Fran Drescher
Francine Joy Drescher (born September 30, 1957) is an American actress, comedian, writer and activist. She is best known for her role as Fran Fine in the hit TV series "The Nanny" (1993–99), and for her nasal voice and thick New York accent.
Milovan Glišić
Milovan Glišić was known mostly for his realist stories, but he also had a few which included horror motifs of Serbian folklore and superstition. The most famous one is "After Ninety Years" (1880), published some 17 years before Bram Stoker's "Dracula." Glišić based his story on the folktales and folk beliefs of villagers in the mountains of western Serbia along the Drina River valley. As such, it represents a treasure trove of ethnographic information and offers insights into authentic vampire lore before the creation of the modern pop culture vampire. The language Glišić employs is the vernacular of the common rural population in the mountainous regions of western Serbia along the Drina River valley in the 18th and 19th centuries. In contrast to the heavily ornamented and wordy prose so common among his contemporaries in Russia and the west, Glišić deliberately wrote in a sparse, plain, and raw style, accurately reflecting the mannerisms of village life and culture, an approach used by Mark Twain in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Similar to 19th century American author Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" or "Rip Van Winkle", Glišić mined local folklore to retell the story of the vampire Sava Savanović. As such, the text presents a wealth of ethnographic material. Glišić offers valuable insights into the roles of women and children in the traditional patriarchal Serbian "zadruga", a family-based agricultural cooperative that formed the basis of village life. The role of alcohol in hospitality, causing and settling disputes is also quite evident. And village gossip plays an important role in the everyday life of both men and women. Of particular note is Glišić's description of the folk beliefs surrounding vampires, how they are found, how they are killed, the forms they take, their physical appearance, etc. In this, Glišić accurately reflects folk beliefs still present today in many rural areas of the Balkans.