It’s been 22 years since Charles Shaughnessy said goodbye to his role as Maxwell Sheffield opposite Fran Drescher in The Nanny, but the London-born actor is still amused by his daughter’s reaction to her romantic scenes. him in the comedy sitcom.
Shaughnessy has two daughters with his 38-year-old wife Susan Fallender – Jenny, 31, and Maddy, 26 – and as children, the girls were not fans of the series.
“One day I came home and Maddy was very sad,” Shaughnessy, 66, recalled in this week’s issue of PEOPLE magazine. “She saw the show that night and said, ‘Dad, don’t kiss girls.’ She wasn’t too interested in all of Fran and Maxwell’s chemistry.”
As for the possibility of a Nanny reunion, Shaughnessy said it’s a possibility.
“It’s going to be fun. It’s hard because now people see The Nanny, it’s 30 years old so we’re all different. I’m a lot older. She’s a lot older. The kids are a lot older. You also.” see that and you want to recreate that, but it’s impossible to recreate,” he said “The train has left the station. We’re going down the tracks for a while. You can’t really recreate that magic. You can create something else using some elements, but it won’t be the same.”
He continued: “In general, I have questions about reboots, but if someone comes up and asks me to revisit Maxwell Sheffield, I’ll be happy.”
Looking back, Shaughnessy says some of his fondest memories involve surprise appearances.
“What I like most about the show is the guest stars,” he said. “We start in episode 2 with Carol Channing and then go through all the Broadway [stars], Marvin Hamlisch and Burt Bacharach. Then we get to Elton John. We have Ray Charles as the boyfriend by Aunt Yetta. Elizabeth Taylor!
Shaughnessy continued: “I mean, the guest stars were incredible. Donald O’Connor, getting to dance with Donald O’Connor. It was the most thrilling thing. I think if someone asked me that I learned What got out of The Nanny more than anything on the other hand, was the fact that I was really fooling around with Donald O’Connor. And then you’ve got some great episodes that the surgical shave has brought the loudest laughter I’ve ever seen on set. We literally had to stop the performance to calm the audience down.”
Shaughnessy made his American television debut as Alistair Durban on General Hospital, which he credits with launching his career. “It was my first TV job,” he said. “I came here in 1983 and found myself on an American soap opera that was so foreign to me. It was like an animal that I didn’t understand or recognize, but I was fascinated .”
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Now he’ll return to daytime television as Shane Donovan in Peacock’s Days spinoff Beyond Salem and as villain Victor Cassadine on General Hospital, where he says he feels right at home.
“I like crazy stories,” he said. “I always find them interesting.”
