Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Two’s company

Most of you will know that a great art-in-the-movies-moments was when the creepy Grady twins (played by Lisa and Louise Burns) popped up in front of Danny as he raced around the corridors of the Overlook hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. “Come play with us Danny, for ever and ever.” The two girls were based on the Diane Arbus photograph Identical twins Roselle, N.J. Kubrick in fact studied photography under Arbus but always denied any relationship between his twins and the Arbus pair (good luck with that one).
Arbus photographed the twins (Cathleen and Colleen Wade) in 1967 when they were seven years old and attending a Christmas party for twins and triplets. They have since been tracked down and still live in New York. More about them and other who-are-they? revelations including one Arbus's famous baby shots being of ace TV reporter Anderson Cooper here.
Images: Top left,  Diane Arbus Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. and right Cathleen Mulcahy and Colleen Yorke (the Wade twins). Bottom, the Grady twins (Lisa and Louise Burns) before and after. 
You can read another OTN Arbus post here