Olsen Twins Stay Paired to Success

By: Jefferson Graham

They mine a huge fan base beyond series.

They are, to hear their handlers tell it, just two normal girls, with friends, sleep-overs, and trips to the mall routine parts of their lives.

But those same handlers boast that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are "America's No. 1 children's television, film, video, record and book franchise!"

The twins, last seen on series TV in ABC's Full House, have returned to the venue that made young girls adore them, starring in the network's new "TGIF" show, Two of a Kind. (Fridays, 8pm ET/PT).

America's kids, and their parents, turned out in force to see 12 year old Mary-Kate and Ashley back in prime time. The show's premiere won its time slot decisively last Friday, attracting 11.8 million viewers.

TN Media analyst Steve Sternberg says ABC was wise to do business with the Olsen girls again. "Before, they were popular because they were on Full House; now, they're popular on their own, and people will tune in just to see them."

Their appeal is that "they're cute. Plus, the show is well done. It doesn't just focus on kids, but the entire family, and will help ABC expand their audience on Fridays."

In real life, Mary-Kate and Ashley are the daughters of mortgage banker David and homemaker Jarnette, who are divorced. The seventh-graders live with younger sister Lizzie and older brother Trent, and attend private school when they're not being tutored on the set at Warner Bros.

They began working on Full House in 1987, when they were just 9 months old. When the show was cancelled in 1995, Hollywood never expected to hear from them again, says Robert Thorne, the lawyer that oversees their careers.

The Olsens had a deal with ABC to develop a new series around the girls, but the project was shelved because the entertainment division's then-president Ted Hurbert didn't want another show featuring kids. Thorne concentrated on other outlets for the girls and was able to cut deals for them to star in feature films, make videos and albums and appear on covers of books based on their video personas.

Although the movie they made after House - 1995's It Takes Two - didn't set the box office afire, it did gangbusters in video, becoming one of Warner Home Video's best sellers. The Olsens' own series of videos - which features the girls in ballet class, horseback riding and solving mysteries - has run up sales in the hundreds of millions.

Thorne has already cut a deal with Harper Entertainment to publish six Two of kind books, beginning in December, regardless of whether ABC decides to renew the show beyond 13 episodes.

The twins were waiting for the right TV series to come up when ABC, which was floundering on Fridays with kid-oriented shows such as You Wish and Teen Angel, proposed a new "TGIF" show. Ashley says "the people" who take care" of the girls' careers settled on Two of a Kind. "We like it," Mary-Kate says. "If we didn't like it, it probably wouldn't have happened."

Thorne says producers Bob Boyett, Tom Miller and Michael Warren pitched the concept to the girls and waited their approval. Once they signed off on it (the Olsen Twins' Dualstar Productions is listed as a producer), Miller/Boyett/Warren went to work on developing the show with ABC.

The girls don't obsess on their business empire - or the legions of girls their age who read books about the mythical adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley.

"We've been doing it for so long, we don't really think about it," Mary-Kate says. "We're just lucky kids to do what we do."

And why do they like to act? "It's fun," Ashley says. "Like, if we didn't do it, we'd probably still be auditioning for things."

Boyett discovered the girls at 7 months, when their mom brought them to audition for Full House. "I thought they were unique," he says. "They had big, expressive eyes. They were friendly and would listen when you spoke to them."

He went on to work with them for the run of the series and says that in the three years since House, "They're changed a lot. They're a lot more poised, they're increased their acting abilities and are more mature. They're young teenagers now."

And what if this attempt to move the Olsen Twins' audience from post-Barney to pre-Dawson's Creek tanks? What will happen to Mary-Kate and Ashley's empire of books, videos, movies and records?

"The franchise never stops." Thorne says, "It never slowed down, and only grew by leaps and bounds after their first network series went off the air, despite the industry's admonition that their career was over."