fran drescher Former Emmy nominee Fran Drescher ("The Nanny") returns to series television in "Happily Divorced," a new TV Land sitcom premiering Wednesday, June 15. Loosely drawn from her real-life relationship with ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, the show stars Drescher as Fran, a Los Angeles florist whose life is turned upside down when Peter (John Michael Higgins, "Best in Show"), her husband of 18 years, suddenly announces that he is gay.
They agree to split, but with the real estate market cratering, Fran and Peter decide to keep sharing their home until they can sell it, which probably won't be happening anytime soon. That leaves each struggling comically to step into a new identity -- she as a newly single woman, he as a middle-aged gay man -- while continuing to live together.
"This show is inspired by our story, because Peter is now living as an openly gay man, but Peter and I split up before he came out," Drescher explains. "That wasn't the reason why we split up, and I was the one who ended the marriage, and he didn't want it to end. It was only after that, and ("The Nanny") ended, and he moved 3,000 miles away and went into therapy that he started to connect with his true orientation."
Drescher had lunch with a TV Land executive who wanted the actress to pitch some series ideas, but when she tried to pitch shows that she would write and produce but not star in, the executive asked what show would get her back in front of the cameras.
"I said, 'Oh, that's easy; that would have to be this situation that I am in right now, where I am single, my ex-husband is gay, and I am dating a guy, and somehow my ex-husband helps me make the new relationship more of a success,' " Drescher recalls.
With Jacobson on board as co-writer and producing partner, the producers cast a wide net for an actor to play Peter, but Drescher was convinced Higgins was the right guy for the part. There was just one problem: Higgins had gone through a period of being typecast in gay roles after "Best in Show" and his phenomenal stage success in Paul Rudnick's comedy "Jeffrey," so he wasn't especially eager to crawl back into that pigeonhole.
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