Fran Drescher Is ‘Fine’ More Than 20 Years Later

Her laugh is contagious. Her smile brightens a room when she enters it. Her frizzy hair takes over your line of vision. And you can’t forget about the high-pitched, nasally voice.

It’s hard to miss Fran Drescher, the well-known actress who took the television world by storm in the 1990s. When she’s not working on a television show or a new project, she’s focused on her charity, Cancer Schmancer. But she is not an ordinary actress.

“My mom, when I was in junior high, said, ‘You don’t need to take typing because you’re not going to be a secretary,’” Drescher said, laughing about her childhood. “Even now, doing this series, my mom said recently, ‘The show is definitely going to get picked up. You’re incredible.’ I said, ‘Ma, you’re a real backstage mother.’”

Drescher, 62, hails from Queens, where she lived until she moved out to California when she was 21 years old. In most of her work, she plays a Jewish character, often using memories from her childhood to inspire plots, phrases and more.

“I never forgot my roots, and most of my characters are deeply tied with my past,” she said. “I keep the memories of my childhood and upbringing—all of the rich and colorful characters I grew up with—very close in my heart, and it’s what Peter [Marc Jacobson, her ex-husband] and I like to write about. Inside, I still feel like that chubby girl from Queens with working-class parents. That’ll never go away. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. I’m not afraid to not have money.”

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