Mary-Kate Olsen It’s hard to even mention the name Mary-Kate Olsen without mentioning it alongside that of her twin sister, Ashley Olsen. Only recently have they begun business pursuits separate from each other. Starting with the television comedy series, Full House, the twins always acted together, and even went to college together. Yet while Mary-Kate has had more separate business pursuits, she has also had more scandals. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were born in Sherman Oaks, California on July 13, 1986, and by the time they were the age of five months, they had already received the role of Michelle Tanner on Full House. For years because of child labor laws, the acting business has given children’s roles to sets of twins. While it seems to play the same person they must be identical twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley are actually fraternal. As they grew older on the show, their teeth grew in differently, and they wore fake teeth to disguise this fact. To fully split their time, Mary-Kate acted in the more comedic scenes while Ashley took on the more dramatic roles. The girls called the Full House cast by their character names so as not to confuse them when they were little. Having Bob Saget play their father and John Stamos as their uncle for the first eight years of life surely made an impact on them. To this day they are still very close to John Stamos.
It seemed only a matter of years before the popularity of “The Olsen Twins” caught on, and nearly everyone knew who they were. In fact their TVQ popularity rating was so high, only actor/comedian Bill Cosby topped them on the charts. Before long Mary-Kate and Ashley had dolls, books, and other merchandise, all being sold with their image on it. By the time Mary-Kate and Ashley were 6 years old they were starring in their own made-for-TV movie, To Grandmother’s House We Go, alongside veteran comedic actress Rhea Perlman. One year later they starred in a made-for-TV Halloween production, Double, Double, Toil, and Trouble, starring with a different comedic actress, Chloris Leachman, as she tackled a dual role herself, playing sisters. When Full House ended its run in 1995, Mary-Kate and Ashley already had enough pull in the business to keep them going. They had two separate video series going, being sure their young fans would not be missing them too much – The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley and You’re Invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley’s. A few of these videos even had them starring alongside their younger sister, Elizabeth Olsen. Along with their video series, Mary-Kate and Ashley continued their made-for-tv movie success in It Takes Two, alongside Kirstie Alley, and Billboard Dad, Switching Goals, and Passport to Paris. In 2001 the twins starred in their own television series, So Little Time, a series about the trials and tribulations of teenage twins in California. The American television-watching public, however, seemed to have tired of the wholesome image, and the show was short-lived.
To the surprise of many, instead of continuing their acting, Mary-Kate and Ashley enrolled in New York University, following the path of some other actresses who had done the same at their age, such as Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields. It was in college that the girls began to go their separate ways. After just one year, Mary-Kate moved back to the west coast, while Ashley stayed back in New York. This was also around the time that Mary-Kate hit the scandal sheets. She enrolled in a treatment facility for anorexia, despite reports that she was there because of a drug problem. On the positive side, the New York Times had declared Mary-Kate a fashion icon, being the first to start the “homeless” trend of long skirts, large sweaters, and boots. This manner of dress became popular in Britain once the style was adopted by Kate Moss. Because of this fashion sense, she and Ashley began appearing in ads for Badgley Mischka. Mary-Kate’s personal life has had its ups and downs as well. She embarked on a romance with Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III. But once this romance ended he took up with Paris Hilton, which caused a definite rift between the two actresses who up to this point had been cordial. |
