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6/7

2002

84

DETIlerramsrisnignws

539-3001

Star Survivor

With a wisecrack and a wink, Fran Drescher says
nanny-nanny-nanny" to cancer.

MICHAEL AUSHENKER
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

to rebuild her career and, for the first
time, live on her own as a single
woman. Then came cancer.
ran Drescher has a very
What helped Drescher through this
sexy voice. As she tools
dark transition was, above all, love. "I
around L.A., the Queens- - had to call my parents. I always
raised actress — who res-
thought my mom would go through
onated with TV audiences for six sea-
hysterics, and she was very strong,"
sons as Fran Fine on The Nanny —
Drescher says.
evinces only traces of her character's
The actress also gained the support
trademark nasal New York bray.
of her new boyfriend — an ex-Nanny
On this spring day, Drescher con-
employee 16 years her junior —
verses in a lackadaisical, morning-after whom she fell in love with shortly
drone that is, quite frankly, downright
before she was diagnosed.
.
seductive.
In her book, Drescher articulates,
Too bad the topic of conversation
with great detail and exasperation, the
— uterine cancer — is not as sexy.
tortured journey that finally led her to
Drescher feels that it is imperative
a proper diagnosis of her mystery con-
to talk about the deadly disease and
dition.
why women need to be proactive in
She juxtaposes her youthful mindset
discerning it.
and her young lover and their 20-
She should know. Her new memoir,
something social circle with the
Cancer Schmancer (Time_Warner
menopausal symptoms — bruising,
Books; $22.95), chronicles her own
mood swings and post-coital cramping
experience detecting and surviving -
— that made her conscious of her age.
uterine cancer.
Several years and eight doctors later,
Her brush with death aside, Cancer
Drescher learned she was in the early
Schmancer also documents a new
stages of uterine cancer, but that came
chapter in her life.
only after a lot of research, self-explo-
When her best-selling autobiogra-
ration and determination to seek the
phy, Enter Whining, was released in
truth.
late 1995, Drescher was the envy of
Cancer Schmancer never reads like a
Hollywood. She had a storybook
dreary gothic tome. Drescher sprinkles
romance with high-school sweetheart
her East Coast wit into her writing,
Peter Marc Jacobson, and a serendipi-
which includes some Sex and the City-
tous 1990s rise following a plane ride
style dish on her adventures in dating.
where the then-unknown sold her idea
The memoir includes revelations
for The Nanny, after pitching the con- about the passing of Drescher's
cept to a CBS executive who hap-
beloved lapdog, Chester; her identifi-
pened to be seated next to her.
cation with Cher; and the disclosure
that she's a huge fan of the granola
rock band Phish.
Confronting Cancer
Perhaps her most fascinating insights,
Now it's 2002, and that's all water
however, relate to her candid take on
under the bridge.
her fabled marriage: how the co-depend-
As the 44-year-old actress writes in
ence she and her husband shared was
her new book, her 21-year marriage to exacerbated in the aftermath of their
Jacobson, whom she met at 15, slowly traumatic brush with violence, and how
eroded in the aftermath of an early
Drescher's lifelong feelings of pleasing
1980s incident they both survived, in
others sublimated her own fulfillment. -
which Drescher and a girlfriend were
Working on The Nanny, it turns
raped.
out, evolved into the perfect vehicle
The couple's only love child, The
into which the perfect husband-and-
Nanny, which they co-produced, was
wife unit could invest their energies in
canceled in 1999.
public — while actively avoiding inti-
That same year, Drescher found
macy in private.
herself at a crossroads. She was forced
STAR SURVIVOR on page 86

F