A romantic, will-they-or-won't-they sitcom and family show rolled into one, The Nanny was one of the biggest television hits of the 1990s. But in 1999, after six seasons, the show wrapped, and the cast moved on. Twenty-five years later, it's time for a catch-up.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00A romantic will-they-or-won't-they sitcom and family show rolled into one, The Nanny
00:04was one of the biggest television hits of the 1990s. But in 1999, after six seasons,
00:09the show wrapped and the cast moved on. 25 years later, it's time for a catch-up.
00:13Fran Drescher appeared in the cult classics UHF and This Is Spinal Tap before breaking
00:17through with The Nanny, which she co-created in 1993. Drescher parlayed her broad comic
00:22persona and unforgettable voice and laugh as Fran Fine, a former bridal salon employee
00:26with no child-rearing skills or experience who winds up as the live-in caretaker for
00:30a wealthy but overwhelmed single dad.
00:32The Nanny earned Drescher two Emmy nominations and a spot on the television A-list. She starred
00:36in and wrote for the sitcom Living with Fran. Then Fox decided to test her ability to host
00:41a daytime talk show. The Fran Drescher talk show got a three-week trial run, but unfortunately,
00:45poor ratings meant it didn't make the cut.
00:48Drescher and ex-husband, actor and TV writer Peter Mark Jacobson then created the TV land
00:52sitcom Happily Divorced. Starring Drescher about a married couple who split up after
00:56the husband makes a surprise announcement.
00:58I'm gay.
00:59What?
01:00For better or worse, the show was based on their own experience. But while their marriage
01:03lasted for 21 years, the show only made it two seasons. In 2000, Drescher was diagnosed
01:08with uterine cancer following two years of doctor's appointments and misdiagnoses. Once
01:12she recovered, Drescher published Cancer Schmancer, a memoir meant to raise consciousness about
01:17the disease. She also created the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a nonprofit organization with the
01:21goal of all women being diagnosed at stage one, when the disease is most curable.
01:26Learn what the early warning whispers are and the tests that are available, because
01:30they may not even be on the menu at the doctor's office.
01:35Then in 2021, Drescher was elected president of SAG-AFTRA, the U.S. Actors' Labor Union.
01:40In 2023, she led a four-month work stoppage that brought Hollywood to a standstill and
01:44ultimately achieved significant gains for its members.
01:47On The Nanny, Fran's comic foil was her employer, the uptight English theater producer, single
01:52father of three, and inevitable love interest, Mr. Maxwell Sheffield. Playing an upper-crust
01:56British character wasn't much of a stretch for actor Charles Shaughnessy, who was born
01:59into U.K. nobility and, as of the death of No. 4 in 2007, is the fifth Baron Shaughnessy.
02:05Nobility notwithstanding, Lord Shaughnessy continued to pursue his American acting career
02:09after The Nanny's end. He's appeared in more than 100 movies and TV series, including multi-episode
02:14arcs and Mad Men and the Magicians.
02:16He also has a thriving voice acting career, lending his posh British accent to cartoons
02:27like The Tale of Despereaux and Pound Puppies. And as if that weren't enough, Shaughnessy
02:30is a major soap opera star. Besides recurring on The Bay as Captain Elliot Sanders, he played
02:35both Shane and Drew Donovan in more than 1,100 episodes of Days of Our Lives, and spent two
02:40years on General Hospital playing long-running villain Victor Cassidine — until his character
02:44was killed off. At least, for now.
02:47Most sitcoms about rich families feature a sassy butler-type quick with a withering put-down,
02:51and on The Nanny, that role was filled by a British servant named Niles.
02:54My sister would every once in a while say to me, you're not acting at all, are you?
02:59Tasked with making sure everything runs smoothly for Mr. Sheffield and his three children,
03:02Niles came alive during his frequent and always brutal verbal spar-offs with his boss' business
03:07partner Cece Babcock. He was also hopelessly in love with her.
03:11What was I thinking? She's only ever going to think of me as just a domestic.
03:16Daniel Davis is a chameleon of a character actor. After the Arkansas-born performer finished playing
03:20the uber-respectable Niles in 1999, he played a gaggle of authoritative figures on a variety
03:25of television shows. He played a professor on The Good Fight, beamed in as a hologram on Star
03:30Trek Picard, played doctors on Ellsbeth, Frasier, and Ugly Betty, and was a servant once more on
03:34Gotham. After The Nanny, Davis also returned to the New York stage, where he starred in
03:38Amadeus during its original Broadway run, and appeared in Broadway productions of The Frogs,
03:43The Invention of Love, Le Cage aux Folles, Noises Off, and Wrong Mountain,
03:47for which he earned a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Play in 2000.
03:51Cece Babcock was generally the hapless patsy or the butt of the joke on The Nanny. Forever pining
03:56after her producing partner, Mr. Sheffield, she lobbed insults at Fran Fine, whom she considered
04:01socially inferior and utterly outmatched as a romantic rival.
04:04How hard is it to play a pushy broad who runs around half-naked with too much makeup on?
04:08Have you learned nothing from your mother?
04:10But for every diss she delivered to Fran, Niles gave her three.
04:14Tell me what you want me to do.
04:16Cluck like a chicken.
04:17Apart from an episode of the short-lived 1999 sitcom Partners and two short films shot 18 years
04:22apart, actor Lauren Lane left screen acting behind after The Nanny finished its run. She moved to
04:27Austin to teach dramatic arts at Texas State University and began acting with a variety of
04:31local theater companies. She also teamed up with designer Ben Shepard to create a handbag line.
04:36Lane still hangs out with her close friend and former TV nemesis Daniel Davis.
04:41Brighton Sheffield, who starts out as a bitter but entitled rich kid feeling lots of difficult
04:45feelings after the death of his mother, changes the most of all of the characters in The Nanny,
04:49and it's all thanks to Fran.
04:50We both hate you!
04:52Good, then my work here is done.
04:53At first, he's defensive and rude, but that persona slowly dissipates as he grows and
04:57learns to accept Fran and treat his family better. Brighton was played by Benjamin Salisbury,
05:02who grew up on television over the course of the show's six-year run. After the show ended,
05:06Salisbury acted very little, landing small roles in the films Simone and Red Zone,
05:10an episode of Numbers, and a short film called On the Brink. He got married in 2006,
05:14and since then, he hasn't worked professionally on screen in any capacity.
05:18He did stay in an entertainment-adjacent field, however. Although he and his wife
05:21divorced in 2013, he helped raise his three children while working as the
05:25general director of the Universal Studios Hollywood Amusement Park.
05:29Fran finds gregarious social butterfly tendencies come in handy when it comes
05:32to raising the Sheffield kids, particularly teenager Maggie. Shy, unsure, and goofy at
05:37first, Maggie sees Fran as a mentor in her quest to become more confident and social.
05:41Toward the end of her six years playing Maggie Sheffield, Nicole Tom was cast as
05:45Supergirl and Kara Kent in The New Batman Adventures, and she would go on to play that
05:49dual voice role in numerous DC Comics-based animated projects over the next decade.
05:53At the same time, Tom continued to appear in live-action television shows and indie movies.
05:57One of her most notable roles was the young reporter Cassie in The Princess Diaries.
06:01She's styling a wet sort of grunge-look hairdo and is wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and docks.
06:08She was also a series regular on the short-lived lottery drama Windfall,
06:11and co-starred on the boozy, dark Hollywood satire The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman.
06:16Tom continues to pop up as a guest star here and there on network and cable shows.
06:20Her last starring role was in Tubi's 2022 romantic drama Prisoner of Love.
06:24The youngest of the Sheffield brood, Grace is sweet and innocent, but precocious. She takes to
06:29the new nanny immediately, and is way ahead of all of her much older family members in terms
06:33of intelligence and vocabulary.
06:35"'Oh, I just love playing with dolls!''
06:37"'We aren't playing!''
06:39"'Huh?''
06:40"'We're in group therapy!''
06:41Madeline Zima was just 8 years old when The Nanny premiered and 14 when it wrapped in 1999.
06:46She quickly transitioned out of child stardom into more mature projects.
06:50After showing up in teen-oriented fare such as Seventh Heaven, Gilmore Girls,
06:53and A Cinderella Story, Zima joined the cast of the popular NBC superhero series
06:58Heroes in 2009 as the college roommate and secret admirer of cheerleader Claire.
07:02Zima also appeared on four seasons of the Showtime comedy Californication as Mia Lewis,
07:07the underaged and very ill-advised other woman involved with David Duchovny's slimy novelist Hank.
07:12Following a run on the Prime Video series Betas, Zima appeared in the Twin Peaks reboot,
07:17then briefly played Space Case on the superhero series Doom Patrol. In 2018,
07:21she flexed her creative muscles writing and directing the short film Warm Human Magic.
07:26Fran Fine pretty much takes over the Sheffield townhouse on The Nanny and has no problem
07:30inviting over her obnoxious relatives, including her mother, Sylvia Fine. Prone to meddling in her
07:35daughter's affairs and perpetually overreaching, Sylvia delivered plenty of laughs with her
07:39constant eating and relentless screeching at Fran to pursue Mr. Sheffield.
07:42My blood sugar drops at my altitude. It's prescription dark chocolate.
07:48By the time Renee Taylor took on the role of Sylvia, she had long been an accomplished actor
07:52and writer. With her husband and collaborator Joseph Bologna, Taylor was nominated for a 1971
07:57screenwriting Oscar for Lovers and Other Strangers, and she delivered an indelible
08:01performance as Eva Braun in Springtime for Hitler, the play within a movie in The Producers.
08:05In 1986, Taylor published a combination comic memoir and self-help book called My Life on a
08:10Diet, Confessions of a Hollywood Diet Junkie, which she and Bologna adapted into a one-woman
08:15show that opened in New York and then toured the country in 2018.
08:19You're the crazy one, the way you eat only three meals a day.
08:23Along with roles in dozens of TV shows, Taylor put her unmistakable voice to work as,
08:27among other things, a tortoise in Dr. Dolittle 2, Mrs. Start in Ice Age,
08:31The Meltdown, and Gloria on Bob's Burgers. Joe Bologna died in 2017,
08:36but as of October 2024, the 91-year-old Taylor is still hard at work.
08:41Once in a while, an Annie would experiment with the classic sitcom comedy duo formula.
08:45Fran Fein's partner in mayhem was her longtime best friend Val Toriello. Val kept Fran grounded,
08:50albeit unintentionally, with her romantic disasters and her hilarious lack of common
08:54sense. Rachel Chagall, who played Val throughout the show's run, acted only sporadically outside
08:59of the show. Pre-Nanny, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her 1987 screen debut Gabby,
09:04A True Story. Post-Nanny, she guest-starred on episodes of Just Shoot Me, Strong Medicine,
09:08and What I Like About You, before retiring from acting altogether in 2006.
09:12Since then, Chagall's workload has been limited by Jeanne Baret syndrome,
09:16an autoimmune condition affecting the nervous system that causes vibrations,
09:20weakness, and eventually, near or total paralysis. Off-screen, Chagall raised
09:24twins with her husband, Greg Leonard, who was formerly the stage manager of The Nanny,
09:28keeping it all in the family.