  The fraternal twin sisters Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen were born on Friday June 13, 1986 under the sign of Gemini. Ashley is older by a few minutes. They have an older brother Trent and a younger sister Lizzie. Their parents,former ballet dancer Jarnette Olsen-Fuller and mortgage banker Dave Olsen, divorced in 1995. Dave Olsen quickly remarried to McKenzie Taylor (the wedding was not attended by Ashley) and they got two children: Taylor and Jake. The twins live in a suburb of Los Angeles.At the age of six months, their mother brought them to a modelling agency where they rolled into an audition for the new developed sit-com Full house. They got the shared part of Michelle Elizabeth Tanner in the series, because of child labour laws the producers wanted to have a set of twins on that part. The series premiered in 1987, and was almost cancelled after one season. However, ABC invested a bit more time and money in it and suddenly the show really took off and became a major hit until it was suddenly cancelled in 1995. During the middle seasons, the mothers of Candace Cameron and Jodie Sweetin, the other child stars in the series, noticed how Michelle was the star of the show, and they advised Dave Olsen to arrange better payments for his children. He hired Robert Thorne;an attorney specialized in showbiz, to take care of this. Thorne did, but he also noticed the potential the twins had in them.With the dramas around child star McCauley Culkin fortune still in the tabloids, Thorne wanted to set up a construction that prevented commercial exploitation of Mary-Kate and Ashley by anyone other than the twins themselves. He founded a company called Dualstar, and he made Mary-Kate and Ashley the shareholders and thereby owners of it. This construction resulted into two six-year-old producers, the youngest producers in the history of Hollywood. They were entitled to all the profit made from any movie they would star in. And starring they did. During the last three years of Full house, Dualstar carefully explored the markets of home video with three videos called Our first video, The case of the logical I ranch and The case of Thorn mansion, and they explored the market of the TV movies with five productions: To grandmother's house we go, Double, double toil and trouble, How the west was fun and Mystery at the high seas (which was released also on two separate videos: The case of the sea world adventure and The case of the mystery cruise). Dualstar was also working together with Rysher on Mary-Kate and Ashley's first big screen movie, It takes two, which premiered in the USA on November 17, 1995. Next to all this videos and movies, Dualstar produced music and books. All products by Dualstar were starring or based on Mary-Kate and Ashley, or characters they played. As said, Full house was cancelled in 1995, and critics expected it to be the end of the careers of Mary-Kate and Ashley.They were wrong. Dualstar kicked in high gear with many new releases. The adventure video series was expanded with seven new cases, making a total of eleven, and a new series of ten musical party videos was launched under the name You're invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley's. Movies longer than 30 minutes were no longer taken in production for a while. However, that changed in 1998, when they released a new movie, direct to video. This movie, Billboard dad, was the first in a completely new style of movies - targeted at an older audience and focussed even more around Mary-Kate and Ashley.During the same time period, Mary-Kate and Ashley also starred as Mary-Kate and Ashley Burke in a new sit-com called Two of a kind, which only lasted one season on ABC.
Scoring better on ABC was their new TV movie about soccer, Switching goals, in 1999 although ABC delayed the airing of this must-do-because-of-a-contract-movie several times. This made that the release of their new direct to video movie Passport to Paris happened even before the airing of Switching goals, although Dualstar planned otherwise. Passport to Paris, which included Mary-Kate and Ashley's first on screen kisses, was the first movie in which the twins were not only the main stars, but also the executive producers. After Switching goals, Mary-Kate and Ashley left ABC for the Fox Family channel. One year later, in November 2000, the twins appeared in their first "action" movie, Our lips are sealed, which was taped in Sydney, Australia. Although Dualstar tried to present this direct to video production as an action movie, it was more like a high quality comedy than anything else was. Soon after the taping of Our lips are sealed, the twins also taped a movie called Winning London, which was a lot more serious. It was released in March 2001, direct to video. On the same day, Dualstar also published its first movie on DVD: Our lips are sealed was the one to get that honour. In between the release of these two movies, many things happened out side the movie department. Dualstar launched a teen lifestyle magazine and a fashion line for girls, all carrying the new introduced mary-kateandashley brand name. A new sit-com on the Fox family channel started in June 2001. In this show, called So little time, Mary-Kate and Ashley play Riley and Chloe Carlson. The show has many direct relations to Winning London. The show had a very sputtering start, and nearly got cancelled after only twelve episodes, when ABC took over the Fox family channel. Meanwhile, the twins released Holiday in the sun, on both video and DVD. Plans now are for more DVD's, a new movie (in Japan?) and a Sweet sixteen bookseries
      
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