story

She was working in a bridal shop in Flushings, Queens. When her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes. Where was she to go? What was she to do? She was out on her fannny. So over the hills from Flushings, to the Sheffields door, she was there to sell makeup but the father saw more. She had style, she had flair, she was there, that's how she became the Nanny..

These words set up the hilarious story of Fran Fine. Former shopgirl for Danny's Bridal.
Fran Fine worked at her longtime beau, Danny Imperiali's bridal shop until one day she lost her boyfriend and her job in one fell swoop.
Danny informs Fran that he is dumping her for Flushing floozy Heather Biblow and he is giving Heather Fran's current job.
A devastated Fran takes a job selling cosmetics for Shades Of The Orient, an Avon type company and soon makes her way to the house of Maxwell Sheffield, a successful Broadway producer.
Fran is unaware of who Max is, or that Maxwell mistakes her for a potential Nanny candidate for his children.
Max believes that a Nanny agency has sent Fran to his door and when Fran gets a good look at Maxwell's palatial townhouse, she decides that the job as a Nanny sounds pretty good to her.
There is just one, make that two problems. First, both Maxwell's beautiful partner C.C. Babcock and Max's son Brighton, hate her on sight.
Second, she has absolutely no experience as a Nanny.
Fran tells Brighton to give her a chance, or at least wait until she has sung, "Climb every mountain."
When Max asks about a reference to the "Queen Mother", Fran corrects him and tells her she was referring to her mother from Queens.
Max decides not to hire Fran, until he remembers about a party he is hosting that night and has a change of heart, hiring Fran on a trial basis.
Fran is thrilled to learn that the Nanny is to live with the family, and immediately forms a bond with the household butler, Niles.
Later, Fran meets the rest of the Sheffield children. Maggie, the eldest daughter. Maggie is shy and insecure. Gracie, the youngest child, who suffers from phobias and is in therapy and of course, Brighton. The middle child and the only son. Brighton is sarcastic and uses his humor to keep people at a distance. Fran realizes that all the Sheffield children are suffering from the loss of their mother and decides to take special care with each of them.
Fran takes the kids to the bridal shop where she once worked and tries to convince Maggie that she needs to come out of her shell.
Later, at the party, Max is worried about his party. C.C. tries to cozy up to Max, and almost succeeds, until Max spots Fran, decked out in a red sequin dress, descending the stairs.
She is joined by the children, including Maggie, who is wearing a beautiful new dress. Max is stunned to realize that his children are growing up and agrees to let them join the party.
Although everything goes well initially, Max is horrified to find Maggie kissing a waiter from the party. Max and Maggie get into a huge fight and when Fran steps in to defend her young charge, Max blames her and fires her.
Back in Queens, Fran spends her days sitting on her mother, Sylvia's plastic couch. Just then, Maxwell pays Fran a visit and she interprets Maxwell's apology in her own special way, and when Max protests, Fran forgives him and tells her mother to pack her bags, that Max wants her back.
As Fran begins working at the Sheffield household, the family is introduced to Fran's own eccentric but loving family.
Fran's mother Sylvia is a loud, but loving woman who loves food almost as much as she loves her daughter.
Fran's father Morty is never seen, except for his many toupee's. We finally see him on the last few episodes of the Nanny. He still has his bad toupees, but turns out to have a beautiful singing voice!
Fran's Grandma Yetta is a semi-senile, chain smoker who often mistakes the Sheffield children as Fran's and Maxwell as Fran's husband.
During the course of the show, we meet more of Fran's unusual family. There is her uncle Stanley and aunt Cookie. Uncle Stanley is a loud, garish man who often times puts himself before Fran's father, (maybe that is because he is played by Fran's real father, Morty) and aunt Cookie, who can play the spoons on her chest.
There is Fran's Grandma Nettie, a woman who steals cookies and who's apartment Fran describes as "a pink hostess snowball".
There is Fran's Uncle Jack and his daughter Marsha, Fran's biggest enemy. Marsha is extremely jealous of Fran and loves to put her down at every opportunity.
Then there is Fran's sister Nadine, whom Fran never really got along with. Nadine always tries taking over Fran's life and pushes her younger sister around. Nadine is married to Barry and they have 2 children. Oddly enough, we never see Nadine and Barry at Fran and Maxwell's wedding.
And then there is Fran's favorite aunt Frida, her father's sister and her mother's best and worst friend.
Fran and Sylvia are continually on the outs, only to makeup and become best friends once again.
Frida has been married four times and widowed three. Her last husband is Fred, a shy millionaire who loved both Frida and Fran. Eventually Fred married Frida.
Fran also brings her best friend Val into the Sheffield's lives. Val is a kind, caring person, but is also not too bright.
Val lives with her parents and sometimes has to sleep with her grandmother, although she has an accordion door "for privacy".
Val rarely has a boyfriend, but is always there when her best friend needs her.
When they were in high school, Fran and Val became sponsor parents to a young girl from Cambodia named Mai Ling. Mai Ling arrives to New York and immediately drives a wedge between Fran and Val. When Fran learns that Mai is after Brighton for his money, and that she has become a greedy and materialistic person, she and Val make up and join forces to stop her. But Mai Ling feels bad for all the trouble she caused and goes back to Cambodia.
Niles the butler becomes Fran's greatest ally in the Sheffield home. Niles and Maxwell have known each other since they were children. Niles' father worked as a butler for Maxwell's father and although being educated at Eton college, he reluctantly followed in his father's footsteps and became Maxwell's butler.
Although often jealous of Maxwell's success, he loves and supports the Sheffield's and raised the children as though they were his own.
Niles is thrilled when Fran moves into the Sheffield house and was the first to notice the growing attraction between Max and Fran. He soon became their staunchest supporter and would often do everything he could to push the two together.
Niles' greatest enemy was C.C. Babcock. Maxwell's beautiful partner. C.C. has been partner's with Maxwell for many years and has also been in love with him just as long.
Before Fran's arrival, C.C. was the woman in Maxwell's life, but only in the business sense, much to C.C.'s disappointment. Although she and Maxwell shared some harmless flirting, C.C. could not compete with the sexy, vivacious Fran.
C.C. hated Fran on sight and tried everything in her power to get rid of her.
But Niles hated C.C. as much as she hated Fran and stood as Fran's protector, hurling insults at C.C. and undermining all of her efforts to win over Max.
Maxwell had been married to a beautiful woman named Sara, who died young for reasons never explained on the show.
Maxwell spent many years mourning his wife, and in his eyes, no other woman could compare. Until Fran walked through his door.
Although Max had reservations about Fran and her Flushings connections, he was also intrigued by her unique sense of style and humor. Slowly, Max began to start living again. He enjoyed watching Fran parading around in her tiny outfits and hopping onto the edge of his desk.
Fran encouraged Max to take off his wedding ring and to begin dating again, although she hoped he would be dating her.
Fran too found some difficulties fitting into Maxwell's world. Although her family were at times very eccentric, they were also kind, loving and willing to accept the Sheffield's as one of their own.
The same couldn't be said for Maxwell's family.
Maxwell's mother hated Fran on sight and wanted Max to fire her. Max, tired of being pushed around by his over bearing mother proposed to Fran. Though she believed the proposal to be real, Fran realized that Max only proposed to her for his mothers sake, and after making him suffer for a while, turned down his proposal.
Maxwell's sister Jocelyn visited the Sheffield home along with her fiancée Nigel. The two very unromantically decided to get married, but on the day of the wedding, Jocelyn and her longtime chauffer, Lester, admitted their love for each other and married instead.
Maxwell's grandmother paid a visit, but was often disregarded and only got any attention when she threatened to cut someone out of the will.
Maxwell's father was a thoughtless and boorish man who left his family for his secretary, a woman who was very much like Fran. Maxwell disliked his father and his stepmother.
The only Sheffield who seemed to take a liking to Fran was Maxwell's younger brother Nigel. He was very different from Maxwell. Nigel was fun loving and wild. He was a thorn in his brother's side, who considered Nigel to be very immature and careless. Secretly, Maxwell was jealous of Nigel's devil-may-care attitude.
Nigel took an instant liking to Fran. So much so that on a visit to see his brother, he proposed to Fran and asked her to meet him on a ship sailing for England.
Although she hesitated, Fran agreed to join Nigel, but just missed the boat. Fran was very sad, but realized that she was in love with the other Sheffield brother.
Later, Fran and Max were surprised to learn of yet another Sheffield heir, younger sister Concepcion. Concepcion was the lovechild Maxwell's father conceived with a Spanish Flamenco dancer.
Fran was very close to all of the Sheffield children and gave them all special, individual attention.
Maggie, being the oldest looked up to Fran and turned to her for advice of love and fashion. Fran often stood up for Maggie when Maxwell wanted nothing more than too keep Maggie locked away as a child for the rest of her life.
Although she was shy, Fran taught Maggie to go out into the world, and was the only one to encourage the relationship between Maggie and her soon-to-be husband Michael.
Brighton, the middle child, was unhappy at the prospect of another Nanny and planned to sabotage her the way he had every other Nanny, with mean practical jokes.
He was pleasantly surprised to find that he could not get around Fran, who was on to every trick he tried to pull and instead of punishing him, showed him unlimited love and support.
But it was the youngest child, Gracie, that Fran bonded with the most. Having lost her mother at as a baby, Gracie was the most in need of Fran's love and soon came to regard her as the mother she never knew.
Fran came to think of the Sheffield children as her own, and taught them a lot of the unique insights that she learned growing up in Queens.
However, as close as she was to the Sheffield children, it was not an open door to winning Maxwell's heart.
In the meantime, Fran continued to date, choosing men who never seemed to measure up to Maxwell.
During the course of five years Fran dated everyone from a Mortician turned clown, an undercover cop, a bank robber, a podiatrist and a tree surgeon. And while Maxwell continued to keep Fran at arms length, he couldn't deny the incredible sexual tension between the two and did everything in his power to sabotage all of Fran's relationships.
Meanwhile, it was C.C. who was trying her best to end Fran and Maxwell's relationship, however almost all her schemes blew up in her face, and worst of all was having Niles behind her whispering insults over her shoulder.
But while the two enemies sparred, they also shared an undeniable chemistry that would every now and then boil to the surface.
As Fran tried to move her relationship with Mr. Sheffield forward, he continued to move in a step back. In the meantime, he himself dated various women, off and on, much to Fran's chagrin. From a Fran look-alike to a lesbian publicity agent to Marla Maples, Fran stood helplessly by as Max forged ahead into the dating world.
After some time, Fran began to lose her patience with both Max and the dating world and after learning that the man she was currently dating was really her cousin, Max sent Fran to a therapist to get her over her obsession with being married.
In therapy, Fran learned that she had been secretly seeking out men who reminded her of her father, Morty, who, while he was a loving father, was always an absentee father, preferring to sit at home and watch sports than to spend time with his daughter.
Over the years, the Sheffield children continued to grow up, especially Maggie, who admired Fran for her sense of style and savvy. It was also Fran who stood up for Maggie with Maxwell, where the subject of boys came up. Despite all of Maxwell's efforts to keep Maggie a little girl, it was soon obvious that she was growing up.
After years of heavy duty flirtation, Fran decided their relationship needed move forward. When Max first visited his brother Nigel in Paris, Fran went along, and when the two found themselves facing their last moments as their plane began to go down, Max revealed to Fran that he loved her. But once the two arrived home, Max took it back, citing their harrowing experience as the excuse for blurting out his feelings. while she was hurt, Fran tried to understand, although she reminded Max about his actions every chance she got.
Later, when Max took a trip to his native England, Fran once again went along. Sneaking into his hotel room, Max was startled to be face to face with Fran in his bed. However, when Max once again failed to take their relationship to the next level, Fran decided to call it quits on her job and Mr. Sheffield. But when Niles suffers a heart attack, it brings Fran and Max closer together.
However, Max once again gets cold feet and takes Niles' advice, giving Fran a task to distract her, redecorating their kitchen.
Enlisting her eccentric cousin Sheila, Fran worries about her situation, as her cousin is also experiencing the same hurdles in her love life and wonders if Mr. Sheffield will ever take her seriously.
Meanwhile, Fran and her family are stunned to learn that Grandma Yetta is getting married, before Fran. They are even more stunned to find out he is a blackman named Sammy. While her daughter Sylvia is at first, shocked, she later changes her mind when she learn that Sammy is the Uncle of Bryant Gumble.
After months of therapy, Fran Max that she could no longer have a relationship with a man who didn't even call her by her first name, Fran quit, until a worried Max finally called her Fran.