The Nanny is beloved for its fabulous ’90s fashion and Fran Drescher’s signature sassy humor, delivered in her inimitable voice. While her plucky character, Fran Fine, ultimately ended up with her wealthy boss, Maxwell Sheffield, in a delightful opposites-attract pairing, her love life offscreen has been decidedly different, and you might be surprised to learn which Nanny cast members have been married for decades and which ones are happily single.
Fran Drescher
Fran Drescher, who starred as the bold and stylish nanny Fran Fine, created and produced The Nanny with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson. Drescher and Jacobson were high school sweethearts and married in 1978. They divorced in 1999, and in 2010, he revealed he was gay. Drescher supported him as he came out of the closet, and the former spouses remain close friends.
In 2014, Drescher had a non-official marriage ceremony with her boyfriend, Shiva Ayyadurai, an entrepreneur who claimed to have invented email and courted controversy by promoting scientific conspiracy theories. The couple split in 2016.
Today, Drescher is happily single, and in 2022, she said, “I’m in a relationship with myself, and it’s going quite well.”
Charles Shaughnessy
Charles Shaughnessy, the real-life British Baron who played Fran’s boss turned love interest, the posh Maxwell Sheffield, has been married to actress Susan Fallender since 1983. They have two daughters, Jenny and Maddy.
In an interview, Shaughnessy said that when his daughters were growing up, they didn’t like seeing their dad kissing Fran, saying, “I came home one day, and Maddy was very upset. She had seen the show that night and said, ‘Daddy, don’t kiss the girl.’ She wasn’t very keen on all the Fran and Maxwell chemistry.”
Daniel Davis
While the sarcastic butler, Niles, played by Daniel Davis, eventually married his nemesis, Sheffield’s business associate C.C. Babcock, the actor never got married in real life. He also admitted to having negative feelings about his onscreen relationship, saying, “C.C. and I had been so oil and water—I didn’t buy that we would end up married. But I had to play it, because that’s what they wrote.”
Lauren Lane, best known as Fran’s antagonist, the obnoxious C.C. Babcock, was married to businessman David Wilkins from 1998 to 2009. They have a daughter, Kate. Lane was pregnant during the filming of The Nanny and revealed that it was very challenging getting back to work after giving birth, saying, “I had my daughter, and I was back on set in two weeks. It felt like an obligation. So, that was hard because I’m a new mom. I had postpartum depression. I was trying to be funny and feeling like a whale.”
