Fran Drescher Biography / Pictures

Fran Drescher (born September 30, 1957) (Hebrew: פראן דרשר) is an Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominated American film and television actress, comedian, and activist.

Biography

Fran was raised in Kew Gardens, New York to an Ashkenazi Jewish family of Eastern Europe origin (her great-grandmother was born in Focşani, Romania). Her parents are Sylvia and Morty Fran and she has an elder sister, Nadine.

She was a first runner-up for "Miss New York Teenager" in 1973, as revealed in her interview on William Shatner's Raw Nerve which first aired on January 27, 2009.

Fran attended Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens, where she met her future husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she married in 1978, aged 21. Jacobson was Drescher's constant supporter in her show-business career, and he wrote, directed, and produced her signature television series, The Nanny.

Her first break was a small role in the blockbuster movie Saturday Night Fever (1977) in which she delivered the memorable line to John Travolta, "Are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?" A year later, she began to gain more attention in films such as American Hot Wax (1978), and Wes Craven's Summer of Fear (1978). She also took on a rare dramatic role in the Milos Forman 1981 film, Ragtime.

During the 1980s, Fran found moderate success as a character actress with memorable roles in films such as The Hollywood Knights, Doctor Detroit, The Big Picture, UHF, Cadillac Man, and most notably, a signature, scene-stealing role as Bobbi Flekman in Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap.

In the 1990s she and Jacobson finally created her own television show, The Nanny in 1993. She was visiting her friend, model Twiggy, in England and came up with the plotline. The show aired on CBS from 1993 to 1999, becoming an instant success, and Fran became an instant star. In this sitcom, she played a charming and bubbly woman named Fran Fine who casually became the nanny of three children; with her wit and her charm, she endeared herself to their widower father Maxwell Sheffield, a stuffy, composed, proper British gentleman and a Broadway producer (played by British actor Charles Shaughnessy).

Drescher's voice is a combination of a high nasal pitch and what is viewed as a stereotypical "New Yawk" accent. In her autobiography, Fran discussed the fact that this is basically her real voice — even though it is played up a little on-camera — and discusses the many voice lessons she had to take to overcome it for movie auditions, only to have it, and her machine-gun titter, end up being her trademark. Her first book is appropriately and humorously titled Enter Whining.

Fran appeared in Jack (1996), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Beautician and the Beast (1997) (for which she was also executive producer) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) co-starring Woody Allen.

In January 1985, two armed robbers broke into Drescher's and Jacobson's Los Angeles apartment. While one ransacked their home, the other raped Fran at gunpoint. Jacobson was also physically attacked, tied up, and forced to witness the entire ordeal. It took Fran many years to overcome, and it took her even longer to admit this to the press. She was paraphrased as saying in an interview with Larry King that although it was a traumatic experience, she found ways to turn it into something positive. In her book Cancer Schmancer, the actress writes: "My whole life has been about changing negatives into positives." She saw her rapist sent to prison.

After separating in 1996, Fran and Jacobson divorced in 1999. Their union was childless. She later dated a man sixteen years younger than she. Fran has since moved back to her native New York City.

Fran was admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars Sinai Hospital on June 21, 2000, after doctors diagnosed her with uterine cancer. She had to undergo an immediate radical hysterectomy to treat the disease. Since then, Fran was given a clean bill of health and no post-operative treatment has been ordered. She wrote about her experiences in her second book, Cancer Schmancer.

On June 21, 2007, the day which marked her 7th anniversary of wellness, Fran announced the national launch of the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women's cancers be diagnosed while in Stage 1, the most curable stage.

Fran says "we need to take control of our bodies, become greater partners with our physicians and galvanize as one to let our legislators know that the collective female vote is louder and more powerful than that of the richest corporate lobbyists." Her goal is to live in a time when women's mortality rates drop as their healthcare improves and early cancer detection increases. More information can be found on her website at cancerschmancer.org.

In recent years, Fran has made a return to television both with leading and guest roles. In 2005, she returned to TV with the sitcom Living with Fran, in which she played Fran Reeves, a middle-aged mother of two, living with Riley Martin (Ryan McPartlin, a guy half her age and not much older than her son. Former Nanny costar Charles Shaughnessy appeared as her philandering ex-husband, Ted. Living with Fran was cancelled May 17, 2006, after two seasons.

In 2003, Fran appeared in episodes of the short lived sitcom, Good Morning, Miami as Roberta Diaz. In 2006, Fran guest starred in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent; the episode, "The War at Home", aired on US television on November 14, 2006. In the same year, she also gave her voice to the role of a female golem in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII". In 2007, Fran appeared in the US version of the Australian improvisational comedy series Thank God You're Here.

In September 2008, Fran was appointed as a U.S. diplomat by the U.S. State Department. Her official title is Public Diplomacy Envoy for Women's Health Issues. By traveling throughout the world, she will support U.S. public diplomacy efforts, including working with health organizations and women's groups to raise awareness of women’s health issues, cancer awareness and detection, and patient empowerment and advocacy. Her first trip was in late September and included stops in Romania, Hungary, Kosovo and Poland.

In 2008, Fran supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. She attended a Super Democrat rally for Clinton. Fran claimed to have been considering a run for Congress in 2010 to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed by New York State's Governor David Paterson to succed Clinton after Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State."'Nanny' state? Fran eyes Clinton's Senate seat".