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Name: Mary-Kate Olsen
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Date of Birth:
June 13, 1986
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Place of Birth:
Sherman Oaks, California, USA
Mini-bio:
Born June 13th, 1986, in Sherman Oaks, CA, Mary-Kate Olsen is one-half of the multimillion-dollar franchise known as The Olsen Twins. Long before the pair had unwittingly indoctrinated themselves into... read more the hearts and minds of adoring pre-pubescent girls (and vaguely creepy fraternity boys), however, Mary-Kate and her sister, Ashley Olsen, were simply the youngest members of the long-running sitcom Full House, which hired them just a year after their birth. Because of U.S. child-labor laws, the girls took turns playing Full House's resident cute baby girl, Michelle Tanner. Before long, Mary-Kate and Ashley had their own catchphrase ("You got it, dude"), which reverberated in the ears of Uncle Jesse (John Stamos) and throughout American audiences loudly enough to merit a TVQ rating -- the sitcom world's most prominent popularity contest -- second only to Bill Cosby. Mary-Kate continued her part-time role as Michelle until Full House came to a close in 1995, though she took time out to film several family-oriented straight-to-video releases, including To Grandmother's House We Go (1992), Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (1993), and How the West Was Fun (1994). Luckily for Olsen, the demise of Full House hardly marked the end of her career. Along with her sister, Mary-Kate's success in the family-oriented video market planted the seeds for what would eventually become a multimillion-dollar empire with enough punch to land the twins the 83rd spot in Forbes magazine's list of the world's 100 most powerful celebrities in 2003. 1995 marked Mary-Kate's big-screen debut as the scrappy, orphaned twin sister in It Takes Two, a thinly veiled send-up of The Parent Trap opposite Kirstie Alley and Steve Guttenberg. Olsen also participated in the short-lived 1998 television series Two of a Kind, which, like Full House, followed a widower's efforts to raise his children. This time, however, Mary-Kate and Ashley's identical status served as a gimmick rather than an irksome legal necessity. (The producers of Full House had insisted on crediting the twins as "Mary Kate Ashley Olsen" in an effort to hide their sisterhood.) By the early 2000s, Mary-Kate had established herself as part of a verifiable marketing gold mine and, oddly enough, the not-quite-legal forbidden fruit of American pop culture. In addition to a juvenile book series, magazine, scads of videos and DVDs, countless talk show appearances, The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley TV series, a clothing line, perfume, and an estimated combined net worth of more than 300-million dollars, the girls also attracted the unwanted attention of hundreds of decidedly less-wholesome Internet sites counting the days until their 18th birthday. The girls deemed this attention, as well as their number 61 ranking in For Him Magazine's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" in 2003 as, simply, "gross." After a bit part in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle that same year, Mary-Kate both co-produced and starred in New York Minute (2004), which follows -- what else? -- a set of identical twins whose attempt at a day in Manhattan lands them in the midst of a high-profile political scandal. Though the girls insist that the only way they want to work is side by side, Mary-Kate does have one distinctive honor: Sans Ashley, she was voted the 20th most-wanted young star by the folks at Access Hollywood. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
Mary-Kate Olsen mini-bio: She and her twin sister, Ashley Olsen, were born June 13, 1986 in Sherman Oaks, California to David and Jarnette Olsen. The twins began their acting career in 1987 when they were chosen to play the role of Michelle Tanner on a new television series, "Full House" (1987/I). The show became a hit with books, dolls, and other merchandise being sold to promote it, and during the years the show was on the air, the Olsen twins had a TVQ (popularity rating) second only to Bill Cosby. The twins continued to share the role through the show's end in 1995. During the years of "Full House" (1987/I) they teamed up with Robert Thorne and created Dualstar, their production Company. Soon they had recorded an album titled Brother For Sale and a music video called Our First Video (1993) (V). In the years that followed they starred in three straight to video movies, To Grandmother's House We Go (1992) (TV), Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (1993) (TV), and How the West Was Fun (1994) (TV). They also created their own video series called The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley, in which they were pint size detectives who would "solve any crime by dinner time." They also have another successful video series, You're Invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley's and both video series continue to be popular today. In 1995 they made their big screen debut in It Takes Two (1995) and in the next few years they continued to make videos in their series. In 1998 they returned to television in the short-lived series, "Two of a Kind" (1998). They made a few more tv movies, appeared on many talk shows, and began to work on a new tv series titled "So Little Time" (2001). They currently live in California with their mom, older brother Trent and younger sister Lizzie. They visit their dad, stepmom, Mackenzie and step siblings, Taylor and Jake.
