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"She don't have a key to the house, does she? Oh, Mr. Sheffield, maybe it's all for the best"
―Fran to Maxwell

Fran Fine-Sheffield is the protagonist of the CBS sitcom The Nanny. She is portrayed by Fran Drescher.

Background[]

Born into a Jewish family in New York, Francine "Fran" Joy Fine is the second daughter of Sylvia and Morty Fine. She was raised in Flushing, Queens in New York City along with her older sister Nadine.

In her teens, Fran and her best friend Valerie Toriello attended local Hillcrest High School, alongside fellow students Ray Barone, Fran's arch-rival, Heather Biblow, the late actress Morgan Faulkner, and taxicab driver wannabe playwright Jeffrey Needleman.

Fran in the series is shown as a bubbly, outgoing, humorous, and sexy character where she gets herself into trouble on a number of occasions but ends up solving the problems. Upon graduating, Fran attended cosmetics college while working as a part time foot model. She later assisted in her then-fiancé Danny Imperiali's bridal shop in Flushing, until she was dumped by Imperiali who immediately replaced her with Heather Biblow. Not only did Heather steal Fran's job, she even married Danny and they had a baby together.

Personality[]

Fran is self-conscious about her age; she often claims to be 29, regardless of how much time passes. Fran's long and mostly fruitless search to find a husband was sparked by her mother's inexorable pressure for Fran to be a wife and mother. This is a consistent plot device throughout the first four seasons, leading to many humorous and compromising situations.

She is not a traditional nanny, so when raising the kids, she gives them street smarts and life tricks. These tactics have a healthy and positive effect on the children. The youngest, Grace, eventually graduates from therapy because of Fran's warm and involved approach. It is worth noting that Fran's lower class knowledge and influence does more for the children than the upper class, structured rearing they were limited to before she entered their lives. She is loving, caring and mildly snarky toward her adversaries.

Despite her weariness and exasperation over her mother's constant disregard for boundaries and persistent interferences in other people's lives (especially Fran's life), Fran seems to have inherited this personality trait from her mother. Fran often meddles (albeit with benevolent intentions) in other people's problems and oversteps boundaries to do what she believes is best for the people she cares about.

Physical Description[]

Fran is most known for her black big hair, her loud choice of clothes, and wearing a lot of makeup. Her hairstyle and clothes varies every episode, often wearing clothes from the latest Todd Oldham line (Todd being a cousin of hers and her connection to the high fashion world), though she almost always wears a tight miniskirt, high heels and a tight top. She’s known to wear a floral bathrobe for breakfast, when the rest of the Sheffields are already dressed though in one episode she actually gets dressed. Everyone thought she was sick.

Fran often compares herself to actresses of and before her time, including Elizabeth Taylor, Julia Roberts, Barbra Streisand and Audrey Hepburn.

Throughout the Series[]

Fran resorted to selling "Shades of the Orient" makeup door-to-door to make ends meet. In the first episode, Fran arrives at the home of Maxwell Sheffield (played by Charles Shaughnessy), a millionaire Broadway producer, who hires her as a nanny for his three kids, Maggie (played by Nicholle Tom), Brighton (played by Benjamin Salisbury), and Gracie (played by Madeline Zima). This occurs after she shows Maxwell her references, which are written in lipstick.

After she was hired by Maxwell, Fran discovered that her old physical education teacher from her days in high school, Ms. Wickavich, whom she derisively called "The Wickavich of the West", was now teaching at Maggie's school and was going by the name Coach Stone. The taunting and bullying teacher did her best to make both Fran and Maggie miserable. (One of her memorable lines was when she was criticizing someone's handspring. You call that a back handspring layout?! Shape up!! I've seen better routines in Gymboree!! You Mary Lou Rotten!) Fran did her best to stand up to her, and after saving her life by knowing the Heimlich maneuver, Coach Stone (albeit grudgingly) passed Maggie in gym.

Miss Fine is self-conscious about her age; she often claims to be 29 on the show, regardless of how much time passes. It is assumed that, because she turned 30 toward the end of the first season, Fran is thirty-five years old by the end of the series (which leads to some speculation about why her age is such a big dilemma in the first place, especially since it was around the time of the Nanny's creation that the trend of women were getting married later in life rather than in their twenties took hold, Maxwell once sarcastically stated that even FBI couldn't know her true age and that the best they could dig up was 31). Fran is constantly under pressure to get married by her controlling mother, which results in comical situations when Fran declines a chance to marry a rich man (causing her mother to threaten suicide), so she may continue caring for the Sheffields. Her Aunt Rose and Uncle Stanley were played by Fran Drescher's real-life parents, Morty and Sylvia Drescher.

Relationships[]

Romance[]

Fran is known amongst her friends for being chronically single. Throughout the show she is seen going on date after date and boyfriend after boyfriend, never managing to land a permanent partner, much to her mother's chagrin. This is something Fran is notably embarrassed by, as shown by her plans to have a baby via sperm donor in "" and by her jealousy of Val in "Val's Boyfriend" when Val lands a boyfriend and she does not.

Fran often finds herself in engagements, getting engaged to Danny Imperiali twice, going on a spiraling shopping spree in "Shopaholic" when he marries her rival, Heather Biblow. Fran is knocked out of this trance when she is kissed by Mr. Sheffield. Fran also found herself as a accomplice to a robbery when the man she got engaged to after two weeks of dating was using her to rob a jewelry store. When it was revealed the man was just using her she asks "Why me?" and the cop responds the robber had been targeting desperate women in their 30's, to which Fran responds "Again I ask, why me?".

The romantic tension between Maxwell and Fran lasts until the middle of the 5th season, when the couple gets engaged; following several snafus, they are finally married in the season 5 finale in (1998). Until that point, they always address each other with proper employer-employee politeness, i.e. "Miss Fine" and "Mr. Sheffield". Maxwell confesses to Miss Fine that he loves her when their plane to New York meets some turbulence, and he believes they may crash. Upon returning home, Maxwell immediately revokes the statement (this is later referred to as "the Thing" and is held over Mr. Sheffield's head with glee by Fran and Niles).

By the fifth season, Mr. Sheffield and Miss Fine begin a tentative romantic relationship, which consisted of a very large milestone: calling each other by their first names. Mr. Sheffield proposes marriage (a move that sends C.C. Babcock, who had an obsessive crush on Maxwell and a jealous hatred of Fran, to an insane asylum), and they are married in the season 5 finale in (1998). They finally give birth to fraternal twins, Jonah Samuel and Eve Catherine Sheffield born in 1998. While Fran is in labour she screams that Eve has 'her mother's hips'.

Despite the fact they stopped using each other's last names to address each other when they married, Fran and Max would still switch to their boss/employee roles out of habit. When Max is angry with her, he will instinctively shout "Miss Fine!", causing a worried Fran to reply, "Oh no, I'm Miss Fine again!". The same is true for Fran, who calls Maxwell "Mr. Sheffield" in bed. Before they got married, Fran had many fantasies of them making out. In one episode, a drunk Fran accidentally went to bed alongside a sleeping Max. Upon waking up to find where she was, she first said, "I'm havin' that dream again."

Blunders[]

Franny Fine's character is a single Jewish woman in her 30's and as a result a lot of her characters gags and conflicts have to do with her lack of a permanent partner. At the beginning of the show, it is revealed that Fran had been engaged to Danny Imperiali for 3 years before finding out he'd cheated on her and that he was planning on marrying Heather Biblow instead and he wanted to give her Fran's job. Luckily this lands her at the Sheffield's door ("she was there to sell makeup but the father saw more"), and thus begins the show. Fran spends the majority of the first 3 seasons looking for a new beau and having each relationship fail, much to her mother's chagrin. Other's around her often note her feelings for Mr. Sheffield though she rarely acknowledges them as being anything more than a crush. Sometimes this leads her into trouble as well, like when her penpal Lenny sees Mr. Sheffield and Fran flirting and decides not to meet her.

Season 3[]

In episode 22 of season 3, Fran is forced to stay with Mike LaVoe, a hockey player from the Rangers in order to get good seats for Mr. Sheffield. In this relationship, Fran finds Mike crazy and strange as the man is obsessed with superstitions and Fran has a hard time navigating around sensitive spots as she isn't aware of a lot of sports rituals. This all culminates when Fran wears red shoes to a game, which is considered bad luck, and she is branded a jinx by all of NYC. Fran asks Mr. Sheffield to tell Mike off but Mr. Sheffield gets distracted and ends up playing darts with him instead (which he says they were using a picture of Fran to aim at). Realizing Fran has to take care of this on her own, she ends up threatening Mike with more curses (a sweater with the number 13 on it, breaking a handheld mirror, and putting on the red shoes that got her in that position in the first place. The episode ends with Fran out of the relationship and the Rangers beginning to make a comeback in their game when she takes the red shoe off at the Sheffields.

In episode 24, Fran brings the Sheffield girls to temple with her in order to pick up the new Cantor who just started working at her local temple. When Niles asks if celibacy is common in Judaism, Fran responds "Nope, just me". When Fran brings the Cantor, Gary, to the Sheffields home, he meets one of Mr. Sheffields business associates and is offered a job on Broadway. As a result, Gary decides to announce he's leaving the temple, but not before leading Fran to believe he's about to propose to her (this is just another example of Fran trying to jump into an engagement as she and Gary only knew each other for less than a week at this point). When C.C. announces that the lead in the musical was in an accident, Gary gets the role and as a result he tells Fran he's no longer interested in settling down with a wife. This unfortunately also comes with the news that Gary has secured a role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's upcoming movie Evita and he will no longer be in Maxwell's production.

In episode 25 "Green Card", Fran is tricked into marrying Philippe, Brighton's french tutor. Unfortunately, Philippe does not consider himself a monogamous and is caught when C.C. tells Maxwell in order to make him jealous. This back fires and Mr. Sheffield tells Fran, kissing her to make Philippe jealous, ruining her relationship and leaving her single again.

Family[]

Fran has a very big family and is in contact with a vast majority of her extended family as she constantly brings stories about them up in conversation as examples. Among those mentioned by Fran are:

Rose Fine
(paternal aunt)
Stanley Fine
(paternal uncle)
Jonah Samuel (Great grandfather) (She would named her son after him)
Mima Fageh (paternal great-aunt)
Louie (paternal great-uncle)
Edna (first cousin once removed)
Sophie (cousin)
Irving (cousin)
Ira (aunt)
Gert (Aunt)
Merrill (cousin)
Sheila (cousin)
Marvin (uncle)
Myron (uncle)
Claudene (cousin)
Esther (aunt)
Ernie (cousin)
Susan (cousin)
Selma (aunt)
Aaron (uncle)
Todd Oldham (cousin)
Bob (cousin)
Dave Fine (paternal uncle)
Judy Fine (paternal cousin)
Mory Fine (paternal uncle)

Trivia[]

  • Fran attended the same high school as Ray Barone, which she affectionately calls "Raymond" in one of the CBS crossover episodes. Ray Barone is the lead character in the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. In real-life, Romano and Drescher both went to Hillcrest High School in Queens, New York, graduating in 1975.
  • Fran's favorite store is Loehmann's. When Fran was having the twins, Mr. Sheffield told her to visualize Loehmann's for comfort.
  • Fran Fine's most prominent trademark, her exceptionally loud and nasal voice, made the character almost legendary, in real life and in the show. Other characters regularly made comments about the sound (i.e. Fran shouts when she gets stuck in an elevator, Maxwell says "that's my wife!", without actually knowing that it was Fran before the familiar sound of her voice). Although many people believe the voice is "fake", it is Fran Drescher's real voice (although she confessed she played it up a little when filming).The aforementioned voice and persona would eventually find its way into a fourth-wall scene from the episode "The Baby Shower", where Fran and Niles met her idol who was staying in the hotel, which by the way was Fran Drescher, who was playing herself. When the two met, Fran told Drescher that she thought that her ironed-out hair style didn't look good. Drescher in turn told Fran that they just finished doing the same episode that Fran and Niles was in now after Fran and Niles told Drescher what they were up to.
  • As seen in a flashback, she first saw Mr. Sheffield in the 1970’s on a talk show.
  • Fashion designer Todd Oldham played himself in one episode as Fran's cousin. He was used as an explanation on how she could afford her wardrobe.
  • She likes C.C. even though C.C. hates her.
  • She appears to be an emotional eater.
  • Miss Fine has a huge obsession towards singer Barbara Streisand.
  • Fran's age has always been treated like a mystery. When asked, Fran always claims that she’s twenty-nine years old, starting right from first episode, with heavy implication that she's in fact, older. Fran reveals her age is 32 in "Take Back Your Mink", which makes it ironic in a late episode Fran's age couldn't be verified by the FBI.
  • Along with age, Fran's exact birthday is also rather unclear, but it's likely she was born around late september and early october, as it is revealed The Cradle Robbers that Fran is a Libra, and in Fran's Roots that she was born on Rosh Hashana, a Jewish holiday. In real-life, Drescher's date of birth is September 30, 1957.
  • In season 4, episode 12 titled “ Danny's Dead and Who's Got the Will?”, Fran introduces herself as “Francesca Finé”, alluding to the fact that her name is Francesca and not Francine.
  • Fran and Maxwell named their newborns Jonah Samuel, After her Great grandfather and Eve Catherine, After Maxwell's Great grandmother.
  • On March 19, 1999, Rachel Chagall (Val Toriello) and her husband Greg Lenert had twins named named Eve and Jonah.
  • In the Playwright, Fran claims to have a handshake like Lou Ferrigno, because she & Val spent a whole summer going though a whole be of Kingsford briquettes trying to get a pair of dimond earrings.
  • Her first date to a dance was Richie Schneider, and claims he's born with 2 left feet. (His mother was an X-Ray Technician) and that he was an excellent dancer, except for the hokey-pokey.
  • She dislikes coral lipstick.
  • Her preferred brand of hair dye is Lady Clairol.
  • She doesn't like to waste food.
  • Fran owns several bathrobes.
  • She seems to favor animal print clothing.
  • Fran is an expert on television culture and has the TV Guide memorized.
  • She adores meeting celebrities and often sees through Maxwell's attempts to trick her into leaving the house when a celebrity visits the Sheffield residence.
  • In the finale, she gives birth to boy-girl fraternal twins.
  • 26th September 1963 was a weekday on Thursday.
  • Her western zodiac sign is ♎️ Libra (⚖️ Scales).
  • Her 🇨🇳 Chinese zodiac sign is 💧 Water 🐇 Rabbit.

Gallery[]

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