If you were alive during the '90s, there's a pretty good chance you've seen the smiling
faces of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
But behind those smiles were two young girls thrust into the Hollywood industry before
they even learned to walk.
Thanks to growing up in front of TV audiences on the hit sitcom Full House, the twins were
able to leverage their fame into a direct-to-video empire before a brief stint as tabloid fixtures
and a box-office bomb made them flee from the spotlight.
"Cool to the max"
So let's take a look back at the Olsen twins' journey from tiny entertainment powerhouses
to reclusive fashion designers who've done everything they can to distance themselves
from their past.
Accidental beginnings
When the twins landed their first and most famous role as infant daughter Michelle Tanner
on Full House, they were barely nine months old.
The two shared the part so producers had a workaround for strict child labor laws, and
apparently the whole thing happened by accident; Their mom Jarnette Olsen being friends with
a casting agent.
"Hi mom, we love ya."
When she found out her friend's agency was looking for twins, she sent in a photo and
got the fateful audition call for her girls, who immediately won over producers.
But not everyone on the set of the show was impressed by those dimples.
"Are you sure!?"
Early termination
Considering they weren't even a year old at the time they began the show, the Olsen twins
weren't consummate professionals from day one.
John Stamos, who played Uncle Jesse on the show, got so fed up with their infantile antics
that he had them "removed from the set."
"Yeah, toddler veterans.
We'll get right on that."
The actor later admitted,
"It's sort of true that the Olsen twins cried a lot.
It was very difficult to get the shot.
So I [said], 'Get them out…!'"
"They brought in a couple of unattractive redheaded kids.
We tried that for a while and that didn't work.
[Producers] were like, alright, get the Olsen twins back.
And that's the story."
Perhaps ironically, it was Stamos who made the most public stink about the twins deciding
not to join Netflix's Fuller House reboot decades later.
Baby teeth
Since Mary-Kate and Ashley were twins and not clones, they didn't lose their baby teeth
at the same time, so the twins had to wear dentures to make sure their teeth matched
in their traded-off scenes.
It's hard to imagine a pre-schooler being fit for dentures, but that was the case for
these two.
Subsequent split
While it's true that Mary-Kate and Ashley's mother accidentally got the ball rolling on
their TV fame thanks to her casting agent friend, there are conflicting reports on which
of the twins' parents was more interested in keeping their financial success going.
The Olsen twin's parents divorced in 1995, and if the Unauthorized Full House Story is
to be believed, their split was due in part to the girls' growing entertainment empire.
According to the show's account of the situation, their mother was horrified by the mega-money
her daughters were making thanks to their burgeoning careers, while their father was
delighted to rake in his daughters' dough.
Hindsight is 20/20
Mary-Kate has since spoken candidly about her early acting career, and while she might've
seemed bubbly and delighted at the time, she doesn't look back on the experience fondly.
In fact, Mary-Kate refers to her time in front of the camera with her sister as "little monkey
performers."
She told Marie Claire magazine, "I look at old photos of me, and I don't feel connected
to them at all.
I would never wish my upbringing on anyone."
Mary-Kate's regretful feelings about her acting days could explain why the twins' younger
sister Lizzie, now better known as Marvel actress Elizabeth Olsen, stopped appearing
in the twins' movies when she was only 10 and focused on school.
Even more telling, not even two years later, the cracks in the Olsen twins' smiling public
facade would become too large to hide after their first attempt at a feature film, the
critically despised New York Minute, crashed and burned.
Personal struggles
In the weeks leading up to the twins' 18th birthday, Mary-Kate had been publicly denying
rumors that her increasingly skinny frame was the product of an eating disorder.
But behind the scenes, her family had been struggling to get Mary-Kate help for years.
Ultimately, Mary-Kate's father and a therapist had her committed to a treatment facility
right after her high school graduation, and she recovered.
She later told Elle,
"Everybody is going to go through hard times.
It's a part of life.
I think the hardest part to get to is that point of asking for help or reaching out to
other people and being honest with yourself."
Pulling the plug
While the Olsen twin's direct-to-video series is well remembered, less known is the fact
that they still attempted to pursue TV fame after Full House ended in 1995.
But both of their starring shows, So Little Time and the animated series Mary-Kate and
Ashley in Action!, never made it past the first season.
Instead, the twins pulled the plug on their acting careers and headed for college at NYU.
Granted, Mary-Kate popped up on Weeds and in the 2011 film Beastly, but the Olsen twins
were done appearing together on-screen.
They retreated to the world of fashion and haven't looked back.
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