Peter Marc Jacobson, Producer, Write and Director

Gary Interviews Peter Marc Jacobson, Producer, Write and Director on this week's episode of Ready, Set, Live

Episode Transcript

(00:24):
Hello. I'm Gary Quinn and welcometo another episode of Ready Set Live.
My guest today is Peter Mark Jacobsen, writer, director, and executive producer.
Peter is best known as the showrunnerof the popular nineties sitcom The Nanny,
which he created and produced with histhen wife Fran Drescher, who also

(00:46):
starred in the series. Tv LANaired a series he co created with Fran,
Happily Divorced, based on their eighteenyear marriage, which ended after Peter
told Fran he is gay. Peterserved as exeus to producer and writer.
Don't go away, I'll be rightback with Peter Mark Jacobson. Welcome to

(01:11):
the show, Peter, Thank you, it's good to be here. You
know, we all have our journeys, and you know you starting out in
the entertainment world. I know yougrew up in New York. Was there
a sense of you knew that thiswas your destiny or was there an epiphany

(01:33):
that happened as a young man growingup. I think when I was a
really young man many years ago,my parents used to bring me to Broadway
twice a year we see a Broadwayshow, and I was so caught up
in that world of a make believeand the likes and the scenery, and

(01:57):
I just was fascinated by it.And television. I was fascinated by sitcoms,
and I would watch them and pretendI had my own sitcom. And
so I feel like in a wayI manifested my future, not knowing what
I was doing. I didn't tryto do that, but I pretended,

(02:23):
so it was so real in myhead then it happened. Yeah. You
know, I think as young children, and many of the people I've interviewed
over the years, I have saidthe same thing. You know, they
were, in a sense, theywere setting the intention of what they wanted
to create. Some were aware ofit consciously and unconsciously. So as you

(02:47):
saw the theater, which was awonderful place to grow up, what was
the next step? I know,you met fran in high school or you
were high school sweethearts? Was shedestined for also acting? Was she doing
that or was it just you know, back in the day in New York,

(03:08):
we went to a progressive high school. It was the first of its
kind, where half the day youdid academics and then the rest of the
day you specialized in pre med theaterwhatever it was, and we chose the
theater career path and we met doinga show and immediately became best friends.

(03:30):
We both had the same sense ofhumor. We both got very involved in
theater at school. We would teachsenior citizen citizens after school theater and as

(03:51):
we got a little as we whenwe graduated, my mother, who sold
Avon, used to sell to awoman who managed young kids who wanted to
be actors and do TV commercials.So we met with her cousin's management and

(04:13):
they signed us and we started towork professionally in the business at seventeen years
old. I think it was doingTV commercials. I love it. What
was your first commercial? My firstcommercial was Life Savers labor goes on and
on. You know, you neverreally forget years ago when I was an

(04:34):
actor, I did Kentucky Fried Chicken. I can't eat that chicken because we
had to eat it so much.But I think your first your first exposure
as a teenager. You know,you're in the lights, the cameras,
it's all real. So what afteryou you became had a taste of the
commercials. What happened next you,Well, we did. We would go

(04:57):
out after you know, we wouldgo every day to Manhattan and to Tad's
Steakhouse for a three dollars steak,and then we would go audition and we
started working a fair amount, gettingpretty successful doing TV commercials. Fan Fran
doing Fran was doing commercials too,Yes, we both did them. She

(05:19):
her first one was McDonald's and shesaid, you know, welcome to McDonald's
holding a tray. And when wesaw it, they took her voice out
and she's like why. And thenshe started to audition for some movies in

(05:41):
New York and she got Saturday NightFever, which started her career, and
then got Paramount became aware of herand flew her out to California to audition
for a movie called American Hot Wax. I was still doing commercials back in
New York, but was going tojoin her. And I was doing a

(06:06):
commercial with Stephen Webber, who lateron in life played her husband in her
last sitcom. And we were teenagersdoing a wise potato chip commercial. And
I flew back to to California tobe with friend who was doing this movie.
And you know, we were livingat Oakwood Garden apartments and I grew

(06:30):
I didn't grow up my family didn'thave any money. So when I saw
Oakwood Garden apartments, it had apool. Yeah, we're right down the
street from there. Yeah. MayZed to give away free bagels on Saturday.
And I felt like I was living, you know, the high life
and Jacuzzie. You know, Inever experienced anything like that, and I

(06:50):
was, you know, we werevery happy. We were working and you
know, not working and working.And I started to audition for commercials and
then I have in Los Angeles,and then i'd start doing episodic TV like
in nine O two one oh andMurphy Brown and I was pilots and the

(07:14):
two of us were working and Frandwould usually do a pilot every year,
and they didn't get picked up mostof them. And she did one last
pilot and she said, you knowwhat, if I can't get in on
the bottom floor producing producing side ofit, I don't want to do this
anymore because I just see the mistakesthat they're making. And at least if

(07:41):
I'm making the mistake, I couldsay, all right, well I did
it, but you know, Ijust I just I think I can do
this better. So she had donea last pilot and she had a meeting
and she had done a pilot abunch of picked up series for six called
Princesses at CBS, and the reviewsaid, when will CBS learn it should

(08:05):
be called princess And she ran intoJeff Saganski on a plane, who is
the head of CBS, and basicallycornered him and said, would you just
let me come in with my ideas? And he finally, because you know
where was he going to go coach? He said, yes, come in,

(08:26):
just let me sleep, and shecame in. We came in,
and she went away, went toI think she was going to London to
be with Twiggy, and she wastaking care of Twiggy's kid, and she
thought it was such a funny relationship, this New York girl with the proper

(08:46):
English kid. And she called meup and she said, what do you
think about the sound of music?Except I come to the door and I
had just sold the show for danAykroyd with dan akherditch should say, I'm
sorry he actually sold it. ButI came up with the idea. And
I said to friend, yeah,that idea that you just pitched. Julie

(09:09):
Andrews coming to the door, that'sthe way to go that's the show.
We got to go sell, andwe went in and sold it and they
bought six of them excellent, andthe rest was kind of you know.
And I think, Peter, that'sthe way of the future for any performer

(09:30):
is to have hands on I recentlywas at the Producer's Gil breakfast and I
chatted with Margot Robbie and she wastalking about how six studios turned down Barbie
took her six years to make it. Same with Maestro with Bradley Cooper,
and he had won an Academy Awardand they said no, no, no,

(09:50):
we don't want it. So Ithink the intention that the individual has
and any performer is really just thebelief. And you you believed in this
project and it was a big hit. I mean I remember The Nanny was
all over the place. Yeah,it was huge, it was crazy.

(10:11):
Yeah. And so during that time, did you sense that there was issues
with you in fran or was itjust you said, well, I have
this side of myself that I haven'trevealed. No. No, we were
victims of a violent crime years beforethe Nanny, and I had told friend

(10:33):
that, you know, I wasin really bad shape, and she was,
you know, and I was likeI started thinking because I had always
in my mind I was attracted tomen and women, and I didn't know
what to make it. You know, back in my day, there was
no such thing as gay in FlushingQueens. We didn't nobody talked about it,

(10:58):
so I didn't know what to makeit. But I felt hard,
horribly guilty if I even thought aboutit. And I kind of remember magically
thinking saying to a therapist, maybeI brought on this, brought on this
horrible incident because of you know,I'm not telling the truth about who I
am. And I told friend,you know, I'm bisexual, I think,

(11:20):
and I don't want to act onit or anything, but I do
have these feelings. And she atthe time didn't want to be alone.
That was her thing. She andso we continued to live together and work
together and having our relationship together.But I was always very I couldn't get
it out of my head and thinking, am I cheating her her life?

(11:45):
Am I cheating me out of mylife? And basically about to have a
nervous breakdown when we sold the nannyAnd then it was sort of like pull
yourself together. You're never going toget a chance like this again and go
to work, which I did rightbefore getting having the nervous breakdown. But

(12:07):
we never dealt with anything really,and I became very controlling so as not
to deal with my own problems.I controlled her, telling her what to
eat, what to drink, orldto talk to her, you know,
terrible. And she finally said,you know what, I've had it.
I don't want to live like this. And we split up and separated but

(12:33):
still work together. And it wasvery hard, and I had no family
at that point, so it waskind of like an orphan And the show
ended three years later and we weren'tgetting back together or anything. So I
moved to New York to try tofigure out who I was and started my

(13:00):
journey. And that's that what happened, you know. I think, also
Peter, when people have I callit breakthroughs, not breakdowns, that each
individual experience in life brings us toa certain consciousness. And you know,
when we, let's say, stepinto the growth factor of it, we

(13:24):
can then look at ourselves and say, Okay, I need to be authentic,
but I need to also be grounded. As you as you went back
to New York, did you throwyourself into something to grow. Did you
get into music? I mean,what was the healing factor for you that

(13:46):
put you into the new space headspace? Well, I wish it was as
beautiful as that, but I threwmyself into going out every night to gate
clubs and trying to figure out whoI was. And I was very paranoid
because at the time we were onyou know a lot of a lot of
tabloid covers and things like that,getting divorced because the show was so big,

(14:09):
and I didn't want people to knowI was there, and so it
were a cap and glasses and youknow, not that anybody really would have
cared anyway, but at the timeI didn't. I didn't want to hurt
friend or anybody. I just wantedto figure out who I was. And
so I just kind of had mygay adolescence at you know, forty and

(14:33):
trying to figure out where do Ifit in and all this, And eventually,
you know, calmed down and cameback to Los Angeles to do what
I Like about You with Amanda Vinesand Karen Rich Karen and Lucas and Fran

(14:56):
and I built a friendship again.When she her manager called me, who
was my manager and said that shehad cancer and we hadn't spoken for a
year, and immediately all the angerleft and just the love was there.
And I called my manager and said, listen, if she wants me to
come take care of her or what, will not talk to me or whatever,

(15:18):
just let her know I'm sending bestto her and am there for her.
And she wrote send note backs thatshe would like to speak to me
but after surgery, and we builta friendship after that and eventually developed happily

(15:41):
divorced because of that. And youknow, Peter, I think the thing
is that if you look at allof the let's say the life span,
really at the end of this life, love is really all there is.
And so how do you think oneindividual or individuals can learn to love themselves?

(16:02):
Because we all come into this lifewith lessons. Everybody is at a
different, you know, school oflife. What would you what would you
suggest to somebody who's completely lost andreally doesn't know themselves. What would be
a tip that you could say,here's what you should probably do or what

(16:22):
I did. Well, don't baseyourself or anything on other people or their
relationships. Thinking it's life is goingto be a certain way. You know,
I kind of grew up that waywatching television with Ozzie and Harriet and
these perfect families. And you know, when you look at their real lives
of these people, they were farfrom perfect. And nobody has a perfect

(16:44):
life, nobody. You know,sexuality, there's a whole realm of people
that are one hundred percent gay,one hundred percent straight, and then there's
a whole bunch of people that arein the middle somewhere. And what makes
you authentically happy, whatever it is, because that's your truth, and learn

(17:06):
to find comfort in that. Itmay not be what other people want.
It may not be what your parentswant or anyone, but that's how God
or the universe or who whatever youwant to call it, created you.
And that's what makes you different thananybody else, and that's when your success
will probably happen. You know,friend is very, very comfortable in her

(17:32):
own body. She is who sheis. She didn't try to change her
voice and as this as the worldtold her to do, you'll never work,
they said, with that voice.I thought, that's what made her
interesting, that she was so beautifuland had that funny voice. I said,

(17:52):
that's what makes you special. Ithink and I was right, Yeah,
no, And I think you know, everybody has a gift, and
so many people, uh in theindustry, they try to say, no,
you'll never work you you know,you know, you're you're you know.
I mean exactly what happened to JenniferHudson. Everybody told her she was

(18:15):
never gonna make it, and sheshe's, you know, four time winner
of everything. You know, she'sgot. Anybody who tells you you're not
gonna stop listening immediately. Nobody knowsnothing. Just live your life, live
your truth, do what you love, and it will happen. Something will

(18:40):
happen out of that. If youdo what you love, something will happen.
Don't listen to people who are goingto naysay or say you're doing it
the wrong way. You can learnfrom people, and people who are will
can teach you some great stuff.But as soon as someone says that's not

(19:00):
going to you can't do that,I would stop listening to that person.
What does the soul mean to you? I think it's your truth. I
think it's your inner truth. What'snot not covered by social things or what

(19:26):
we've learned, or you know,just what's so raw and truthful and every
time you can bring yourself back tothat. I find it for myself the
most powerful. Whenever I try tomake things happen, I don't know,

(19:49):
it doesn't seem to work for me. When I let go and just let
what's happening come to me, that'swhen I've been the most successful. Yeah,
you have to trust and leave andwhatever faith you work with. I
think that's part of the mission,is to activate that within yourself. What

(20:11):
is your ultimate mission in this life? Peter? I like to make people
laugh. It's so rewarding when Iwrite something or people come up to me
on the street and say, oh, I love an Annie when I'm down

(20:33):
or when I was sick, Iwould watch it every day and it would
make me feel good. Making peoplelaugh is such a powerful thing. It's
such a powerful emotion. I mean, I'm proven it helps cure you.
I think that was what that wasmy mission, to make people laugh and

(20:55):
feel good and entertain them. Ithink that's why I was put here.
Uh. If you were granted onewish for humanity, what would that be?
Health? Just that everything else youcan you can change, but health

(21:26):
sometimes and health you can too.But if you don't have health, you
have nothing. I agree, andI know it's it's it's you know it's
said, and people roll their eyeand yeah, we know that, we
know that, but you don't knowthat. You really don't, because I
until you get unhealthy and you realizehow nothing else matters. That fancy house

(21:53):
on the hills is borrowed. We'reall here borrowing stuff. None of it
is our can't take any of itwith you. It's nice that we can
borrow it. It's nice to borrowa pretty house. It's nice to have
a pretty car, But at theend of the day, that's going to
be here and you're not exactly exactly. So be kind to people. Help

(22:18):
people if you can, if someone'syou know, I find myself with road
rage sometimes and then I have tosay to myself, you know what,
if they want to get in frontof me, let them go, just
go have a good day. Idon't know what they're going through. Sometimes,
you know, I'm not that perfect, and I don't, but as

(22:40):
much as I possibly can, Itry to try to be kind to people.
And you know, if I couldchange something, I'd stay off the
internet more because it's so mean spiritedand I think unhealthy and if you could,

(23:00):
just if you read there is nothingsomebody can do that, somebody isn't
going to say something negative about it. And when you realize that this is
just people's opinions, it's, youknow, exact garbage. Really, do
you have peter a ritual? Iknow you, I know I see you

(23:21):
at my gym and you work out, But what do you do? Do
you meditate? Do you do anypositive thinking affirmations? What's what's the ritual
to keep yourself in balance? Iwrite a gratitude list every day mm hmm
of everything I'm grateful for, andwhen I'm riding the car, I'll make

(23:45):
lists again in my head. Buteverything I'm grateful for. The other day,
I was getting I was in trafficand I was getting really nervous,
and I thought I had just gotsome bad news about someone who's very,
very sick. And I thought tomyself, God, this person would love
to be sitting here in traffic withthe radio on warm in the rain,

(24:07):
and they're dealing with another reality rightnow. So you know, that's again
back to health. I do dothat. I do meditate. I only
do it for like ten minutes ata time, but it's enough. I
take these what they call power napps ten twenty minutes in the day where

(24:29):
I'll put on a meditation paraanet.You can just find them on your computer
for free. I eat pristine Lee. I try to, you know,
watch what I eat so it's healthy, organic foods. And I work out
every day for about an hour.And I try to be of service to

(24:53):
people if I can. Excellent,quick, quick, one word answers.
What does love mean to you?Smiles? What does God mean to you?
Peace? What is your favorite thingto do on a Sunday morning to

(25:19):
just be Peter, feel the sunon my face? Excellent? Great,
Peter, Well, you know,thank you so much for this time together.
And I wish you great success ineverything you do. You're you're already

(25:40):
in alignment to your your energy.But people can follow you on your Instagram
and that is at official Peter MarkJacobson. And you've been an inspiration.
Oh that's so sweet. Thank you, and I am very kind of you

(26:02):
to say so thank you for spendingthis time with me. And I'm Gary
Quinn. Join me for another episodeof Ready Set Live, Be Well,