From 'The Nanny' to SAG-AFTRA President, Fran Drescher's Net Worth In 2023
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Fran Drescher's net worth in 2023 is high because the woman stands her ground and fights for fair pay!
Drescher went from beloved sitcom fixture to fierce SAG-AFTRA president, leading the 2023 actors' strike and calling upon producers and studios to pay talent, including writers, fairly.
"This is major. It’s really serious, and it’s going to impact every single person that is in labor," Drescher said in her fiery speech announcing the SAG-AFTRA strike. "We are fortunate enough to be in a country that happens to be labor-friendly, and yet we were facing opposition that was so labor-unfriendly, so tone-deaf to what we are saying. You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too," she added, referencing streaming models that pay little to no residuals to talent.
"We are not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what's happening right now with this business model that was foisted on us," she said, later adding, "We are labor and we stand tall and we demand respect and to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth, because you can’t exist without us."
Preach. Find out how Fran Drescher made her own fortune before fighting for fair pay for everyone else in her union.
Related: Read All of Fran Drescher's Fiery SAG-AFTRA Strike Speech
How did Fran Drescher become famous?
Fran Drescher, like Fran Fine, was born in Flushing, Queens, on Sept. 30, 1957. She met her first husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, in high school (she also counted Ray Romano as a classmate!), and they married in 1978 when she was 21 years old.
Her big onscreen break came in 1977 when she appeared as a dancer in the disco blockbuster Saturday Night Fever alongside John Travolta. She appeared in several other films throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, most notably as Mameh in Ragtime and music publicist Bobbi Flekman in This Is Spinal Tap. She also had TV roles in hit shows like ALF and Night Court before creating and starring in The Nanny, which made her a household name when it premiered in 1993.
Related: What the Actors Strike Means for the Entertainment Industry
What is Fran Drescher's net worth in 2023?
Fran Drescher's net worth in 2023 is estimated at approximately $25 million.
How rich is Fran Drescher?
Worth an estimated $25 million, Drescher is wealthier than most people on the planet—but still pales in comparison to the likes of, say, Disney CEO Bob Iger (worth an estimated $690 million as of 2019), Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos (worth an estimated $250 million, 10 times Drescher) and Discovery CEO David Zaslav (who makes, based on low estimates, almost twice Drescher's entire net worth every single year).
Related: Every Show and Movie Impacted By the 2023 Writers' Strike
How much does Fran Drescher make as president of SAG-AFTRA?
While many labor union presidents collect hefty salaries, Fran Drescher doesn't collect a penny for representing the group of more than 160,000 actors represented by SAG-AFTRA. The union's annual federal LM-2 report for 2022, the most recent year available, shows Drescher's total compensation at $0. By comparison, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the group's National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, collects $989,700 for his role.
How much did Fran Drescher make per episode?
In the final season of The Nanny in 1998-99, Drescher made a reported $1.5 million per episode.
Related: 5 SAG-AFTRA Rules That May Surprise You Amid the Strike
Does Fran Drescher get royalties from The Nanny?
Drescher likely makes royalties from reruns of The Nanny and whenever it's sold to a different network or company for streaming and syndication rights. She hasn't made the specific amounts of her royalty payments public.
Related: Fran Drescher on Whether There Will Ever Be a Nanny Movie
Did Fran Drescher produce The Nanny?
Drescher and her then-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, are credited with creating and producing The Nanny, which (aside from her negotiating skills and refusal to cross picket lines) explains why she made big bucks for the series.
Related: The Biggest Blockbusters and Shows Impacted by the SAG-AFTRA Actors Strike
Why was The Nanny canceled?
Drescher and Jacobson said that network execs demanded that her character, Nanny Fran Fine, marry her onscreen crush, Mr. Maxwell Sheffield, or face cancellation. Drescher and Jacobson knew that was a bad idea.
"When a show is built around a love that can’t happen, sexual tension, you have to keep it that way. As much as you want the people to get together, as soon as they do, people start tuning out," Jacobson later said. "We didn’t want to get them together."
The network changed the series' time-slot as well, leading to a ratings dip that ABC later used to justify canceling the beloved show.
