Drescher continued to play small but memorable roles in movies, until she and her husband finally created her own television show, The Nanny in 1993. She was visiting her friend, model Twiggy, in England and came up with the plotline. The show aired on CBS from 1993 to 1999, becoming an instant success, and Drescher became an instant star. In this sitcom, she played a charming and bubbly woman named Fran Fine who casually became the pantyhose-clad nanny of three children; with her wit and her charm, she endeared herself to their widower father Maxwell Sheffield, a stuffy, composed, proper British gentleman and a Broadway producer (played by British actor Charles Shaughnessy).

Drescher's voice is a combination of a high nasal pitch and a Queens, New York accent that people find either annoying, endearing, or humorous (or all three). In her autobiography, Drescher discusses the fact that this is her real voice — even though it is played up a little on-camera — and discusses