The following article mentions sexual assault.
When it comes to sitcoms, there is no decade quite like the ’90s. “Friends” and “Seinfeld” will never get old. “Frasier” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” were so beloved that they got reboots in the 2020s. The animated sitcom “The Simpsons” is still releasing new episodes all these years later. It was a huge era for the television format, and undoubtedly one of the best ’90s sitcoms was “The Nanny.” In the first episode, we met Fran Fine, played by the inimitable Fran Drescher, who took on a new career venture as a nanny for the children of Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield, played by Charles Shaughnessy. That set the stage for six glorious seasons of laughs and, of course, iconic Fran Fine wardrobe moments.
“So what happens in the pilot is fish out of water, trying to show that Fran Fine is this big-hearted, gorgeous, flirty, a little self-absorbed young woman that changes the lives of this family and turns that house into a home,” Drescher reflected to Today in 2021. “That is what the whole series is about and it was in the pilot, and then you have to figure out how to tell that story over and over and over again in every episode.”
While “The Nanny” certainly brought the comedy, behind the scenes, some of the stars have endured tremendous struggle and heartbreak over the years. As Drescher said in the aforementioned interview, “People don’t really realize that actors have that dual reality. Very often that episode or movie or play will remind you of what was going on behind the scenes during that period in your life, and you’re really the only one that carries that experience in your head.” Here are some of the tragic details about “The Nanny” cast.
Fran Drescher was sexually assaulted early on in her career
Fran Drescher was meant to be the star of “The Nanny.” The Queens-born actor played the titular character for all six seasons of the show, establishing Fran Fine as one of the most iconic characters in sitcom history thanks to her unmistakable voice and wardrobe. Drescher had already been working in Hollywood for over a decade when she booked “The Nanny,” and it was near the beginning of her career that she experienced one of the most traumatic events of her life. In 1985, Drescher’s house in Los Angeles was broken into, and she and a friend were both raped at gunpoint.
The assailants were brothers, one of whom committed the assault while the other robbed Drescher’s home. The men were apprehended and sent to prison, and Drescher struggled with processing what happened to her. “Afterward, I didn’t really get into my feelings or my vulnerabilities. I never wanted to come off as ‘weak,’ so I just kind of buried it and got on with life,” Drescher said in an essay she wrote for InStyle. “For the next 15 years I focused on working extra hard, making everybody else happy, and being a caregiver. I was busy with ‘The Nanny,’ and I lived in the oxygen-thin air of other people saying how hard I worked and how nice I was,” she added. Understandably, this traumatic incident continues to have a lasting and profound impact on her her life, and she brings a panic button with her wherever she goes.
She was later diagnosed with cancer
About 15 years after Fran Drescher was the victim of a home invasion and rape, just after “The Nanny” ended, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. In an episode of Ted Danson’s podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” Drescher shared that she believes there’s a link between her health struggles and the traumatic assault. “I think that the mind [and] body is connected. There’s nothing that’s autonomous from the other,” she said. “I didn’t really completely unpack what I was feeling. I just sort of went back to my life and let these residual neuroses kind of begin to rule me. I always felt like because I really didn’t deal with the rape in a very healthy way, it created a cancer within me and poetically in my reproductive [organs],” she added.
Drescher’s cancer journey was not easy. After experiencing troubling symptoms like bleeding between periods and cramping during sex, Drescher sought medical help. However, several doctors attributed her symptoms to perimenopause before she finally was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Fortunately, despite the many misdiagnoses, Drescher’s cancer was caught early. Still, the treatment required a radical hysterectomy, which removed her uterus and ovaries. Though her cancer was gone, the surgery left Drescher unable to carry children. “I don’t really like being told what I can and can’t do, so it was a bitter pill to swallow,” Drescher told People of the revelation. Drescher is still in remission, and she has since used her tragedy for good by starting Cancer Schmancer, an organization dedicated to educating people on early detection and cancer prevention.