THE OTHER JENNIFER

Lopez is 44. Aniston is 45.

Their talent and beauty have won them what?  Probably just about everything that young girls dream of attaining -- fame, power, money, status, adoration, love -- "I want to be like Jennifer Lopez," says one girl to her friend, who replies, "I'd rather be Jennifer Aniston."
             
Lopez -- just the other day I wrote about her huge ambitions -- what she goes after -- gets, wins, obtains, attains whatever she wants -- and that gives me the creeps. 

The other Jennifer gives me herself. No matter what Aniston is doing, personally or professionally, she gives us a girl, a woman who fascinates us, whom we delight in and love.

I became a fan along with millions of other fans of "Friends," after the show had been running for six years and had won countless awards -- but that's me. I chose not to be with the trend.

Aniston can do anything and everything as an actress -- be amusing, dead serious, confused, strong, weak, vulnerable, conniving, decisive -- golly, I could add a dozen words. She's head-toe sexy, marvelous looking -- whatever she commits to being is believable.

Is it the real person? We feel it is. As we follow the media revelations about her private life, we shrug, nod, and approve of her searching personally. Like relatives, we have opinions about her being pregnant -- buying a mansion with her fiance, breaking up with her fiance, and now about four months pregnant. And wonder if it has something to do with her former husband wanting children, and Aniston herself saying, back then, that she didn't want to interrupt her career.

Yes, we feel that we know her, and so we are sure that this pregnancy is something to do with Aniston being 45 years old.

Writing about other fascinating  actresses-like MacLaine, Cher, Redgrave, Thompson, or Jennifer Lopez, I never felt I really knew them.

That sense that we know Jennifer Aniston -- the real person -- is amazing, and, I think, it's the very special, unique gift that Aniston has.

If a youngster with show-business fame and glory aspirations, asked me which Jennifer should she emulate, I'd say Aniston, but the fact is, I am not sure that she will remain an active star, after she becomes a mother. That's how real she is to me.