Fran Drescher
Personal details
  • Born:
    • Birthday: 1957-09-30
    • Born Place: Flushing, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
  • Also Known As:

    Φραν Ντρέσερ

Fran Drescher

Born on September 30, 1957, in Flushing, Queens, Fran Drescher (born Francine Joy Drescher) is an American actress, comedian, and activist whose career and life have been defined by a resilient "New York spirit." The daughter of Sylvia, a bridal consultant, and Morty Drescher, a naval systems analyst, she attended Hillcrest High School, where she met her future husband and creative partner, Peter Marc Jacobson. She made her cinematic debut with a small but memorable role in the 1977 classic Saturday Night Fever, famously asking John Travolta’s character if he was "as good in bed as on the dance floor." Throughout the 1980s, she built a reputation as a gifted character actress with a distinctively nasal voice and sharp comic timing in films like This Is Spinal Tap (1984)—as the publicist Bobbi Flekman—and the cult favorite UHF (1989). Drescher’s career reached a zenith in 1993 with the creation of the CBS sitcom The Nanny. Developed alongside Jacobson, the show drew heavily from Drescher's own life, featuring her as Fran Fine, a bubbly, stylish Jewish woman from Flushing who becomes the nanny for a wealthy British Broadway producer’s children. The show became a global phenomenon, earning Drescher two Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations and cementing her as a fashion icon and television pioneer. Following the show's conclusion in 1999, she continued to work in television with series such as Living with Fran and Happily Divorced, the latter of which was inspired by her real-life divorce from Jacobson after he came out as gay (the two remain best friends and creative collaborators). Beyond her entertainment career, Drescher is a fierce advocate for health and human rights. In 2000, after two years of misdiagnoses, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, which she successfully beat through a radical hysterectomy. She turned this ordeal into the bestselling book Cancer Schmancer (2002) and subsequently launched the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a non-profit dedicated to early detection and prevention of women's cancers through lifestyle and policy changes. Her advocacy extends to her role as a Public Diplomacy Envoy for Women's Health Issues, a position she was appointed to by the U.S. State Department in 2008. In recent years, Drescher transitioned from screen icon to a powerful labor leader. Elected President of SAG-AFTRA in 2021, she led the union through the historic 2023 actors' strike, delivering viral, impassioned speeches against corporate greed that resonated across the global labor movement. She served as president until September 2025, when she was succeeded by Sean Astin. As of late 2025, she has returned to her acting roots with a transformative performance in Josh Safdie's ping-pong odyssey Marty Supreme, playing Rebecca Mauser, the mother of Timothée Chalamet's character. She also recently reprised her role as Bobbi Flekman in the 2025 sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.

Person History