Fran Drescher met Peter Marc Jacobson when she was 15 years old.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, they became close friends in high school and began dating soon after.
Drescher and Jacobson married in 1978, when they were 21, and both attended and later dropped out of Queens University.
The couple then moved to California and began writing their own sitcom. Drescher’s unique nasal voice is a “cash cow,” Jacobson told AOL.
“We made a career out of her voice… I wrote it and she said it,” he shared in 2012.
“Basically, Fran and I went from sitting in the basement watching sitcoms to writing sitcoms and we created The Nanny.”
The Nanny aired its first episode in 1993 and lasted six seasons, ending in 1999.
Jacobson wrote, directed and produced the sitcom, while Drescher of course starred as Fran Fine.
When Jacobson married Drescher, he had no idea he was gay.
“We’re living a heterosexual life,” the writer told Oprah in 2011. “I don’t have a side romance or anything like that. I think I’m straight.”
Jacobson first started going to therapy in the 80s, not because he questioned his sexuality — something he would later talk about with a professional — but because he and Drescher were victims of a violent crime.
In January 1985, before either of them became famous, two armed men broke into their Los Angeles home while a friend was visiting.
While one searched their property, the other tied up Jacobson and forced the writer to watch him rape Drescher and her friends at gunpoint.
