As we learn in 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap, money talks, bullshit walks, and Fran Drescher will always dominate any scene in which she finds herself. Nine years before her ascension to TV superstardom with The Nanny, a 26-year-old Drescher was unforgettable as Polymer Records label publicist Bobbi Flekman, a “hostess with the mostest” so archetypal that more than one real-life record exec believed they had to be her inspiration. (The original seed for the character, according to Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, the movie’s co-stars and co-creators, was a label rep they briefly met while on tour with Lenny and the Squigtones in 1979.)
Drescher, who is the outgoing president of SAG/AFTRA and led the union through a brutal strike in 2023, pops up once more as Bobbi in a brief but memorable cameo in the new sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, in theaters Friday. She hopped on a Zoom with Rolling Stone to talk about the birth of the character, her return, and more.
How are you doing?
I’m OK. I’m a bit crazed. I just got back to Beverly Hills after six months of being in New York, because I can’t go to my house (in Malibu) since the Palisades fire. I just got back and I’m feeling very unsettled.
When you’re home but you can’t go home, that’s a weird feeling.
Oh, and I miss it so much. But I have an apartment in New York, and that was very healing for me and the dog, because we’re right on Central Park.
Your house was damaged, but it’s still standing, right?
It is, but it’s not livable. And the area is not livable. There’s still no electricity, no gas. There’s just utility workers and government workers everywhere. The main road is one lane, and the level of toxins that surround my little hamlet of standing houses is very worrisome. They found lead and asbestos in my house that came from the burning houses. My Christmas tree is still standing — it’s really sad. The whole place is filled with ash. We just ran for our lives. And the dog doesn’t understand why you don’t go home. So it’s just life. Big life experiences. My life is very high highs and very low lows with very little in the middle.
I was rereading your first book, which was a lot of fun.
Oh, Enter Whining.
Yes.
I’m writing another book, but I keep getting sidetracked. ‘Cause now we’re writing the Nanny musical (for Broadway).
Oh, is that back on? I heard that was on hold.
It was. There were too many creative differences, and that’s OK. It happens. No hard feelings. And now, (ex-husband and show co-creator) Peter Marc Jacobson and I are starting it up again by ourselves.
That’s exciting. Who’s doing the music?
I don’t even know if I’m speaking out of school. I’m worried that I’ve already said too much. We’ll do that interview at another time. Let’s not talk about that! I don’t wanna get in trouble!
It’s a brief appearance, but it’s lovely to see you in the new Spinal Tap movie as this character. What did it feel like to do it again after all these years?
First of all, we shot it like two weeks after my dad passed away. And that was really an earthquake experience for me and my mom and my sister, who all adored him. And even though he was 94 and a half, it was a major amputation. So I almost didn’t do it, but everybody felt like I should. I was still, like, crying all the time. I had to go from Florida, where I was with my mom, who was so broken, and go to New Orleans to shoot it.
And so I got Peter, the gay ex-husband, to stay with my mom and the dog. And we shot it in one day. Rob and I had some creative discussions prior to it. I had reinvented the character, and Rob was very happy with my vision for Bobbi Flekman all these years later. He said, “I can’t believe you haven’t actually had improv training, like at a Second City or like that type of thing. ‘Cause that was as good as it gets.”
And I guess he’s warned you that the part didn’t turn to be that big.
Rob called me like two weeks ago and said, “I just have to forewarn you that I overshoot, but we really had to cut it way down to somehow fit in.” Because in this movie, Bobbi doesn’t have anything to do with Spinal Tap anymore. Rob’s character just wanted to revisit some of the old characters that were pivotal in the band’s comeback all those years ago. So when you don’t really push the plot along, like I did in the original, it’s different. But I’m still happy that I’m in it, and I’m supporting it, and I have no idea what is actually in it. But I’ll bet you dollars for donuts he kept the part where I said that tour that they did nearly destroyed me.
They did, and they also left in the part where you say you’re a Buddhist now.
Which is actually true. I also said, “Now I represent influencers.” And I said, “I can’t really give out the names, but I could give you the initials — K.K.” Anyway, it’s OK. It’ll all be in the release that has the extra footage, I’m sure.
So you’re a Buddhist in real life, right?
Yes. I extrapolate from my own life experience and then I turn it into something else. That’s why it flows so beautifully. Bobbi also has this Hare Krishna assistant, and she says, “We like to present in a certain way, diverse and contemporary and whatever. And he checks all the boxes. That’s why he got the job as my executive assistant.” But I don’t know what’s in it. I don’t really care. It is what it is, but I wanted to support it anyway. I’m promotable. Rob said he was in a meeting with (Disney CEO) Bob Iger and my name came up. So obviously, up and down the ladder, all the fans, they wanna see Bobbi Flekman.
I think it’s better to have done it, even though it was emotionally difficult for me. But I think I look like Bobbi all these years later, what she would look like now. Just like in the original, low-budget, I was wearing my own clothes. I think they paid me what I got paid, what is it, 50 years now or 40 years ago?
41, yeah. So the pay hasn’t increased, is what you’re saying?
(Laughs.) No, no cost-of-living increase, in spite of the fact that as president of SAG-AFTRA, we were fighting very hard for that. And got it, mind you.
So even being SAG president didn’t get you a raise.
Yeah. And I (usually) travel through airports with a greeter, and I think they said they don’t do that, they’re too low-budget. And I said, “You know what? I don’t think you really appreciate what I’m going through right now, and where I’m at in my life and my career. So maybe I shouldn’t do it. Because it’s just too hard right now, and if you are not sensitive to what I’m going through, it’s OK. But I shouldn’t put myself in this situation. I need to be around people that are sensitive to what I’m going through.” And then Rob called and said (warmly), “We can do whatever you want!”
My hope is that Paul McCartney and Elton John also got paid scale.
(Laughs.) Which I somehow doubt, because they I think they had different categories of how people got paid and stuff. And I think me and Paul Shaffer were in our own little category.
To go back to the original, the part came to you while you were shooting the Dan Aykroyd movie Doctor Detroit, which you thought was going to be a big hit, but flopped. And the little movie you did after that became legendary.
Yeah. I had just come off of a night shoot on Doctor Detroit. I had a meeting with Rob for the role of Bobbi Flekman, and I was just exhausted from the night shoot when I went in. And he said, “I wasn’t picturing this, but now that I’m seeing it, I like it.” And I got it. I’m very free and authentic in how I present myself. So it’s very easy to just use my imagination and speak freely. And I’m really blessed to have been invited into this new format of movie, which really changed a lot. This mockumentary. It’s everywhere now on television and in the movies, and it started with that, and everybody was so wildly talented that I really felt honored to be included in the cast. And I still do.
There’s all sorts of people in the record industry over the years who have claimed to be the basis for Bobbi Flekman. Are any of them telling the truth, or did it really just come from you and your ideas and whatever they told you about the character?
It absolutely came from me, but I can imagine that there are some women out there that feel like I’m doing them. It had a very interesting following. I remember Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft came up to me and said, “We thought you were a real person.”
What a compliment.
Totally.
Where did “hostess with the mostest” come from?
(Laughs.) I think my mom used to say it. It’s something that felt very right for that character.
And “money talks, bullshit walks”?
That also I think came from my mom.
So it’s all your mom!
I often quote the women in my family for saying things that are just basic truths. “You get shit on enough, you begin to notice it stinks around here.” That’s another one.
There was a very loose outline you followed, but you really ran with the scene where you’re outraged by the Smell the Glove album cover.
Rob said, “No holds barred.” ‘Cause he overshoots. In that scene all I knew was from a 27-page outline (for the whole movie). He would tell me things I had to say, like “K-Mart didn’t want the album with that cover.” And then it was just like, “Do your thing.”
Were you really smoking cigarettes?
I most likely was. Yeah. I smoked off and on from high school till I was, like, 30. A low tar/nicotine cigarette. I’m just a girl from Queens.
Bobbi looked pretty cool with a cigarette, it must be said.
That was then. Now I’m Buddhist and I have a Hare Krishna assistant.
You and Tony Hedra, who played Tap’s manager, played well off each other. What do you remember about that dynamic?
He was totally who he was supposed to be, and I was totally who I was supposed to be. And as someone that was representing the label, there was nothing that he was going to say to me that was going to change my mind that we are not using this cover. And he was totally believable.
You had that great moment where you say to Nigel Tufnel, “You don’t talk so much.”
Yeah. And honestly, it just turned out that I said that to the right band member.
So even outside of the music industry, was there any specific model for Bobbi? She’s such a recognizable type.
Not in the music business, for sure. But maybe I was just presenting a strong woman that wasn’t gonna take any shit. Maybe more executive types or maybe an Anna Wintour type.
You did your own hair, make-up, and wardrobe. Did you go out and buy clothes for Bobbi?
I picked from my own wardrobe, but I think that the black and gold dress for the big party, I may have bought that. Look, I knew that power women dress well usually. It was important that she looked like somebody in the music business, but somebody that really walks into a room, no shrinking violet.
It was important to me, especially at that stage of my career, that everything I did was right. I couldn’t depend on a wardrobe department or wardrobe person to do right by me. I’ve done that through my whole career, in almost everything. I have a lot of couture clothes, and I wear them. And that could never have been budgeted in most of the things that I did. But I’ve become a fashion icon, and I don’t like to disappoint, ’cause people look forward to seeing what I wear.
The whole look is so memorable, including the slicked-back hair. Everything’s so specific.
Yes. And the widow’s peak is an important thing. And it’s easy, too. I didn’t want have to have people fussing over me. I didn’t know the quality of those departments on a movie of this budget. So it was just like, let me do my thing. And Rob totally trusted me. But it’s a power-woman look. The pulled-back hair. With the widow’s peak, it’s strong.
There was that episode of The Nanny where Fran pretended to be Bobbi Flekman. So people want to know if this means that The Nanny takes place in a world where Spinal Tap is a real band.
Yes, and Bobbi Flekman is real, more specifically. Was that the episode where we had the Stray Cats on? We always did that on The Nanny. Mr. Sheffield was in show business. He was a Broadway producer. So we had Elton John on The Nanny, and we played a lot with things like that. Having Bobbi Flekman on that episode seemed like a natural.
But to be clear, there’s an Internet thing where people want to know if The Nanny takes place in the same universe as This Is Spinal Tap.
Yes! And Bobbi Flekman is real. Yes!
You had already made a big impression in everything from Saturday Night Fever to American Hot Wax, but it does seem like This is Spinal Tap was a huge moment in your career.
It truly was. First of all, because it became such a cult classic within the music industry. Yes. I have been stopped and recognized by people like Bruce Springsteen or Chris Martin. It’s that level of people who obsessed over that movie and traveled with it when they were on tour. I ran into Bruce at a Dan Aykroyd party at the Hard Rock, and he said, “We were once in an elevator together.” And I said, “Yes, I know.” He said, “But I didn’t wanna bother you.” And I said, “Bruce, wherever we’re in an elevator, please bother me.” He said, “I knew you from Spinal Tap, so I wanted to say something.” They all love that character. Because they know somebody in the music business that’s like that.
Well, thanks again for your time. I hope you figure out the house situation. That’s a rough thing.
I know. I can’t complain because I can afford to live, and I have an apartment in New York and now I have an apartment in Beverly Hills and I have my health, and I have my dog, and I have my stuff. You can’t grab everything. But each time I go back to the house — in a hazmat suit — I take another little thing. And all my fine art is being professionally cleaned.
It’s hard, but I’ve decided that life is about learning how to let go. And you keep getting presented with that opportunity, and how you process it and how you grow through it, and what becomes of you as a result, is the journey. As a Buddhist, I’m always asking myself, why is this being presented to me now and how do I have to cope with it on my journey of self-refinement? That started a very long time ago, because I was a victim of a violent crime. I’m a cancer survivor. A lot of things happen along the way where you have to somehow make sense out of what seems like the senseless.
