demands that anything his children do reap instant, flawless results. He and his wife divorced shortly after Rachel left her fiance Barry at the alter saying "you didn't marry your Barry honey, but I married mine." While he and Rachel have a fairly fractious relationship, he has said to his friends and youngest daughter Jill (but not to her) that she is the only one of his children he is proud of. Ron Leibman once said of his character: "I may have won a Tony... but everyone asks, 'Aren't you Rachel's Dad?'"

• Dr. Green was first mentioned in the 23rd episode, "The One with the Birth." Chandler said to Rachel, "What is it with you and doctors? Is your dad, like, a doctor?" Rachel replied, "Yeah. Why?" This was not only the first episode to mention Dr. Green, it was the first mention that he was a doctor.
• In a later episode, "The One with the Stripper," Dr. Leonard Green was also featured. This was when he was informed that his daughter was pregnant.
• The last scene featuring Dr. Green was in "The One Where Joey Speaks French," in which he has a heart attack.

Sandra Green

Sandra Green is the mother of Rachel Green. She was played by Marlo Thomas, appearing in at least two episodes The One With The Lesbian Wedding and The One With The Baby Shower. In one memorable moment she asked if Monica and Rachel had any marijuana as part of her celebrating her imminent seperation from her husband. She also danced with a "wonderfully large woman" at Carol (Ross' first wife) and Susan's lesbian wedding.

Frank Buffay Jr.

Frank is the half brother of Phoebe Buffay, named after their father, Frank Buffay. Phoebe discovered Frank on one of her attempts to find her father, who walked out on her when she was a child. It turns out that her father had left more than one family. Frank is perhaps even stranger than his older sister - he has a punctured lung, was arrested for stealing birds eggs, owned a dog called Tumor and believed that 'massage parlor' was a euphemism for a brothel, thereby wrongly assuming his sister was a prostitute.

In the third season of the series, Frank announced to Phoebe that he was dating his home economics teacher, Alice (whom he accidentally continues to call 'Miss Knight'), played by Debra Jo Rupp. Although at first apprehensive, Phoebe realises that the two are genuinely in love.

In the episode 'The One With Phoebe's Uterus', Frank returned, now married to Alice, and asked Phoebe if she would act as a surrogate mother to them as they are desperate to have children, but they are not able to do so. Phoebe agrees and in 'The One Hundredth' gave birth to triplets - a boy, Frank Jr. Jr.; and two girls, Leslie and Chandler, who is named after Phoebe's friend Chandler. The second girl baby was named Chandler because everyone originally believed the third baby would be a boy, only to realize the mix-up in the sonogram readings once the babies were actually born.

Frank, Alice and the triplets are rarely seen in the rest of the series following this episode, being only referred to by name.

Giovanni Ribisi also showed up in an early episode as an unnamed guy on the street who had dropped a condom in Phoebe's guitar case and later came back for it because he "needed it for an emergency". This was well before his appearance as Frank Jr., although he pretty much showed the same characteristics.

Ursula Pamela Buffay

Ursula was a fictional character from the popular television sitcoms Mad About You, which ran from 1992 to 1999, and Friends, which ran from 1994 to 2004. She was the twin sister to Phoebe, and, like Phoebe, was played by Lisa Kudrow.

Ursula originally appeared as a ditzy waitress in the sitcom Mad About You, working at Paul and Jamie's favourite haunt, Riff's. When Lisa Kudrow was cast as Phoebe, one of the main characters in Friends, which was also set in New York, the character crossed over. Ursula's apartment is in SoHo while Phoebe and her friends reside in the Village.

In Mad About You, Ursula was a particularly inept waitress, often forgetting orders entirely.

Her character was more fully developed in Friends. Ursula often appeared mean to her sister who is still upset by the things Ursula did to her when they were young, for example, throwing her Judy Jetson thermos under a bus and stealing her first boyfriend. This drove a wedge between the sisters and the estrangement continued into adulthood. Although, following the various deaths/abandonments/imprisonments of their parents, Phoebe ended up homeless by her mid-teens, Ursula apparently did not; how the sisters came to be separated as minors was never revealed.

Naturally, Phoebe became worried when Ursula dated Joey. It was revealed that Ursula had always known the truth about her and Phoebe's parentage; she even claimed to hold a suicide note from their adoptive mother that revealed the identity of their birth mother. When Phoebe asked to see the note, Ursula showed Phoebe a note that she (Ursula) had hastily written up. In Ursula's word, her version "got the gist" of the original suicide note, which she had apparently lost in the interim.

On one occasion, during the intro to an episode of the show, Jamie Buchman from Mad About You walks into Central Perk and confuses Phoebe with Ursula. Since both sisters are somewhat airheaded, she never sees the difference and writes off her not knowing who Jamie is as one of Ursula's quirks.

In later years, Ursula worked in the pornography industry, using her sister's first name so she was credited as Phoebe Buffay. Notably she appeared in a film called "Buffay the Vampire Layer" – "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry". Other titles include "Sex Toy Story 2", "Lawrence of a Labia" (does exist as an adult film), "Inspect her Gadget" (punk/pop band from Oakland, CA), and apparently others. However Ursula has probably since retired from pornography once Phoebe collected Ursula's checks (they were in Phoebe's name).

On the last episode of Mad About You, it was revealed that Ursula will become the Governor of New York in the near future.

Other characters

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Gunther

Gunther, portrayed by James Michael Tyler, was the manager of the Central Perk coffeehouse, where the six main characters spent a great deal of their free time. He was (like Joey) a former soap star. He played Bryce in All My Children and was killed off in an avalanche. His crush on Rachel appeared in every season of the 10 year show.

Susan Bunch

Susan Bunch, portrayed by Jessica Hecht, is the lesbian life partner of Ross Gellar's ex-wife Carol Willick. She was the woman who Carol had an affair with when she was married to Ross. She appears to do something in advertising or marketing, having once said that she was helping shoot a mini pad commercial.

Mr. Heckles

Mr. Heckles, portrayed by Larry Hankin, lived in the apartment below Monica Geller and Rachel Green and often complained about the apparent noise that the two made, though seemingly they were not making any at all, by rapping on the ceiling of his apartment with a broom.

During one episode, Mr. Heckles dies while banging the ceiling, and leaves all his worldly possessions to "the two noisy girls upstairs." During this episode, Chandler Bing, while looking through Mr. Heckles' possessions, draws parallels between his own life and Mr. Heckles'. It also emerges that the slightest noises could be heard from Mr. Heckles' apartment.

Estelle Leonard

Estelle Leonard, portrayed by June Gable, is Joey Tribbiani's withered, chain-smoking agent for his acting career. Although she did get Joey his breakout role as Dr. Drake Ramoray on the NBC soap opera Days of our Lives, she was not very good at her job for the most part; most of Joey's screen roles were as extras with minimal - if any - lines. Once she even mistakenly thought Joey had left her and tried to sabotage his career, when, in fact, he was still her client. Amongst Estelle's other clients were Al Minser and his 'pyramid of dogs' and a man who eats paper. Estelle died during the tenth season. At the time of her death, her only two remaining clients were Joey and the man who eats paper.

Marcel

Marcel was Ross Gellar's pet monkey during the first season of the series. Ross donated him to the San Diego Zoo following Marcel's obsessive humping of legs and inatimate objects. It was later learned that Marcel was stolen from the zoo, and was last seen by the six friends when he was the mascot for a beer company's commercials.

The Chick and The Duck

The Chick and the Duck were a chick and a duck owned by Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani. In the episode "The One With a Chick. And a Duck.", Joey originally bought the chick from an animal sanctuary as a gift for Chandler after seeing - and misunderstanding - a news report about people who buy chicks and then find they cannot properly care for them. Phoebe encouraged Chandler to return the chick but Chandler, discovering that the chick was in danger of being euthanised, did not have the heart and returned home with the chick and a duck. It turned out that, after hitting a few bumps (such as getting the chick stuck in the VCR) the two were perfectly capable of caring for the birds, and they were well loved. At one point Chandler punishes the duck for trying to eat the chick by sending him out to the hall.

Chandler named the chick "Yasmine", presumably after Yasmine Bleeth, an actress on Baywatch, a television program he and Joey frequently watched. In "The One With Ross's Thing", Chandler refers to the duck as "Dick", possibly after their discussion earlier in the episode about whether the chick and the duck had a baby.

After about Season 6 the animals disappeared (the duck was mentioned but not seen in Season 7), and in the final episode it emerged that they had died of old age some time ago, but Chandler and the rest of the group had lied to Joey to save his feelings, telling him that they had gone to a farm where they were very happy but could not be visited.

Also in the final episode Joey bought Chandler a new duckling and chick as a housewarming gift (Joey named them "Duck Jr." and "Chick Jr." respectively). In the end Joey kept them himself and, again after a few bumps (this time they got stuck in the foosball table), he even considered getting a goose, but Chandler quickly discouraged him. However, the birds did not make an appearance on the Friends spinoff Joey.

Ugly Naked Guy

Ugly Naked Guy was shown twice on screen: once while he was suspected of being dead, and once with his back facing the camera. His actual name is not known. He was a strange hermit who received his nickname for being fat and ugly, as well as being naked while at home. He wasn't always Ugly Naked Guy, though. In an episode that was supposed to take place before the series started, Phoebe referred to him as Cute Naked Guy, but commented that he had been putting on a lot of weight recently. In "The One With the Lesbian Wedding" he is described by Rachel's mother as "an unattractive nude man playing a cello."

Ugly Naked Guy lived in an apartment directly opposite Rachel and Monica's apartment. Anyone in the girls' apartment could look directly into Ugly Naked Guy's apartment. Throughout the early years, the gang would look into Ugly Naked Guy's apartment and comment on his goings on, such as him getting a ThighMaster or squashing his cat by accidentally sitting on it (that poor cat never saw that big butt coming). At one point the Friends saw him sleeping, and decided to fashion a large poking device out of chopsticks to ensure he was not dead ("The One With the Giant Poking Device").

In one episode it was announced that Ugly Naked Guy was moving out and subletting the apartment (Ironically, many of his boxes appeared to be labeled clothes). This sparked a frenzy of bids, along with bribes. Ross Geller ended up acquiring the apartment by eating mini muffins naked with him in an attempt to bond with the nudist, to the shock and amusement of the rest of the gang looking from Rachel and Monica's apartment.

He moved back when Monica and Chandler got engaged, to which Joey said "It's almost as if he knew". Ugly Naked Guy was never heard of again, and did not appear in the last episode.

Eddie Menuek

Eddie Menuek was a character in the NBC sitcom Friends. Eddie played by Adam Goldberg was in 3 episodes titled: The One Where Eddie Moves In, The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies and The One Where Eddie Won't Go.

Eddie moved in with Chandler as Joey moved into his own apartment. Chandler and Eddie met at the supermarket where Eddie helped Chandler pick out a chorizo; Chandler later discovers they have nothing in common.

After Chandler has a few confrontations with Eddie and his Ex-Girlfriend Tilley Chandler decides he must go and after numerous attempts to make him leave he and Joey move all of his stuff out of the apartment and trick him into believing he never lived there.

Friends characters