We take a look at the life and career of Fran Drescher, who was formerly best known as The Nanny but is now the inspirational head of SAG-AFTRA.
This past summer, as Hollywood faced its second major strike, the president of actors union SAG-AFTRA took the podium. She was without makeup, she was raspy and she was pissed. Gone was the ozone-shattering hairspray and the wild prints plucked right from the zoo. Nowhere in earshot was the dog whistle voice and the dolphin laugh. This was Fran Drescher: not the street-smart bimbo of somehow successful sitcoms and expectedly by-the-numbers romances, but the woman who will do anything to show her loyalty and not back down from anything. She had done it throughout her career through battles with industry execs and cancer, and now she was doing it against some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
WHAT Happened to…Fran Drescher?
But to truly understand what the fuck happened to Fran Drescher, we go back to the beginning. And the beginning began when she was born on September 30th, 1957 in Queens, New York.
But acting was a passion, and in 1977, she landed a bit part as a dancer in Saturday Night Fever, sharing screen time with John Travolta by asking him, “Are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?”. She would later compare her career trajectory of TV to movies–or the attempt of–to his. Next came a role as Alan Freed’s secretary in American Hot Wax (1978), followed by generic TV horror flick Stranger in Our House. Throughout the ‘80s, Drescher would turn up quite a bit on TV staples–SNL; Fame; 9 to 5; Silver Spoons; 227; Who’s the Boss?; Night Court–but she really got a substantial role in 1980’s American Graffiti wannabe The Hollywood Knights. She followed that up with summer camp romp Gorp, 1981’s Ragtime, and 1983’s dismal Doctor Detroit, playing a love interest to Dan Aykroyd.
Without really leaving a mark up to that point, Drescher got the role of PR personnel Bobbi Flekman in Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap (1984), a role she would actually later reprise in an episode of The Nanny. Drescher made a break for sitcoms, although her first true attempt– 1986’s Charmed Lives–lasted just four episodes. 1988 brought Rock ‘N’ Roll Mom but, undoubtedly more important to her future, a run-in with a Hollywood strike. As the WGA enacted their first since the beginning of the decade, Fran Drescher had no choice but to confront it: by forming a gourmet crouton company! She would do much more in the 2020s…Drescher wrapped up the decade with TV drama Love and Betrayal and the “Weird Al” vehicle UHF, cast because of her soon-to-be-trademark nasally voice and in-your-face New Yawk spirit.
In the early part of the ‘90s, Drescher putted around fare like Wedding Band, Hurricane Sam and Cadillac Man, playing Robin Williams’ mistress. After starring alongside Dennis Farina in We’re Talking Serious Money (1991), Drescher got just the opportunity she needed: a CBS sitcom titled Princesses. But it was wracked by behind-the-scenes problems so bad that the plan was to replace the entire cast. It lasted just eight episodes, with three unaired. But the show gave her the push she needed, and during a chance encounter at the airport with CBS exec Jeff Sagansky, she pitched him for nine straight hours–after slapping on some makeup.
Thus, The Nanny came knocking, giving Fran Drescher the sort of vehicle she had been after. Described as an anti-Mary Poppins, Drescher’s Fran Fine inadvertently becomes the titular nanny for a widowed Broadway producer. The culture clash comedy, The Nanny gave Drescher the chance to show just how funny–verbally and physically–she was. It became an enormous hit and made Drescher distinguished, famous and, to some a little annoying (Friends’ obnoxious recurring character Janice was clearly a parody) but that was kinda the point. She was a fish out of water and her volume is stuck at 11 (shout out to Spinal Tap)
Of course, Dresher was highly involved in the writing process of her own hit show and even paid tribute to her family by naming her on air parents Sylvia and Morty after her own mom and dad. Many fell in love with Fran’s character for countless reasons, but the biggest being Drescher’s ability to be an ordinary, down to earth girl who has her own voice no matter who she’s in the room with. She could dress and speak how she wanted and not be afraid of judgement. Fran was someone girl’s at home could look up to for her courage and her ability to show the best parts of growing up as a woman.
The show would hit peak ratings in 1995, also scoring Drescher two Emmy and Golden Globe nods apiece. One year prior, “The Strike” aired, showing Fran–and, yes, Fran–as someone who refuses to cross a picket line…
