Multimedia -> Pictures -> HQ Allure Magazine scans, May 2004

Related

Search for more Allure

Allure Magazine photoshoot video screencaps

Video clip - "Allure Photoshoot"

Allure article transcript typed by Heather

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have starred in 28 movies, recorded two platinum albums, launched a multimillion-dollar clothing company - all before they could vote. What will they do when they turn 18?

Across the street from the Debbie Allen Dance Academy out in Culver City, California, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, those multifaceted fraternal twins with a multimillion-dollar empire, are squatting next to a couple space heaters in an overly air-conditioned photography studio. It is now early afternoon, and they have been here at the Allure photo-shoot - the first to arrive - since 7.50 this morning. In the middle of their last semester of high school, they have loads of homework to do today after they stop off at Dualstar Productions, their privately held company, for business meetings about their upcoming product launches in Japan and Germany. An Entertainment Tonight television crew is also hovering, waiting for it's time with the two. Their perfectly made-up faces, eerily aglow in the warmth from the heaters, cannot hide their exhaustion as they hunker down for a wobbly rest atop grown-up spike heels. They are wearing Alexander McQueen gowns that seem to be conjured from the tails of a couple mermaids. Ashley yawns, Mary-Kate pouts. Though their eighteenth birthday is June 13, the sisters are still a tad more tadpole than temptresses of the sea. The studio's sound system is piping in an old Micheal Jackson CD. They bob their heads to the "Billie Jean" beat.

Finally finished with the photo session, they join me outside on a cloudless California January afternoon. Mary-Kate, longing to relax, suggests we sit right down in the parking lot in the shade offered by a silver Mercedes convertible. "We drive big trucks ourselves," she says, refusing to name the make of their SUVs as she crosses her legs in a lotus-like position on the asphalt. "We don't have a mary-kateandashley car for sale," she says matter-of-factly, as if such a concept is not out of the realm of possibility. "So it would be OK, but in general we don't like to talk about the products we use."

Mary-Kate is the funkier of the two sisters, trendier, her tresses now darkened to a kind of auburny brunette, like an Irish setter going through a punk phase. ("I always referred to them as my two hot blondes," says Dennie Gordon, who directed the girls in their new comedy of errors for Warner Bros., New York Minute, which is being released on Mother's day weekend. "Then I was screwed: Natalie Wood showed up.") Mary-Kate wears huge maroon-framed sunglasses, and her beaded moroccan slippers give off a sparkly glint. Her ripped jeans are rolled into two huge cuffs, and she has layered two tank tops beneath her old blue blazer. Her right wrist is wrapped with bracelets and personal talismans she never removes, claiming they enhance three things in her life: love, freedom, and power. When she and Ashley turn 18, they'll both begin to fell their own true power as partners in a worldwide conglomerate; on their birthday, they will officially be co-presidents of Dualstar, and have legal access to their vast wealth, which has been estimated to exceed $150 million for each of them.

"That's just names and numbers. Names and numbers," Mary-Kate says. "I'll never feel the power of who i am. I changed my hair color thinking no one would notice me. When I'm not with my sister (and people recognize me), I just deny who i am. But then i'll be at Sav-on and not have any cash and have to give them a credit card. So i say, "Sorry, I lied." then i just run out."

She and her sister will soon be running all the way to Manhatten, where they will attend the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, at New York University, a program that allows students to tailor their own curriculum. Mary-Kate has expressed an interest in photography, directing, and furthering her foreign-language skills. Ashley has decided to focus on film, fashion, business, and psychology. "I haven't felt one sense of fear about starting this new chapter in my life," Mary-Kate says. "I'm very ready to move on." Has it been difficult for her and her sister being thought of as a brand for all these years instead of real people? "Well, it is something we created," she tells me with a dismissive politesse. "It's weird if you think about it really hard, but i don't think we need to think about it really hard," she says offering perhaps the Zenlike secret to the sisters' success.

Ashley possesses more sufer-girl chic than Mary-Kate. She wears big Raybans and a white hooded sweatshirt with her jeans. Her blonde hair falls gorgeously across her face, and her lips are smeared with a beige gloss. "I'm sure for someone who hasn't grown up like this, it would be odd," she says, joining our conversation. "But they were making Michelle dolls when we were on Full House," she says, mentioning the character whom they took turns playing for nine years starting when they were a few months old. "We would see big stalls of ourselves at toy stores, so we're just used to it."
Someone else who spotted those stalls was Robert Thorne. When the girls were four he was hired by their father, Dave Olsen, to be their lawyer, and he quickly upped their weekly pay from a reported $4,000 to $25,000 an episode. When they were in first grade, they made their first TV movie for ABC, and it nearly beat 60 minutes in the ratings. The network wanted more made-for-TV films from them, and Thorne came up with the idea to create their own company, Dualstar, which would furnish ABC with the films, for which Mary-Kate and Ashley would serve as executive producers. They became, at age six, the youngest people in Hollywood ever to be given that title. From then on, Thorne, now 48, has been a kind of business Svengali for the girls; however, he can't go forward with any decision that isn't approved by the twins. With his guidance, they have approved many - including 28 direct-to-video movies that have sold more than 30 million copies, and chalked up more than $750 million in sales, two albums that have gone platinum, a website, a video-games venture, a contract with Mattel to produce a line of dolls, a library of mary-kateandashley books, and a lifestyle and fashion line sold at Wal-Mart that includes cosmetics, toddler clothing, plus-size designs, and a plethora of accessories. In 2003 the mary-kateandashley line at Wal-Mart exceeded $500 million in sales.

"They can be tough with me as only 17-year-old females can be tough," Thorne tells me, calling from Tokyo, where he is in negotiations to sell mary-kateandashley products through the retail chain Seiyu. "I respect their approach to business more than most adults I've dealt with. They are very firm and open-minded and rational. Four years ago, I told them it was time to start a Fashion line. They said, "Yeah, cool. We'll sell it at Fred Segal,"" he mimics, naming the trendiest of Los Angeles boutiques. "I said, "How 'bout Wal-Mart?" At first they pouted. But when i explained that Fred Segal had two stores and Wal-Mart had 3,000, they began to understand. "You mean we'll be creating an industry instead of a fashion line?" they asked me, as their little eyes lit up. They got it."

Yet there's bound to be tension as the girls get older and begin to make adult decisions. "There is tension now," Thorne admits. "Mary-Kate and Ashley do not want to be held out as role models. They are not perfect by any means. They are normal 17-year-olds. They are brands attempting to become movie stars. They are becoming young adults. They want to be perceived as such."

"Would you ever do a n u d e scene?" I ask Ashley.
"Probably not - basically because I'm too self-conscious," she replies. "And i wouldn't do it for the money. They couldn't offer me enough money. But it's not making a decision based on what people might think of us." Is she comfortable being a kind of cultural sweetheart for conservative Christian organizations like True Love Waits, which praises the virtues of v i rg in ity until marriage? "[that's] great," she says. "We are good people. It's not like that part of us is made up.....Everybody does hold onto that wholesome image of us though. But we're allowed to grow up. Hopefully, people won't freak out. I feel so bad for Britney Spears. She's just trying to grow up from being a girl. It's hard."

Mary-Kate reaches over and puts a finger to Ashley's lips. She slowly, firmly smoothes out the excess of gloss. For a long moment they search out the other's eyes hidden behind their glamourously supersize sunglasses. Mary-Kate then takes the bit of gloss that's adhered to her finger and just as slowly smears it on her own slightly open mouth.
Though rather simian as youngsters ("We sure were," Ashley agrees. "It could have gone either way"), they have developed a sunny, natural loveliness. Each has a steady boyfriend. Ashley's is Matt Kaplan, now a Columbia University football player she first met in high school, and Mary-Kate's is David Katzenberg (who has his own twin sister), the son of Dreamworks SKG founder Jeffrey Katzenberg. The protective bubble of their serious relationships coupled with their busy schedules seems to give them neither the time nor the inclination to contemplate the innumerable Internet sites devoted to counting down the days until they are of a legal age. The girls actually laugh when we talk about the salacious comments about them made by Howard Stern and his ilk. "When we were doing this photo shoot, we were straddling each other," Ashley says. "The photographer was just taking a close-up double portrait from the neck up, but if everybody knew we were s t r a d d l i ng each other...oy vay....All those d i r t y old men out there....but i listen to Howard Stern all the time. I think he's hilarious. When we were about seven we were on his show, but we would only do it if his own kids were in the room too. I'd go back on his show now, but we......." Mary-Kate: "...wouldn't let him...." "...go to that place," Ashley says. "We wouldn't answer those kinds of questions. Most of the time he's s i c k, but it's so funny. He's got a really good sense of humour."

Their father, a commercial real-estate developer who sits on Dualstar's board, seems to accept the fact that his daughters are the object of so much national attention that borders on the prurient. "That's the kind of world we live in," he says. "It's unavoidable." Do they ever act like little divas at home? "No, they know they're blessed, but they leave all that behind. I'm not exactly a strict father, but i do like to say no a lot. I've got six kids running around here," he says, mentioning their older brother, Trent, 20, who goes to UCLA, their younger sister, Lizzie, 25, and Half-sister and half-brother Taylor,7, and Jake, 6.

Dave Olsen remarried after he divorced Mary-Kate and Ashley's mother, Jarnette, when the twins were nine. The divorce was one of the only downturns in the girls? otherwise charmed life. But they even put a positive spin on that. ?People have to be happy,? says Ashley. ?That means parents, too.?
Right now the biggest problem the Olsens seem to be facing is what to get each other for their eighteenth birthday. We bat around a few ideas. ?How about a private jet?? I suggest, surprised that they don?t have one already. ?Here?s a name, Mary-Kate,? I say, echoing her earlier nonchalance. ?Here?s a number. Gulfstream G550.?
?I don?t know,? says Ashley, giggling. ?We?re kind of looking into it.?

Headlines

Comments