Gay abandon and divorce
A 10-PART American sitcom revolving around a woman who re-enters the dating scene after discovering that her husband is gay is scheduled to start on SABC3 at 9.30pm on Monday. The show is
which uses the tagline: “All the good ones are either married or gay. I got both.”
Happily Divorced is inspired by the real lives of series creators Fran Drescher and Peter Marc Jacobson, who had been high school sweethearts and then married in 1978. They divorced in 1999, Jacobson later came out as gay to Drescher and the two remained friends.
In 2010 the pair, who had previously created Drescher’s earlier hit series, The Nanny, began developing the series based on their life experiences.
Initially, Drescher planned only to write and produce Happily Divorced, but eventually decided to star in it as well.
“Set in Los Angeles, Fran’s gay ex-husband still lives with her for economic reasons, with ‘a very traditional family’. Everyone’s very accepting that he’s gay. They’re both dating; he’s new at it, she’s new at it,” says a spokesman for SABC3.
The show was shot in front of a live studio audience at CBS Radford in Studio City, which affords Happily Divorced the typical style of the 1990s sitcoms, adds the spokesman.
Drescher, who is noted for her nasal voice and thick New York accent, is cast in the series as Fran Lovett (née Newman), a Los Angeles florist.
Drescher made her screen debut with a small role in the 1977 classic Saturday Night Fever, prior to appearing in films such as American Hot Wax (1978), and Wes Craven’s horror film, Summer of Fear (1978).
In the 1980s, she gained recognition as a comedic actress in the films The Hollywood Knights (1980), Doctor Detroit (1983), This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and UHF (1989), while establishing a television career with guest appearances in several series.
In 1993, she achieved wider fame as Fran Fine in The Nanny, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Television Series during the show’s run.
She received further recognition for performances in Jack (1996) and The Beautician and the Beast (1997) and reinforced her reputation as a leading sitcom star with Living With Fran (2005-2006) and Happily Divorced, which first aired in the US last year.