At age 81, the actress best known for playing Fran Drescher’s mother on the TV series “The Nanny” still struggles with her weight.
“I remember my life in terms of the diet I was on at the time and what everyone else was eating,” she said.
Taylor has turned her diet mistakes into a comedic one-woman show, “My Life on a Diet,” playing at Woonsocket Stadium Theater on Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18.
Written by her director husband, Joe Bologna, a Brown University graduate, the show reveals the diet advice she received from emerging Hollywood stars, including Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford.
“I was in Lee Strasberg’s class with Marilyn Monroe and because she was so beautiful, I asked her how she dieted,” she said. “She is on a grape diet. It’s just grapes. So I did that for a long time.”
She’s tried everything from the Vogue Champagne diet – two glasses of Cristal a day – to a vegan diet. Currently, she is working on “Dr. Oz two week rapid weight loss diet.
On the set of The Nanny, Taylor was famous for eating off of other people’s plates. So they started writing it into the script.
She has struggled with her weight since childhood. When she was 11 years old, her mother took her to her first nutritionist.
She said: “She wanted me to become a famous actress so she helped me follow a diet. “It’s been my whole life.”
Taylor said she achieved her goal of having the “perfect body” by becoming a character actor. “Mostly, I play the mother,” she said, “so I can be fat, I can be thin, it doesn’t really matter.”
While accepting her body is an ongoing struggle, Taylor said Bologna, her husband of nearly 50 years, has helped her see herself differently.
“Joe loves me no matter what,” she said. “I find it very strange. If I say, do I look fat in this outfit, he will say who cares?”
Performing the show also helped her heal. “Being someone forced into anything is something you will never get over,” she said. “But I can share that with others and I’m less hungry.”
That’s also what she learned from Monroe.
“When you’re hungry, it’s not always about the food,” Taylor said. “What she craves is love.”
