Christina Pickles (born February 17, 1935) is an English actress, best known for her long-running role of Nurse Helen Rosenthal in the hospital drama St. Elsewhere, for which she was nominated for four Emmys. Christina Pickles was born in Yorkshire, England. She is the niece of radio presenter Wilfred Pickles and the sister of judge James Pickles. Her niece Carolyn Pickles is also an actress. She has appeared in such television shows as Roseanne, Matlock, Diagnosis: Murder and Murder, She Wrote, as well as the soap operas The Guiding Light and Another World, though it was her role in the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) with which she is most identified. She remained on St. Elsewhere for its entire six-year run, and was nominated for four Emmy awards for her work on the series. Pickles played the mother of Harmon Rabb, in the television series, "JAG". She also appeared as "Judy Geller", the mother of Ross and Monica Geller (David Schwimmer and Courteney Cox), in the U.S. sitcom Friends, making appearances throughout the ten-year run of the series and receiving an Emmy nomination for her role in 1995.