We have two reasons for selecting this birthday on which to celebrate comic actress Fran Drescher (b. 1957).
The first will be obvious to anyone who has followed the news. As the President of SAG-AFTRA since 2021 she not only led her union through the recent strike in solidarity with the WGA, but gave a couple of the most galvanizing speeches on behalf of labor, or anything else, I have ever heard. A display of courage and leadership and eloquence that has become downright rare in this day and age. Her remarks came as especially powerful to those of us who had never heard her speak outside the context of her characters, who are generally, to put it bluntly, not as smart as she is. Which brings us to our second reason for posting on her this year: 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of The Nanny.
Which brings up a third rationale for timely enthusiasm. Queens has been my go-to borough of interest since moving just over the border in 2018. I've been exploring its history, visiting its many corners, speaking at places like the Queens Theatre in Flushing and the Greater Astoria Historical Society, and performing at QED. And who is more "Queens" than Fran Drescher? NO ONE. Well, maybe Ray Romano but they went to high school together, so it's a tie.
Gorgeous from the get-go, Drescher was first runner-up for Miss New York Teenager in 1973. She briefly attended CUNY and cosmetology school, and then began to get cast in movies. Because on top of being beautiful and talented, with that accent and vocal fry she's a very handy TYPE. People may forget that she was in tons of big things prior to The Nanny. Her early movies included Saturday Night Fever (1977), American Hot Wax (1978), Wes Craven's Summer of Fear a.k.a. Stranger in Our House (1978), Ragtime (1981), Doctor Detroit (1983), This is Spinal Tap (1984), UHF (1989) and Cadillac Man (1990), among other films, and memorably guested on episodes of TV shows like Who's the Boss?, Night Court, and ALF, et al. In 1993 was in the TV movie Without Warning: Terror in the Towers, about the first attack on the World Trade Center earlier that year.
Then came The Nanny (1993-99) cooked up with her husband and childhood sweetheart Peter Marc Jacobson. While I've always found Drescher irresistible, I wasn't crazy about the show at the time. I thought the Cinderella story thing was pretty unoriginal, and thought her character was as well. With the big hair and the garish, tacky outfits. It's not like any of that was new. In time, it sank in that the vehicle was crafted specifically for her pre-existing personality. It wasn't a put-on. The thing was built around HER, not the other way around. By now, 30 years later, I find it pretty charming and something of a modern sit-com classic.
Throughout these years, she also appeared in four particularly unsuccessful films: a big screen version of Car 54, Where Are You? (1994), Francis Ford Coppola's Jack (1996), The Beautician and the Beast (1997, for which she won a Razzie), and the ensemble film Picking Up the Pieces (2000, called by Cheech Marin "the worst movie I ever starred in" -- think about some of the movies he starred in). Other misfortunes accrued. Experiencing symptoms since 1998, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer two years later and had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy Meanwhile, she had (amicably) divorced her husband, who had come out as gay. These, and an early rape and robbery were discussed in her 2002 book Cancer Schmancer, a somewhat more sober work than her first literary effort, Enter Whining (1996).
In addition to becoming a healthcare advocate, she has soldiered on in show business over the last two decades. There were four less successful TV shows, Living with Fran (2005-06), The Fran Drescher Show (2010), Happily Divorced (2011-13) and Indebted (2020). She has voiced one of the principal characters in the Hotel Transylvania animated films since 2012. And there was appearances on Broadway included Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (2014, 2015).
And of course her rebirth as a labor leader. I very much look forward to what may come next.
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