Billion dollar baby

The Olsen Twins have made films, sold toothpaste, make-up, mobile phones, clothes. William Leith meets Mary-Kate, the slightly thinner half of the $1-billion-a-year 'mary-kateandashley' global empire, now 20, and facing her greatest challenge so far: adulthood
Sat 4 Nov 2006 19.24 EST

'You smell like New York.'

The tiny, tiny woman who says this to me, as I walk into her suite at London's Soho Hotel, is Mary-Kate Olsen. Who? That's what people asked me when I said I was going to interview her.

Actually, she's one of the most famous people in the world, although in these days of niche-marketed celebrity it's entirely possible you haven't heard of her. She's huge, though, in the 'tween' market - girls aged between nine and 14. She's pretty big with teens, too. And now she's 20, and trying to swim in more difficult and dangerous waters - adult celebrity.

Mary-Kate is half of 'the Olsen Twins'. The other half is Ashley. As twins, they are fraternal, rather than identical, although they look very alike. They are not exactly actresses, although they have acted in around 50 straight-to-video films, and two proper movies. Neither are they exactly models, or singers, even though they have spent a lot of time being photographed, and they've released a load of albums. They are a product - or, more precisely, a brand. They are, it has been reported many times, both billionaires. I take my seat opposite Mary-Kate and note, again, how tiny she is. She has a round, soft-featured, big-eyed face, and is half-hiding behind a veil of streaky, rather unruly hair. She looks like she does in photographs - slim, verging on thin. She's one of those people you see wearing oversized sunglasses, looking weird and trendy. She is a size zero. She is, according to reports, either 5ft 1in or 5ft 2in. She supposedly weighs 90 pounds. She has the air of being painfully shy, perhaps a little frightened, or maybe just zoned out.

Mary-Kate and her sister have been famous since they were nine months old, when they auditioned to play the role of Michelle Tanner, on the ABC show Full House. (Twins are often used to play baby roles because babies' working hours are restricted by law; with twins, you get twice as much time.) Tellingly, Mary-Kate and Ashley got the part because they didn't cry or make a fuss when they were handled. As child stars, they did pretty well. But then they got proper management, and their new manager, Robert Thorne, took them into the stratosphere.

The way they made their millions is pretty simple. Thorne understood something about very young girls - if you made fashionable clothes for them, they would really, really want to wear them. Remember how the teenage market emerged in the Sixties? Well, this was the Nineties, and Thorne's company, Dualstar, based on Mary-Kate and Ashley, rode the wave of what came to be called the tween market. Mary-Kate and Ashley, you might say, are the poster girls for a new type of aspiration. They were the icebreakers for a whole new market.

At this point, if you're a feminist, you might look at the Olsen twins and groan with frustration. I know women who shake their heads in wonder at the pressures facing young females today - pressure to have the right outfit, the correct make-up, to co-ordinate your bag with your shoes, and so on. And these feminists make the point that this pressure, which leads to all sorts of traumas, including eating disorders, begins earlier and earlier. On the other hand, if you're not a feminist, but a marketing executive, you'd look at the phenomenon of the Olsen twins, and you'd be filled with awe.

Just look at the things the Olsen twins have helped to sell. There have been Mary-Kate and Ashley action figures and dolls (outselling every other celebrity doll, topped only by Barbie). There was a range of make-up. There were mobile phones, hairdryers, computer games, and books. How many books did they sell? Thirty-seven million. How much money did they make from their direct-to-video movie franchise? $750 million. And, of course, there were the tween clothes. Think crop-tops. And handbags. In a typical year, Mary-Kate and Ashley products would make $1 billion.

So here I am, sitting down to talk to Mary-Kate, who is, unusually, giving an interview without her sister, possibly as part of a general strategy to break out into new markets. Next to her, on the sofa, is the protective presence of a PR representative. And one of the things I'm here to talk about is Mary-Kate and Ashley's new product - two new 'fragrances'. One is called LA. The other is called NYC. This is clever, because the twins are famously 'bicoastal' - their hectic celebrity lives keep them hopping from west to east.

Before entering Mary-Kate's suite, I sprayed LA on one hand, and NYC on the other; I was going to test Mary-Kate, to see if she could tell the difference. And there's quite a difference. Both are said to 'capture' the twins' 'stylish bicoastal lifestyles: fast-paced, fashionable, contemporary'. LA, though, is softer, with hints of vanilla and mango. It's supposed to go with a long flowing skirt and flip-flops. NYC, on the other hand, is more punchy - bergamot and sandalwood. Both smells make me feel slightly panicky - NYC makes me think of churning nightclubs, people in oversized sunglasses packing into late-night cabs. But that's just me. Anyway, if you spray both on, the New York scent is the dominant one.

I open the door. I walk across the suite.

'You smell like New York,' says Mary-Kate.

There's a moment of shuffling, of slight nervous tension, as I switch on my tape recorder. Mary-Kate's people have been calling me. They want to know my 'angle'. What is it? I've spoken to some of them, and there's been an air of celebrity danger. Mary Kate, I have come to realise, is a figurehead in a vast commercial enterprise. And, like I said, this enterprise is entering a tricky phase - the transition of the twins from girlhood to adulthood. And, as I'll explain, it's not been easy.

So I've been talking to the public relations people, and their main thrust has been that I should go easy on Mary-Kate. One woman told me that she was like - I forget the exact wording - an animal: easily spooked. When spooked, she might close down entirely. The advice: before asking certain questions, always ask Mary-Kate if she's 'comfortable' answering them. Importantly, she won't talk about her 'personal life'. Nobody mentions anorexia. I will mention it later, because I think it's an important subject. But I will first ask Mary-Kate if she is comfortable.

We talk about the perfume. If in doubt, it has been suggested, I should talk about the perfume. Mary-Kate, it turns out, can't choose a favourite between the two scents. It's not as if one is more hers and one is more her sister's. She is relentlessly upbeat, like a politician who suspects a slippage in the polls. I ask her if she's busier now than she's ever been.

'This past year has been very busy,' she says, 'but all very positive. My sister and I have both been working on things that have been goals and dreams of ours for a while, so to make that possible and to follow through with them has been a huge accomplishment and a very satisfying feeling.'

I ask her to tell me about these recent things.

'I can't. But - stay tuned.'

Me: 'You have to tell me a bit.'

Mary-Kate is silent for a while. Then she says, 'I love fashion. I don't know what else to say.'

Me: 'So it's fashion.'


At this point, the woman in charge of public relations steps in. This is a sensitive issue, timing-wise (a week later, it is announced that the twins have a new designer clothing line). In the world of Mary-Kate and Ashley, you talk about things according to a strict timetable. You can't blame them, I suppose - it's one of the reasons for their success. For instance, I wanted to talk about the toothpaste and the dolls. But they don't have much to say about the toothpaste and the dolls any more. They're moving on, towards fashion, via perfume. I've caught them at the perfume moment.

What's a typical Mary-Kate day?

Mary-Kate ponders. I look at her, through her veil of hair. She's wearing diaphanous black clothing - baggy trousers and some kind of floaty top. She is, of course, a director of her company - it's said that nothing gets done without the twins' consent. But when I look at Mary-Kate, I think of the Mary-Kate doll, in its presentation box, posing forlornly behind the clear plastic window. That's a sad thought, though, and I try to banish it.

'I wake up,' says Mary-Kate, 'go to the offices, spend a few hours there, leave, run an errand, go to the showroom, get home, play with my dog, and then have a nice dinner with friends.'

But what about the work itself?

'It depends on what we have going on,' she says. 'Whether it's ... I mean, every day is different. When I'm in New York, I have to do everything by email. So everyone in our offices is usually talking over BlackBerries, which sounds weird to say. But we'll all be talking to each other, and talking about upcoming projects. We'll talk about everything that we have coming up, and things that are moving forward.'

She goes on: 'How we think we should change something. How we'd do something differently. How to strategise. Making sure everyone's happy.' Later, she says, 'I'd like to consider myself more of a creative director. I don't worry about making the deals and ... doing the actual deals. That's why we have people like Diane. [This is the woman who advised me on the toothpaste and the dolls.] We've been very fortunate to have very strong and brilliant people working for us.'

You get the picture. The company is great. Everything is great. So I change tack a little, and ask Mary-Kate to step back a little, and tell me the story of her life as she sees it.

She laughs. 'Can I come back to that?'

There is a silence. I would not, at this moment, be comfortable plunging into the anorexia issue. But some commentators might have seen an eating disorder as an inevitable part of Mary-Kate's life. Ashley, said to be the more practical, businesslike twin, has not succumbed. And to be fair, Mary-Kate has denied it, although not comprehensively. But how could she not be at risk? She's a female figurehead, responsible for a huge commercial enterprise; she's famously young and girlish and tiny. And then she turns into a woman. The tabloids keep taking her picture, sometimes with on-off boyfriend David Katzenberg, son of former Disney chief Jeffrey. In the pictures, she looks very thin.

According to reports, the trouble started around her 18th birthday. The usual story - she got thinner and thinner. She was pictured looking 'skeletally thin'. A picture captioned her legs 'Two Sticks'. Her bottom was described as 'No Butt'. She was 'admitted to an undisclosed facility for treatment relating to an eating disorder'. Her representative, Michael Pagnotta, said, 'This is a challenge that Mary-Kate has made a decision to face. This is a challenge she will meet.'

Back to the perfume. Mary-Kate says, 'I think it's another way for girls - or men - to enjoy Mary-Kate and Ashley and what we're all about.' Then she tells me, in some detail, about the different smells in the perfume. And then I say, 'You said these fragrances sum up what you're all about.'

'Did I say that?'


'Maybe it's not what we're all about ... it's a way for us to connect with our fans. And it's fun to do, which is why we do it.'

And after a while, we get on to the subject of acting, the many films Mary-Kate has acted in. This connects us to possibly the most powerful theme in Mary-Kate's life - the fact that she has grown up on camera. 'As we got older,' she says, 'the story plots became older.'

So what, among her movies, is her favourite story? 'Um, stories ... I wouldn't ... let's see. I never really based the movies that we were doing on the storyline. It's more about where we were, and the location, and enjoying that. I enjoyed myself in Italy, and I had fun going to work every day. And I think that's what was fun about the videos and the movies. We would go on these adventures, and when we really enjoyed it, it was fun to make.'

She's just finished a small role in Factory Girl, the film about Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's muse. But she won't talk about it. Those pesky PR schedules again.

And then I mention something that's been on my mind throughout this interview. Mary-Kate lives in a bubble, and yet there's this huge world, the normal world, outside the bubble.

'I find it very interesting, actually,' she says. 'I think about it all the time. Since I've been in it, and grew up in it, and I've been working since I was nine months old, I don't know any different. But I also ... I can't see the other side. It's hard for me to really see how big Dualstar is, or how big everything is. I have to be reminded. Because I'll ask a simple question sometimes of whether or not we can do certain things. And I'll get a look like I'm crazy.'

She sits there. Her public relations representative sits there. We look at each other. The room crackles with anxiety. I begin to ask her about her reported eating disorder. What's it like reading those reports? 'You grow a thick skin,' she says. Then she says, 'I'm happy and healthy.' Then she says, 'I wouldn't believe everything you read.'

I shuffle around, reeking of New York. Where will Mary-Kate be in five years? I can't imagine. Once again, we touch on her upcoming fashion project. Once again, she reminds me she can't talk about it.

'But stay tuned,' she says.

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