"When we got green-lighted to write the pilot for The Nanny, I guess the network was already talking to major sponsors like Procter & Gamble, who said, 'It sounds great – we'll buy the show outright. But the nanny has to be Italian, not Jewish,'" the actress, 62, revealed on Los Angeles magazine podcast The Originals.
Like her character, Drescher is Jewish and from Queens, New York, and was "taken aback" by the request. She initially considered doing it since it was potentially the big break she'd been waiting for. But she ultimately decided it was worth fighting against.
Fran Drescher revealed that her beloved character almost wasn't Jewish. Photo / Supplied
"I do not like living with regret and I don't want to rush into doing something to get the job and then when it doesn't go right or it fails, I kick myself because I thought, 'Why didn't we follow our instincts? Why did we listen to them?'" she said.
"I thought, 'I can't live with that regret. I know this character needs to be written very close to me and all the rich and wonderful characters that I grew up with'."
Drescher and her then-husband and producing partner Peter Marc Jacobson "mustered up our chutzpah and said, 'No, Fran Fine must be Jewish'."
Drescher described the character as the first openly Jewish character on prime television since The Goldberg's Gertrude Berg in 1949.
The podcast host brought up Valerie Harper's role as Rhoda Morgenstern in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but Drescher pointed out that the actress herself wasn't Jewish.
"That's the difference," she said. "It was almost like gilding the lily. They didn't want to have Jews playing Jews in a starring role."
