Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America · CC BY-SA 2.0

Fran Drescher turned her distinctive Queens accent into a career punchline and then into leverage, creating, producing, and starring as the title character in the sitcom The Nanny for six seasons, after earlier supporting roles in Saturday Night Fever and This Is Spinal Tap. She later moved from performing into union leadership, elected president of SAG-AFTRA in 2021, and led the actors' union through the five-month strike that began in July 2023, overlapping with a parallel writers' strike over pay and working conditions across film and television.