If you think success in Hollywood requires an actress to obsessively follow a killer diet and exercise regimen as well as to have the self-absorption of Narcissus, then meet Fran Drescher. The five-foot-five-inch star of the CBS sitcom The Nanny has gotten herself down to a svelte 121 pounds and is trying to maintain it because of the tight clothes her character wears. But, she says in her nasal New York whine, “I’m not afraid of gaining weight.” Indeed, the 36-year-old actress keeps small, medium and large wardrobes in her closet for those periods when her weight is on the move. She has gotten close to 150 and says she’s sure she will again. Yet she likes herself at any weight. “I’m very comfortable with my body and I always have an hourglass figure. I never look really fat because I get more voluptuous, but my arms and breasts get bigger. The heavier I get, the bigger my butt gets, so then I move into loose skirts and dresses. I always have a nice [22-inch] waistline, so that helps.”
If you think that’s a laidback attitude, take a look at her exercise routine – hardly the two-hour grunt-and-sweat ordeal of your basic Hollywood celebrity. Drescher refers to it as her “nonworkout workout.” “My days on The Nanny are too long to have a special exercise regimen,” she says. “To stay toned, I do isometrics or ballet stretches on the rehearsal stage, in the writers’ room, or wherever I am. In a movie theater, or driving a car, I’m constantly doing ‘squeeze, hold, release, squeeze, hold…’ with my gluteus maximus muscle. Resistance is what tones you. You don’t need a machine or expensive equipment.” Drescher does, more or les, pay attention to aerobics by spending “some time” three times a week on either her home trampoline or her Nordic Track.
But the exercise she likes best is walking with her husband Peter Marc Jacobson, the producer, writer, and cocreator of The Nanny. “We’re from New York, so we can walk great lengths. Without even thinking about it, we can do four miles.” In fact, she says, walking together is one of the many bonds that ties their unusual-for-Hollywood marriage of 16 years. “We just love being together.”
Their relationship is Drescher’s hedge against the stresses of celebrity and exhausting workdays. She and Jacobson have been bound-at-the-hip friends since age 16 when they both lived in Queens and studied cosmetology in case they needed backup careers. They teamed up to give perms and $5 haircuts in their bedrooms, later went to Queens College together and when Drescher moved out of her parents’ house it was to move into Peter’s apartment in Los Angeles. “We have a very good friendship and a lot in common,” says Drescher: “humor, ideals, values and things we really enjoy doing together. We’ve been through a lot and have gotten through the bullshit.”
Some of what they’ve “been through” happened eight years ago. The couple were in their high-security L.A. apartment with a woman friend when two gunmen kicked in the door. The men bound and gagged Peter. One of them raped Drescher and her friend while the other burgled the apartment. Horrible though it was, Drescher recalls, “We walked away emotionally more than physically scarred.”
Finding themselves in the throes of post-traumatic stress syndrome, which can be severely debilitating if it isn’t treated, Drescher and Jacobson entered therapy. “That terrible experience was catalyst that made other things unfold – stuff that becomes integrated into your personality and affects all your choices,” she says. “Afterward, you’re like a mirror that’s cracked in a million pieces but is still in the frame. Then you have to glue yourself together and you’re never exactly the same image you were before. But hopefully, in some ways you’re better. Relationships is the big value that came out of all that – and turning a negative into a positive. We were able to turn our lives around fully and actually improve them. Peter and I have an incredible bond.”
The couple live in the Hollywood Hills in a “little nest,” as Drescher describes it, where they cool out after 14-hour days on the set. Their house is surrounded by “a beautiful Monet-type garden. It’s very peaceful. We have a fountain and I love the sound of the water in it and of the birds that visit us.” New Yorker that she is, Drescher says she can’t unwind by meditating because she can’t “clear my mind enough.” Instead, she says, “I lie in bed and read catalogues. I find that’s a real pacifier.” And she likes to cook.
Not surprisingly, food has always been a big issue with the actress – one she’s trying to get a handle on. “We Dreschers always prided ourselves on the fact that we were enormous eaters,” she says. “My father was a Depression baby and didn’t like to waste food, so he would eat off everybody’s plate. To my mother, food meant love and she was very happy when she saw her children eating – and lots of it. So I grew up with a distorted view of food. For years,” she adds turning loose one of these deep-in-the-sinus-cavity laughs, “I would never order shrimp in a restaurant because it was never a big enough portion.”
How will she approach food when she has her own kids? She probably won’t have kids. “I’m at a very good stage in my mature life where I’m satisfied. Peter and I have such a special relationship and really fulfill each other’s needs.” And since happiness is known to be a big factor in a good, long lofe, why ask for more?