What The Cast Of The Nanny Looks Like Today

One of the best TV shows of the '90s, "The Nanny" ran for six seasons on CBS between 1993 and 1999 with Fran Drescher starring as the titular caregiver. Francine "Fran" Fine (Drescher) was flamboyant, outspoken, and free-spirited, the perfect juxtaposition to the very stuffy and reserved family she worked for. This culture clash ended up being exactly what the Sheffields needed, as Fran helped to bring warmth and laughter back to the family's household — and eventually, becoming a literal Sheffield herself. As it turns out, the real inspiration behind "The Nanny" came from a time when Drescher lived in London and babysat the child of famed supermodel Twiggy, whom Drescher had befriended when the pair worked together on the failed sitcom, "Princesses."

The Sheffield family consisted of patriarch Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) and his three kids, Maggie (Nicholle Tom), Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima). There's also the family's butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), and Maxwell's longtime business partner, C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane). Beyond the core seven-member ensemble, which remained intact for the sitcom's entire run, there were three major recurring characters: Val Toriello (Rachel Chagall), Sylvia Fine (Renée Taylor), and Yetta Rosenberg-Jones (Ann Morgan Guilbert), who were Fran's best friend, mother, and grandmother, respectively. What do all of these actors look like these days, and what have they been up to in the 20-plus years since "The Nanny" ended its Emmy-winning run? Read on and find out.

The snarky British butler is a time-tested sitcom trope, and Niles could snark with the best of them. But what set him apart from contemporaries like Geoffrey from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" is that he didn't seem to have contempt for his job or his client family. Niles was very protective of the Sheffields, and rather than treating the new nanny like competition, he quickly embraced Fran as both an ally and friend.

"The Nanny" wasn't the only major television role for actor Daniel Davis. He had previously appeared in over 70 episodes of the NBC soap opera "Texas," where he played Eliot Carrington, taking over the role from James Douglas, who originated the character on "Another World." Davis also famously played famed Sherlock Holmes' rival Professor Moriarty in two episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Decades later, he agreed to reprise his Moriarty role on "Star Trek: Picard." Though the actor was much more prominent on the small screen, Davis does have a few noteworthy films under his belt, including "The Hunt for Red October" and "The Prestige."

Apart from his screen work, Davis is a prolific stage actor as well, with a career that stretches back to the 1960s. His most recent live theater credits include a 2019 production of "The Importance of Being Earnest," and he was nominated for a Tony in 2000 for his work in "Wrong Mountain."

The youngest of the three Sheffield children, Grace "Gracie" Sheffield was something of a Lisa Simpson type in that she was wise beyond her years — a trait that often frustrated not only her but also those around her. Gracie was not only the first of the children to embrace Fran, but she did so the hardest, up to and including helping to get Fran and Gracie's father, Maxwell, together. Gracie made it clear pretty early on that she wanted Fran to be her stepmom, and she did everything she could to ensure that happened.

Gracie was portrayed by Madeline Zima, and "The Nanny" certainly provided the young actor with her breakout role. Zima remained extremely prolific in both film and on television after "The Nanny" ended, eventually landing the lead on Showtime's "Californication" in addition to recurring roles on "Heroes," "Betas," and "Doom Patrol." Among Zima's recent gigs are parts in the films "Bombshell" and "Subservience" and appearances in the shows "High Potential," "Hacks," "NCIS: Hawai'i," "You," and "Good Girls." In 2018, Zima branched out into writing and directing with the short film "Warm Human Magic," which earned her a talented new filmmaker award nomination at the Madrid International Film Festival.

While sitcoms don't typically feature outright villains, there's usually at least one antagonistic force among the ensemble that ends up spurring on much of the show's conflict. On "The Nanny," that role was filled by C.C. Babcock, Maxwell's business partner. C.C. is portrayed as cold and conniving, wasting no time in trying to woo Maxwell after his wife died while her side of the bed was still warm. Throughout the series' early seasons, she continued to pursue a romantic relationship with him despite the many reasons why it was inappropriate for her to do so. She also couldn't be bothered to remember the names of the Sheffield children and never stopped dismissively referring to Fran as "Nanny Fine," even after Fran had become a genuine member of the Sheffield family and was no longer the children's nanny.

Lauren Lane has never been a particularly prolific screen actor; outside of her role as C.C. on "The Nanny," she was a main cast member for only a single season of the action series "Hunter" and had a very brief stint on "L.A. Law." Beyond those roles and "The Nanny," her television career consisted of just a handful of single-episode appearances on various shows. Similarly, you can count on one hand the number of movies she's appeared in, and none of them are particularly well known. Where Lane has done the most acting work is on the stage, where she spent five years in Tim Robbins' renowned theater company The Actor's Gang as well as appearing in stage productions in California, Texas, and Kentucky. When she's not acting, Lane is a tenured professor and a career coach.

Valerie Toriello, aka Val, was the token wacky best friend character on "The Nanny." She was Fran's pal from back in their school days as well as her former co-worker at the bridal shop immortalized in the show's jazzy theme song. She appeared in nearly half of the episodes of "The Nanny," never as a regular but certainly a major character nonetheless. As the show went on, Fran seemed to be getting her life together in ways that Val was unable to achieve — but Val ended up getting her happily ever after when the show drew to a close by following Fran on her relocation to California.

Despite a strong start to her acting career with a Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1987 movie "Gaby: A True Story," Rachel Chagall appeared in very little else of note other than "The Nanny." She has only nine total credits on her entire filmography, with several being titles like "declining agent" and "abortion activist" rather than named characters. One of her scant few roles is merely a cameo as Val on another CBS sitcom, "The Simple Life." Chagall is also credited with writing a single episode of "The Nanny," Season 6's "The Dummy Twins." Her screen credits stop after 2006, at which point Chagall chose to live a mostly private life, though she did reprise the role of Val for a YouTube table read of the pilot episode of "The Nanny" in 2020.

Brighton Sheffield occupied both the middle child role as well as the only male child among sisters role, both of which played heavily into his character. The two-hit combo of being ignored for being the only boy as well as being ignored as the middle child often manifested in Brighton being a troublemaker, desperate for attention. He also had a history of not liking any of his nannies, and Fran was no exception. But like his siblings — and basically everyone else — Brighton eventually grew to love her.

The year before landing the role of Brighton on "The Nanny," Benjamin Salisbury made his acting debut in the 1992 Martin Short/Kurt Russell nautical comedy "Captain Ron." He didn't do a whole lot of acting outside of his "Nanny" stint, with a role in "D3: The Mighty Ducks" being the most notable of his small handful of movie parts and nothing much to speak of on television besides some brief, single-episode appearances. Of note is that he is one of only four people in the history of "Jeopardy" to win with only $1, a feat he achieved in a 1997 "Celebrity Jeopardy" appearance where he competed against Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kirsten Dunst. Since leaving acting behind in the mid-2000s, Salisbury has joined the ranks of child stars who wound up with normal jobs as grown-ups; as of this writing, he's the director of operations for Universal Studios Hollywood. 

The eldest Sheffield child, Margaret "Maggie" Sheffield, began "The Nanny" as a shy teenage girl with low self-esteem. In terms of her relationship with her siblings, she was a hero to Grace but was teased for her awkwardness by Brighton. Her dad was extremely protective of her and dissuaded her from acting her age — especially when it came to dating boys — in an effort to forever keep her his little girl. It can be argued that of all the Sheffield children, Fran had the biggest impact on Maggie, helping her to become more confident. This led to her being popular at school as a result of following Fran's example and, eventually, convincing Maxwell to let Maggie have a life outside the house.

Like Benjamin Salisbury, the actor who portrayed Maggie — Nicholle Tom — was already a budding child star when she was cast in "The Nanny." She had the first "Beethoven" film under her belt and reprised that role in its sequel the same year that "The Nanny" debuted. She also voiced her "Beethoven" character for the short-lived animated adaptation that aired for just a single season on CBS in 1994. Since then, Tom has remained extremely prolific in both film and especially television, amassing an impressive number of roles on both series and in TV movies. She also appeared as herself on the 2017 series "Hollywood Darlings" and in a 2024 episode of "Worst Cooks in America."

With nearly 100 episodes under her belt, Fran's mom, Sylvia Fine, was a pretty consistent presence on "The Nanny." While she often played fast and loose with boundaries, Sylvia always had Fran's best interests at heart and wanted nothing more than for her daughter to be happy. Sylvia also had a great relationship with the Sheffield kids and was immediately like a loving grandmother to them. She was based on Fran Drescher's real mother, just as Morty Fine was based on her real father, though he only appeared in a few episodes of the show.

Veteran actor Renée Taylor already had over 30 years of acting roles under her belt when she took up the role of Sylvia — a role, it should be noted, that was initially played by Fran Drescher herself when Sylvia first appeared on the show via flashbacks to Fran's childhood. Standout roles in Taylor's impressive filmography include playing Eva Braun in the original 1967 version of "The Producers" and appearances on shows like "St. Elsewhere," "The Love Boat," and "Thirtysomething." She's also an accomplished writer, with numerous writing credits that include film, television, and live theater.

91 years old at the time of this writing, Taylor continues to act, appearing in a 2023 episode of Amazon's Prime Video series "Upload" and having a role in the 2025 dramedy "Magic Hour."

Fran's grandmother, Yetta Rosenberg-Jones, was also a recurring mainstay on "The Nanny." The retirement home-bound woman was frequently confused, incorrectly thinking that Fran and Maxwell were already married and that the Sheffield children were Fran's. As it turned out, she was probably just seeing the love and familial bonds that were there early on in the series and knew the way things were headed before anyone else consciously did. The one thing Yetta did get wrong, however, was her assumption that Maxwell and C.C. were having an affair — something that always led to a lot of hilariously uncomfortable moments.

Long before playing Yetta, actor Ann Morgan Guilbert had already cemented her place in the sitcom pantheon via her recurring role as Millie Helper on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." In addition to that, she appeared in a staggering number of all-time classic TV shows, including "My Three Sons," "The Andy Griffith Show," "I Dream of Jeannie," "Love, American Style," "Maude," "Barney Miller," "Cheers," "Newhart," and more. Both during and after her time on "The Nanny," Guilbert wasn't done racking up impressive additions to her filmography, adding "Seinfeld," "Home Improvement," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Modern Family," and "Grey's Anatomy" to her CV. She didn't do many movies, but she did star in 1995's "Grumpier Old Men."

Guilbert's final role would be as GiGi in the CBS comedy "Life in Pieces," which she played until July 2016, when she sadly became one of "The Nanny" actors who have passed away.

Maxwell "Max" Sheffield, the male lead on "The Nanny," was the patriarch of the Sheffield family and a successful Broadway producer. But, as was constantly pointed out in one of the show's ongoing running gags, he wasn't as successful as Andrew Lloyd Webber — a fact that never stopped getting under his skin. Max had become a widower prior to the series' debut and was raising his three children as a single father with the help of butler Niles and a succession of nannies. But, like she did for the kids, Fran would change Max's life — up to and including becoming his wife and giving him his fourth and fifth children by way of the twins that were born at the end of the series.

Of everyone in the cast of "The Nanny," Charles Shaughnessy is the one who can make the strongest case that the show isn't his most iconic role. It can easily be argued that distinction belongs to "Days of Our Lives," where Shaughnessy starred in nearly 1,200 episodes as Shane/Drew Donovan. He would later return to the world of daytime soap operas with a 2021-2023 stint on "General Hospital." In between that and "The Nanny," Shaughnessy appeared in numerous films and television shows, with his recurring stint on Syfy's "The Magicians" as Christopher Plover being among his more noteworthy roles of the last 10 years.

In 2005, Shaughnessy reunited with Fran Drescher for the sitcom "Living with Fran," which ran for two seasons on the WB. In a wink towards "Nanny" fans, Shaughnessy played the ex-husband to Drescher's character.

While Fran Fine's funniest moments in "The Nanny" encapsulate what made her such a great comedy character, she also brought a lot of heart to the Sheffield family. Initially a pretty standard fish out of water/culture clash type of setup, "The Nanny" quickly evolved into a show about a woman who needed a family finding a family that needed a wife and mother at just the right time in the lives of everyone involved. While some might dismiss the show as Fran mugging for the camera and emitting that distinctive laugh every five minutes, there was a lot more to "The Nanny" — and its lead character — than sitcom tropes and caricatures. That's what kept the show beloved both during its initial run and via reruns ever since.

Fran Drescher already had a pretty full career before starring in and co-creating "The Nanny," racking up an interesting mix of mainstream hits and cult classics. On the big screen, she appeared in "Saturday Night Fever," "The Hollywood Knights," "Ragtime," "This Is Spinal Tap," and "UHF," while her pre-"Nanny" television roles included turns on "Fame," "Silver Spoons," "Who's the Boss?," "Night Court," "ALF," and "227."

While she's been plenty busy as an actor since hanging up Fran Fine's stilettos, Drescher has recently been more well-known for her work as the Screen Actors Guild president since 2021. During her tenure, Drescher oversaw the SAG-AFTRA strike that launched alongside the existing 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, as well as the subsequent deal that was struck between actors and studios as a result of the strike.