Fran Drescher

Francine Joy Drescher (born in Flushing, Queens, New York, on September 30, 1957) is a Jewish American actress. She is famous for her thick nasally New York accent and slim yet curvaceous figure.

Related Topics:
Flushing - Queens - New York - September 30 - 1957 - Jewish - American - Actress - New York accent

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She was a studious girl and was quite popular. In fact, at age fifteen she'd met the man she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with: Peter Marc Jacobson. Her first break was a bit part in the movie Saturday Night Fever (1977).

Related Topics:
Peter Marc Jacobson - Saturday Night Fever - 1977

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In 1985, robbers ransacked Drescher's apartment and raped her and one of her girlfriends. It took her many years to overcome this obstacle, 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 very negative experience, she found ways to turn her experience into something positive; she saw her rapist sent to prison.

Related Topics:
1985 - Apartment - Rape - Larry King - Prison

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She continued to play small roles in movies, until she came up with the idea for The Nanny. 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 so did Fran. In this sitcom she played a charming and bubbly young girl, named Fran Fine, who casually became the nanny of three children; with her wit and her charm she endeared herself to their father Maxwell Sheffield, a stuffy, composed, proper British gentleman and a Broadway producer (played by Charles Shaughnessy).

Related Topics:
The Nanny - Twiggy - CBS - 1993 - 1999 - Sitcom - Fran Fine - Charles Shaughnessy

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Her voice is a combination of a high nasal pitch and a New York/Jewish accent that many people find unpleasant, although others (including her first husband) found it endearing. In her autobiography Drescher discusses the fact that this is her real voice, and the many voice lessons she has 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 was even titled Enter Whining.

Related Topics:
Accent - Trademark

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In the late 1990s she was a defendant in a lawsuit, and later dismissed from it. Acerbic comic Dennis Miller remarked that "no one wanted to have to listen to her testify!"

Related Topics:
1990s - Dennis Miller

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During her TV experience, she also appeared in a number of films, including Jack (1996), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Beautician and the Beast (1997) (which she also executive produced) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) co-starring Woody Allen. In 1999 Fran divorced her husband, Peter Marc Jacobson.

Related Topics:
Jack - 1996 - Francis Ford Coppola - The Beautician and the Beast - 1997 - Picking Up the Pieces - 2000 - Woody Allen - 1999 - Peter Marc Jacobson

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Fran Drescher was admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars Sinai Hospital on 21 June 2000, after doctors diagnosed her with uterine cancer. But emergency surgery caught it early as it was only at Stage 1 and she didn't have to have radiation or chemotherapy. She has been 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.

Related Topics:
Los Angeles - Cedars Sinai Hospital - 21 June - 2000 - Cancer - Chemotherapy

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In 2005 she returned on 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, Passions), a guy half her age and barely older than her son. Former Nanny costar Charles Shaughnessy re-occurs as her philandering ex-husband, Ted.

Related Topics:
2005 - TV - Living with Fran - Ryan McPartlin - Charles Shaughnessy

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