Peter Marc Jacobson Movies

Joy Miller (Fran Drescher) is a beautician who teaches an evening course in hairstyling at a Brooklyn community college. When a cigarette dropped on a wig leads to a fire, Joy saves the lab animals kept in the building and achieves 15 minutes of local notoriety. Grushinsky (Ian McNeice), a representative of the leader of the small Eastern European nation of Slovetzia, is visiting the United States while looking for a tutor for the leader's three children. Thinking Joy teaches science (apparently the Slovetzian government doesn't check the resumes of their teaching staff too closely), Grushinsky offers Joy the job, believing that it would be good PR to have a well-known American educator on hand. Joy takes the job and must now deal with Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton), the grim and humorless tyrant who rules Slovetzia. Joy's low-brow fashion sense and broad nasal twang of a voice don't sit well with Boris at first, but the kids love her; in time, she teaches Boris to lighten up and enjoy himself, and romance begins to bloom between the unlikely couple. While Fran Drescher had a number of film roles before her TV series The Nanny, this was her first starring role following the show's success. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

As season three of the CBS sitcom The Nanny drew to a close, widowed Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) was stammering out the words "I love you" to Fran Fine (Fran Drescher), a Jewish gal from Queens who for the past several years had been working as the nanny for Maxwell's three children. But as season four commences, Maxwell panics and takes the words back! Sent into an emotional spiral, Fran consults a therapist named Dr. Miller (played by legendary monologist Spalding Gray), who tells her that she should put the kibosh on her insatiable man-chasing -- words that do not sit too well with Fran's mother, Sylvia (Renee Taylor), who is anxious to marry off her daughter post-haste. Despite the cooling off of her relationship with Maxwell, Fran continues to work in the Sheffield town house, enduring the taunts and put-downs of Maxwell's female business partner, C.C. (Laura Lane), who is laboring under the misapprehension that she can get her own lunchhooks into Maxwell. As it turns out, however, the main man in C.C.'s life may very well be her worst enemy -- namely, Maxwell's sarcastic butler, Niles (Daniel Davis). This year's guest star crop includes Seinfeld's Jason Alexander, cast against type as a blind man in the season opener, "A Tart With Heart"; Nora Dunn, who would later join the series' cast as obstetrician Dr. Reynolds, but in the meantime is seen as Mrs. Richardson in "The Bird's Nest"; Donald O'Connor as a millionaire to whom Fran gives dancing lessons (!) in "Frieda Needa Man"; Robert Vaughn as Maxwell's dad and Joan Collins as Maxwell's new mother-in-law in "Me and Mrs. Joan"; Pamela Anderson, introduced as Fran's gold-digging archrival Heather Biblow in "Danny 's Dead and Who's Got the Will?"; and future Daily Show host Jon Stewart as a Jewish doctor whom Fran gets serious about until she learns a startling fact about him in "Kissing Cousins." And, of course, a number of celebrities show up as "themselves": Rosie O'Donnell, Jay Leno, Monty Hall, Donald Trump, and Celine Dion, to name but a few. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Moving from Wednesdays to Mondays, The Nanny begins its second season on CBS, with Fran Drescher as the title character. Offering 26 episodes this season (up from the previous year's 22), the series provides ample time and space for abrasive, down-to-earth Fran Fine (Drescher) to gleefully upset the decorum of the posh town house owned by her widowed employer, Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy). Despite Fran's million-and-one social gaffes, Maxwell could never bring himself to fire her as the family's nanny, especially since his children, Maggie (Nicholle Tom), Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima), dote upon our heroine. Even the Sheffields' haughty butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), has warmed up to Fran, if for no other reason than she provides a potential threat to Niles' sworn enemy: Maxwell's bitchy, predatory business partner C.C. Babock (Laura Lane) -- who has been trying to manipulate Maxwell into marriage for years. This season, the possibility begins to arise that the relationship between Fran and Maxwell will eventually blossom into something more than "strictly business." The first clue occurs in the season opener, "Fran-Lite, in which Fran encourages Maxwell to re-enter the dating scene, only to have him go out with a woman who is exactly like her! Other episodes of note include "Everybody Needs a Bubby," in which Fran's freewheeling grandmother Yetta (Ann Morgan Guilbert) briefly moves into the Sheffield household (and now it's Fran's turn to go into the "snob" act!); "A Star Is Born," in which Fran finds herself on-stage playing Juliet, with Fran Drescher's then real-life husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, as Romeo; and the season finale, "Fran Gets Mugged," which not only offers a delightful spin on an old urban legend, but also sets up a situation whereby Fran and Maxwell come very, very close to exchanging their first romantic kiss. As in the previous season, The Nanny exploits the fact that Maxwell Sheffield is supposed to be a major producer by featuring several celebrity guest stars, cast as "themselves": Bob Barker, Sally Jessy Raphael, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Shari Lewis, and Billy Ray Cyrus, to name but a few. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Nasal-voiced comic actress Fran Drescher, she of the braying laugh and garish bargain-basement wardrobe, was both star and co-creator (with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson) of the long-running CBS sitcom The Nanny. Debuting November 3, 1993, the series cast Drescher as Fran Fine, a middle-class Jewish girl from Queens who is somewhat improbably hired by stuffy British-born theatrical agent Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) to be the nanny for his three motherless children: shy Maggie (Nicholle Tom), wheeler-dealer Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and button-cute Grace (Madeline Zima). Comfortably installed in Maxwell's posh Manhattan town house, the healthily vulgar and outspoken Fran immediately ran afoul of snooty butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), who despite his forbidding demeanor was a softie at heart -- and who infinitely preferred Fran's company to that of Maxwell's overbearing business partner Chastity Claire "C.C." Babcock (Laura Lane). Also in the cast were Renee Taylor as Fran's mother, Sylvia Fine, who considered the day wasted that she didn't harass her daughter over her unmarried status; Ann Morgan Guilbert as Fran's earthy grandmother Yetta; and Rachel Chagall as our heroine's best friend, Val Toriallo. Having set her cap for the widowed Maxwell Sheffield, C.C. rightly perceived Fran as her rival, though Maxwell himself did not glom on to the fact that he was in love with Fran until the series was several seasons old. Even then, he balked at admitting his ardor and refused to pop the question, which sent Fran into an emotional downward spiral and into the arms of several lesser gentlemen. Finally, at the end of the series' fifth season, Fran and Maxwell were wed, whereupon Fran adopted her former boss' children. Eventually she became pregnant herself, giving birth to twins in the series' final episode (number 146). Meanwhile, the "hate-hate" relationship between Niles and C.C. took a surprising turn, with the warring couple ending up in bed together! After six successful seasons, The Nanny ended its CBS run on June 23, 1999. Some five years later -- December 6, 2004 -- the original cast was reassembled for The Nanny Reunion, a special broadcast consisting largely of "bloopers" from the old series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

For most of the United States, February is the month of Presidents' birthdays and Valentine's Day; at the headquarters of "FYI", February means "Sweeps Month." Hoping to score a huge ratings coup, Murphy (Candice Bergen) and Corky (Faith Ford) team up to write a shocking expose of a crooked oil company. Unfortunately, their investigation requires the ladies to pose as members of the World's Oldest Profession--fish-net stockings and all! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi