If you’ve never seen The Nanny—the Fran Drescher sitcom that aired on CBS from 1993 to 1999—all you need to do is listen to the theme song once and you’ll basically be caught up. Drescher plays Fran Fine, a 30-something woman from Queens who becomes the live-in nanny for British Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield’s (Charles Shaughnessy) three children at their swanky Manhattan mansion. It’s your typical fish-out-of-water premise, with the added bonus of a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship between Miss Fine and Mr. Sheffield, rounded out by a stellar ensemble cast.
Although the show went off the air more than 20 years ago, reruns of the sitcom on networks like Cozi TV and Logo, as well as a renewed interest in Fran’s eclectic fashions, have kept the show in the public consciousness. If you can’t get enough of that flashy girl from Flushing, here are 5 facts about the series any Fran fan should know.
1. Fran Drescher met the president of CBS on a flight to France.
Although Fran Drescher had small roles in big films like Saturday Night Fever and This Is Spinal Tap, she was still relatively unknown when she pitched the sitcom to CBS. She had that opportunity thanks to getting some face-time with the president of CBS on a TWA flight to France, where she used her frequent flyer miles to get a first-class ticket.
“I started talking to him and he was a captive audience, because where was he going to go, coach?,” Drescher said in a 2017 interview with Australia’s Studio 10. After the nine-and-a-half hour flight, the exec told Drescher that when they got back to Los Angeles she and Peter Marc Jacobson—Drescher’s then-husband and The Nanny co-creator—could come in to pitch the show (officially) to the network’s development department.
2. Daniel Davis’s smooth British accent is fake.
Drescher has had several projects since The Nanny, including a short-lived talk show, The Fran Drescher Show, in 2010. One of her guests was Daniel Davis, who played Niles, the posh English butler on the sitcom. Davis, who is originally from Arkansas, definitely does not have a British accent in real life, while Shaughnessy—who was born in London—does. But some viewers guessed the opposite was true and, according to Davis, one even wrote him a letter suggesting he gave Shaughnessy some tips on how to sound more British on the show.
3. Miss Babcock’s dog Chester actually belongs to Fran Drescher.
Another episode of Drescher’s 2010 talk show features an interview with Lauren Lane, who played Sheffield’s business partner C.C. Babcock on The Nanny. On the show, C.C. had a dog named Chester who, Lane explained during the interview, was actually Drescher’s dog in real life. “He was fiercely devoted to Fran and they would make me do things like pick him up or come near him, and he would try to bite me,” Lane said during the interview. Drescher added that they wrote the script so that Chester hated C.C. but loved Fran “because that was the way it was in real life.”
4. Charles Shaughnessy does a serviceable impression of Fran Drescher.
Despite his rich British baritone voice, Charles Shaughnessy actually does a decent impression of Drescher. “People say to me, how is it working with that voice? Well, I have an accent and she has an accent … and it sort of cancels in the middle,” Shaughnessy said in a 2018 interview with Australia’s Studio 10 of working with Drescher. He then gave viewers a sample of his impression of her in the form of her iconic laugh.
5. Elizabeth Taylor was protecting her jewels on set.
In a 2012 TV Land interview, Renée Taylor said that her favorite episode of the show was “Where’s the Pearls?,” a season 3 episode that featured a cameo by Elizabeth Taylor. “I thought it was the funniest [episode], and it was fun to be with her,” she said. But as fun as she was, Liz wasn’t ready to let her co-stars wear her jewelry. She was wearing a rather sizable ring on the set, and Renée Taylor asked if she could try it on, but the famous violet-eyed actress said no—while slapping her hand away.
