Fran Drescher

After years of small roles in film and television, the comic actress Fran Drescher finally gained fame as a "'Mary Poppins' from Queens" in what has become her signature role, "Fran Fine" in The Nanny. With then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, Drescher co-created and executive produced the sitcom—a humorous study of contrasts arising from the juxtaposition of a middle-class Jewish nanny in the refined world of a British-born, upper-class theater producer. Her performance in The Nanny earned two Emmy nominations as Best Actress in a Comedy Series.

Following their 1999 divorce, Drescher and Jacobson reunited to develop a new sitcom titled Living with Fran, followed by Happily Divorced which premiered in 2011. Inspired by their real-life relationship, the show features Fran with her newly outed gay ex-husband still living with her for economic reasons.

In 2000, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer but was since given a clean bill of health. She wrote a book about this experience, Cancer Schmancer, in which she frankly describes the disease and her journey back to health. She has also penned her memoir, Enter Whining.

A brazenly sexy, stylish, comic performer with a distinctively honking "Noo Yawk" accent, Fran Drescher is a former Miss New York Teenager. She began her film career with a bit part in Saturday Night Fever, uttering the memorable line "Are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?" to John Travolta's character. She attracted attention as a snappy secretary in American Hot Wax and as a plastic public relations director in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap. She has appeared in Cadillac Man, Francis Ford Coppola's Jack, and finally in her first big screen lead in The Beautician and the Beast. She followed up with Picking Up the Pieces and Santa's Slay.

The small screen has always welcomed Drescher's overwhelming personality. She made her mark on sitcoms such as ALF, Who's the Boss?, and Night Court and appeared in a handful of television movies, including I'd Rather Be Calm and Hurricane Sam, and atypically in dramatic works such as the spooky thriller Stranger in Our House and Without Warning: Terror in the Towers. In 2005, she returned to television in Living with Fran and also appeared in episodes of Good Morning, Miami and on stage in 2006 in "Some Girls."