US actress Fran Drescher (65) is the face and voice of the current general strike by the US actors’ guild. On July 13, she launched a nationwide walkout of all unionized film and series actors with an impassioned speech to members of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union she spearheads. Previously, talks between your organization and the Association of TV and Film Production Companies had failed without result.
Drescher has chaired the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists since September 2021 – but this is not the first time that the actress has ventured into political terrain in her work. Fran Drescher is a supporter of the US Democrats and has described herself as an “anti-capitalist” in interviews. In 2008, she actively supported the nomination of Hillary Clinton (75) as a presidential candidate and, according to her own statements, even flirted with her own candidacy for the US Senate. In 2012, she supported the then American President Barack Obama (61) in his re-election campaign.
Fran Drescher owes her public popularity and international fame primarily to her leading role in the CBS sitcom “The Nanny” (1993 to 1999), in which she played a resolute bridal wear saleswoman who, by fate, has to work as a nanny for a Broadway producer. The actress developed the idea for the extremely successful series together with her then husband Peter Marc Jacobson (65), with whom she was married from 1978 to 1999.
After the breakup, Jacobson made his homosexuality public. In 2011, the couple, who remained friendly and professional, came to terms with their breakup in a humorous way on the sitcom “Happily Divorced” (2011-2013). In it, Fran Drescher embodies a florist who, after 18 years of marriage, finds out that her husband is homosexual and is getting a divorce. However, since their financial situation does not allow them to move apart, the two continue to live under the same roof.
A tumor in the uterus diagnosed in Fran Drescher in 2000, from which she has now recovered, prompted her to found the “Cancer Schmancer Movement” in 2007, an organization dedicated primarily to the early detection of cancer in women.
In recent years, Drescher has rarely appeared as an actress, instead focusing on lending her distinctive voice to various characters in animated films – such as the character Eunice in the “Hotel Transylvania” film series.
