Fran Drescher recalls CBS telling her The Nanny "has to be Italian, not Jewish"

Los Angeles Times

Drescher remembered having to defend her Jewish identity when she and co-creator ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson first pitched their comedy to CBS. "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,'" Drescher told Los Angeles magazine's new podcast The Originals, according to the Los Angeles Times. Drescher said she ultimately decided to stand her ground after briefly considering making the character Italian. “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."