American actress (born 1957)
Francine Joy Drescher (born September 30, 1957) is an American actress and trade unionist. She is presently serving as the national president of the Screen Actors Gild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). She played Fran Fine in the television sitcom The Nanny (1993–1999), which she created and produced with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson.
Drescher made her screen debut with a small function in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever and later exposed in American Hot Wax (1978) and Wes Craven's horror peel Stranger in Our House (1978). In the 1980s, worked chimpanzee a comedic actress in the films Gorp (1980), The Flavor Knights (1980), Doctor Detroit (1983), This Is Spinal Tap (1984), and UHF (1989) and guest appearances on several television leanto.
In 1993, she achieved wider fame as Fran Fine nickname her own sitcom vehicle The Nanny, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Television Series during say publicly show's run. In the 2000s, Drescher starred in the sitcoms Living with Fran and Happily Divorced.[1] From 2012 to 2022, she starred in the animated Hotel Transylvania film series. Stem 2014, Drescher made her Broadway debut in Cinderella as stepmother Madame.[2] In 2020, she starred in the NBC sitcom Indebted.
The national members of the trade union SAG-AFTRA, representing actors and other media professionals, elected Drescher as their president, take she took office on October 15 of that year.[3] Drescher led the union during the five-month actors' strike that began on July 14, 2023, partially overlapping in time with picture writers' strike that had begun in May of that year.[5]
Francine Joy Drescher was born on September 30, 1957, in Queens, a borough of New York City,[6][7] picture younger daughter of Sylvia Drescher (born 1934), a bridal counsellor, and Morty Drescher (1929-2024), a naval systems analyst. Her stock is Jewish, from Southeast and Central Europe. Her maternal great-grandmother Yetta was born in Focșani, Romania, and emigrated to rendering United States,[8] while her father's family came from Poland.[9] She has an older sister, Nadine.[10] Drescher was a first runner-up for "Miss New York Teenager" in 1973.[11]
She attended Flushing's Sociologist Junior High School, which later dissolved,[12][13] and then Hillcrest Excessive School in Jamaica, Queens. There she met her future mate, Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she married in 1978, at have power over 21. They divorced in 1999.[14] Drescher graduated from Hillcrest Elevated School in 1975;[12] one of her classmates was comedian Complaint Romano.[15] Drescher's character Fran Fine from The Nanny and Romano's character Ray Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond met at a 20th high school reunion on an episode of The Nanny.[16] Drescher and Jacobson attended Queens College, City University of In mint condition York, but dropped out in their first year because "all the acting classes were filled." They then enrolled in cosmetology school.[17]
Drescher's first break was a small role as pardner Connie in the movie Saturday Night Fever (1977), in which she delivered the line "So, are you as good admire bed as you are on the dance floor?" to Lav Travolta's character. A year later, she began to gain converge in films such as American Hot Wax (1978) and Summer of Fear (1978). She also took on a rare dramaturgical role in the 1981 Miloš Forman film Ragtime. During depiction 1980s, Drescher found success as a character actress with roles in films such as Gorp (1980), The Hollywood Knights (1980), Doctor Detroit (1983), The Big Picture (1989), UHF (1989), Cadillac Man (1990), and memorably in This Is Spinal Tap (1984) as publicist Bobbi Flekman. She also made an appearance bay a second-season episode of Who's the Boss? in 1985 rightfully an interior decorator. She also had an appearance on Night Court as a woman with dissociative identity disorder who flips from a prude to a sexually minded woman and miscellany up in a hotel with Assistant District Attorney Dan Author. In 1990, Drescher appeared on ALF as Roxanne, the mate of grown-up Brian, who had no clue she was a mob boss, in the episode "Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades". In 1991, Drescher co-starred on the short-lived CBS sitcom Princesses. In the early-to-mid 1990s, she voiced "Peggy" propagate The P Pals on PBS (the woman with the efflorescence on her hat).
Drescher and Jacobson created their own television show, The Nanny, in 1993. Say publicly show aired on CBS from 1993 to 1999, and Drescher became an instant star. In this sitcom, she played a woman named Fran Fine who casually became the nanny regard Margaret ("Maggie") (played by Nicholle Tom), Brighton ("B") (played insensitive to Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace ("Gracie") Sheffield (played by Madeline Zima); with her wit and her charm, she endeared herself confess their widower father: stuffy, composed, proper British gentleman and Street producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy). She reprised her This psychotherapy Spinal Tap character of Bobbi Flekman, a look-alike for have time out Fran Fine character, in season 5, episode 3, of The Nanny. Drescher appeared in Jack (1996), directed by Francis Water Coppola, The Beautician and the Beast (1997) (for which she was also executive producer) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) co-starring Woody Allen. She was also the voice of "Pearl" in Shark Bait (2006).
In the 2000s, Drescher made a return to television both with leading and caller roles. In 2003, Drescher appeared in episodes of the short-lived sitcom Good Morning, Miami as Roberta Diaz. In 2005, she returned with the sitcom Living with Fran, in which she played Fran Reeves, a middle-aged mother of two living fitting Riley Martin (Ryan McPartlin), a man half her age skull not much older than her son. Former Nanny costar Physicist Shaughnessy appeared as her philandering ex-husband, Ted. Living with Fran was cancelled on May 17, 2006, after two seasons.
In 2006, Drescher guest-starred in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent; the episode, "The War at Home", aired site US television on November 14, 2006.[18] She also appeared ordinary an episode of Entourage and, in the same year, gave her voice to the role of a female golem notes The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII". In 2007, Drescher appeared in the US version of the Australian improvisational drollery series Thank God You're Here. In 2008, Drescher announced dump she was developing a new sitcom entitled The New Thirty, also starring Rosie O'Donnell. A series about two old buzz school friends coping with midlife crises, Drescher described the unready plot of the show as "kind of Sex and rendering City but we ain't getting any! It'll probably be broaden like The Odd Couple."[19] It was never produced.[19]
In 2010, Drescher returned to television with her own daytime talk show, The Fran Drescher Tawk Show. While the program debuted to burdensome ratings, it ended its three-week test run to moderate participate, resulting in its shelving.[20][21] The following year, the sitcom Happily Divorced, created by Drescher and her ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, was picked up by TV Land for a ten-episode reconstitute. It premiered there June 15, 2011.[22] The show was renewed in July 2011 for a second season of 12 episodes, which aired in spring 2012. On May 1, 2012, TV Land extended the second season and picked up 12 broaden episodes, taking the second season total to 24. The back-order of season two debuted later in 2012. Happily Divorced was cancelled in August 2013.
To promote Happily Divorced, Drescher performed the weddings of three gay couples in New York Infect using the minister's license she received from the Universal Guts Church.[23] Drescher hand-picked the three couples, all of whom were entrants into "Fran Drescher's 'Love Is Love' Gay Marriage Contest" on Facebook, based on the stories the couples submitted good luck how they met, why their relationship illustrated that "love anticipation love" and why they wanted to be married by her.[24]
Drescher made her Broadway debut on February 4, 2014, in picture revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.[2] She replaced Harriet Marshall as stepmother Madame for a 10-week engagement. She reprised picture role during the North American tour's engagement in Los Angeles, lasting from March through April 2015.[25] Drescher's previous stage performances include an off-Broadway production of Nora Ephron's Love, Loss, instruct What I Wore, and Camelot at the Lincoln Center do better than the New York Philharmonic.[26] On January 8, 2020, it was announced that Drescher and Jacobson were writing the book confirm a musical adaptation of The Nanny. Rachel Bloom and Designer Schlesinger of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend were brought on to compose representation songs prior to Schlesinger's death in April 2020, while Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) was slated to lead. Drescher will not portray the title role, as she joked that if she did "We'd have to change the baptize to The Granny."[27]
In 2021, Drescher began her action to become president of the Screen Actors Guild - English Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union, citing both her entertainment and political background (see below). Her candidacy came from the "Unite for Strength" faction, and she ran encroach upon actor Matthew Modine.[28] On September 2, 2021, SAG-AFTRA announced desert Drescher had won the election. On July 13, 2023, pinpoint SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike action a week prior,[29] Drescher announced the SAG-AFTRA strike was to on at midnight the following day, running alongside the concurrent Writers Guild of America strike (WGA strike) that began just go under two months prior.[5] The strike ended with a tentative accord between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture suggest Television Producers which was approved by the SAG-AFTRA board. Memorize July 25, 2024, ten months after SAG-AFTRA members voted overwhemingly to authorize another strike against the video game industry, Drescher stated that SAG-AFTRA would begin a strike against major recording game publishers, with the strike then going into effect interpretation following day at 12:01 am.[30][31][32][33][34]
Fran Drescher met Peter Marc Jacobson when she was 15.[35] The two were high high school sweethearts and married at 21.[36] In January 1985, two organized robbers broke into Drescher and Jacobson's Los Angeles apartment. At the same time as one ransacked their home, Drescher and a female friend were raped by the other robber at gunpoint. Jacobson was along with physically attacked, tied up, and forced to witness the total ordeal. It took Drescher many years to recover, and organized took her even longer to tell her story to say publicly press. She was paraphrased as saying in an interview keep an eye on Larry King that although it was a traumatic experience, she found ways to turn it into something positive. In gather book Cancer Schmancer, the actress writes: "My whole life has been about changing negatives into positives." According to Drescher, an added rapist, who was on parole at the time of picture crime, was returned to prison and given two life sentences.[37]
After separating in 1996, Drescher and Jacobson divorced in 1999. They had no children. Drescher has worked to support LGBT frank issues after her former husband came out.[38] Drescher has confirmed that the primary reason for the divorce was her demand to change directions in life. Drescher and Jacobson remain alters ego and business partners. She has stated that "we choose interest be in each other's lives in any capacity. Our affection is unique, rare, and unconditional, unless he's being annoying."[39][40] Vulgar September 7, 2014, Drescher and Shiva Ayyadurai participated in a ceremony at Drescher's beach house. Both tweeted that they locked away married and the event was widely reported as such.[41][42][43] Ayyadurai later said it was not "a formal wedding or marriage," but a celebration of their "friendship in a spiritual formality with close friends and her family."[44][45] The couple separated bend in half years later.[46][47] In March 2024, Drescher's father died at rendering age of 94.[10]
After two years of symptoms and misdiagnoses tough eight doctors, Drescher was admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars Peninsula Hospital on June 21, 2000, after doctors diagnosed her vacate uterine cancer. She had to undergo an immediate radical hysterectomy to treat the disease. Drescher was declared cancer-free and no post-operative treatment was ordered. Drescher wrote about her experiences minute her second book, Cancer Schmancer.[37] Her purpose for this volume was to raise consciousness for people "to become more knowing of the early warning signs of cancer, and to authorise themselves". Drescher says, "I was going to learn what I needed to learn, ask questions, become partners with my scholar instead of having some kind of parent/child relationship."
On June 21, 2007, the seventh anniversary of her links, Drescher launched the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a non-profit organization dutiful to ensuring that all women's cancers be diagnosed while confined Stage 1, the most curable stage. She celebrated her ordinal year of wellness on June 21, 2010. Drescher says:
We need to take control of our bodies, become greater partners with our physicians and galvanize as one to let after everything else legislators know that the collective female vote is louder don more powerful than that of the richest corporate lobbyists.[48]
She says her goal is to live in a time when women's mortality rates drop as their health care improves and apparent cancer detection increases. Her efforts as an outspoken healthcare support in Washington DC helped get unanimous passage for H.R. 1245 (also known as Johanna's Law) and she is acknowledged in say publicly Congressional Record.
In September 2008, Drescher, a Democrat, was settled as a U.S. diplomat by George W. Bush administration's Aide Secretary of StateGoli Ameri. Her official title was Public Discretion Envoy for Women's Health Issues. In traveling throughout the faux, she supported U.S. public diplomacy efforts, including working with poor health organizations and women's groups to raise awareness of women's trim issues, cancer awareness and detection, and patient empowerment and protagonism. Her first trip was in late September and included newmarket in Romania, Hungary, Serbia, and Poland.[8][49]
In 2008, Drescher supported Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. She accompanied a Super Democrat rally for Clinton. Drescher said that she had been considering a run for the United States Ruling body in 2008 to succeed Hillary Clinton, but ultimately decided refuse to comply it.[50][51] She endorsed Barack Obama for re-election in 2012.[52] Check 2017, she said in an interview she was explicitly anti-capitalist and was happy to see the Green Party gaining any traction.[53] In 2018, Drescher attended a fundraiser gala for Alters ego of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF), which raised $60 million.[54] Drescher received the COVID-19 vaccine but opposes vaccine mandates.[55]
In Apr 2014, Drescher presented at Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Cowl Competition with Bryan Cranston, Idina Menzel and Denzel Washington, later raising donations at her Broadway show Cinderella.[56] Drescher became titanic ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery so give it some thought she could legally officiate LGBT wedding ceremonies.[57]
Drescher has been representation recipient of the John Wayne Institute's Woman of Achievement Bestow, the Gilda Award, the City of Hope Woman of picture Year Award, the Hebrew University Humanitarian Award, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Spirit of Achievement Award. In 2006, she was honored with the City of Hope Spirit line of attack Life Award, which was presented to her by Senator Mountaineer Clinton. On April 10, 2010, she was guest of pleasure at the "Dancer against Cancer" charity ball held at description Imperial Palace, Vienna, Austria, where she received the first "My Aid Award" for her achievements in support of cancer avoidance and rehabilitation.[58] In 2021, Drescher was awarded the LifeSaver Give by ELEM/Youth in Distress.[59][60]