Background

Ethnicity: Mary-Kate Olsen has Norwegian, English, German, 1/8th Italian, and distant French ancestry.

Mary-Kate Olsen was born on June 13, 1986, in Sherman Oaks, California, the United States, to Jarnette "Jarnie" Olsen and David "Dave" Olsen. While her mother was a personal manager, her father worked as a real estate developer and mortgage banker. She has a twin sister, Ashley, an older brother Trent, and a younger sister Elizabeth Olsen.

She also has an elder brother named Trent Olsen and a younger sister named Elizabeth Olsen. Elizabeth also went on to become an actress. Her parents got divorced in 1996 and her father later remarried. She has two younger half-siblings, Taylor and Jake, from their father's second marriage.

Education

Mary-Kate Olsen studied at Campbell Hall School, from which she graduated in 2004. Later Mary-Kate attended New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study with her sister Ashley.

Career

When she was nine months old, Mary-Kate Olsen’s career as an actor started. Along with Ashley, she was cast at the age of nine months to share the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House. The Olsen twins portrayed Michelle throughout the series' 1987-95 run. In the early-1990s, along with her twin sister, she started a limited liability company called Dualstar which produced a long string of TV movies and direct-to-video releases featuring the girls. The company was basically created to produce Mary-Kate and Ashley-branded products.

Under the name Dualstar Entertainment, they produced several straight-to-video movies, a line of musical detective videos entitled The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley, and the hugely successful You're Invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley's party tapes. They also introduced a series of companion books to accompany the videos. In 1993, Our First Video went to the top of the Billboard video music chart and was followed shortly by I Am The Cute One and Brother for Sale. The twins made their big-screen debut in 1995 in It Takes Two.

Two years later, they returned to television as guests in an episode of the famous sitcom Sister, Sister, opposite rival twin actors Tia and Tamera Mowry. Following their stint in Full House, the Olsen sisters starred in two other sitcoms, namely Two of a Kind and So Little Time. Both the shows ran for one season. They even voiced the lead characters in the animated series Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!

The former lasted one season while the latter ran for two seasons. These ventures, combined with an array of licensing deals for their names and likenesses, made Olsen wealthy at a young age. In addition to acting, the Olsens have become a huge force in girl marketing. Products bearing their names, including computer games, dolls, and an enormously popular clothing line for Wal-Mart, are estimated to generate about $1 billion in retail sales alone per year.

Mary-Kate and Ashley announced plans to attend New York University in the fall of 2004. That same year, they released their second feature film, New York Minute, and became full owners of Dualstar after they bought the minority shares of the company. The next year, the sisters began appearing together in the Badgley Mischka ad campaign. At the time, the company sold its merchandise in over 3,000 stores in America and 5,300 stores worldwide. In 2006, Mary-Kate Olsen made her first solo appearance as Molly Spence in a movie titled Factory Girl. Following Factory Girl, Olsen was next seen in the 2008 film The Wackness. The same year, she also made a guest appearance on the ABC comedy Samantha Who?

They also made their foray into the world of high-end fashion by launching a line of their own called The Row. In 2007, they announced another line of more contemporary clothing, Elizabeth and James, which is named after their sister and brother. They are also known for their more affordable lines StyleMint and Olsenboye.

In October 2008, the twins released the book Influence, a work introducing readers to the artists and designers who have influenced the Olsens over the last decade. Released through a division of the Penguin Young Readers Group, the work features figures such as Christian Louboutin, Lauren Hutton, and Bob Colacello. It became an instant best-seller, and the twins launched a promotional tour for the book.

In 2011, Olsen made her final acting appearance in the motion picture adaptation of Alex Flinn’s novel Beastly. Before appearing in the movie, the sisters had indicated that their interest lies in fashion. The twins realized that their real calling lay in fashion and hence officially retired from acting. In March 2012, both Mary-Kate and Ashley indicated their interest to retire as actresses in order to focus on their careers in fashion. Mary-Kate and Ashley felt that their futures were in fashion, and not in acting. They discussed wanting to open a store as one of their future fashion-based endeavors.

In 2012 the Olsen Twins won the top prize at the CFDA (Council Of Fashion Designers of America) Fashion Awards, and three years later they shared the Womenswear Designer of the Year for The Row. Nowadays, they still operate their fashion business.

Achievements

• 

  Mary-Kate Olsen and her twin sister, Ashley, became two of the most popular - and bankable - female personalities in America. They made their acting debut in 1987 at nine months old, sharing the role of the youngest daughter, Michelle Tanner, on the ABC family sitcom Full House. The series ran for eight years, during which the Olsen twins' careers took off.
  
  The Olsen twins’ acting in Full House won them numerous awards, including the Young Artists Award under the Best Young Actress Under Five Years of Age category in 1989. They also won the award under the categories; Outstanding Performance by an Actress Under Nine Years of Age in 1990 and Exceptional Performance by an Actress Under Ten Years of Age in 1992.
  
  In 1994, they won the Best Youth Actress award at Youth Artists Awards for Double, Double, Toil, and Trouble. In 1996 and 1999, the twins won Kids Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress and Favorite TV Actress respectively for It Takes Two.
  
  In 2012, the sisters won the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Award and Wall Street Journal’s Innovator of The Year Award. The duo won the CFDA Fashion Award in 2015, 2018, and 2019.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Influence

    (In the pages of Influence, Ashley and Mary-Kate take read...)

    2008

• movie

  • The Challenge

    (In their newest direct-to-video, Mary-Kate and Ashley emb...)

    2003
  • To Grandmother's House We Go

    (Julie and Sarah Thompson (Ashley & Mary-Kate Olsen) are h...)

    1992
  • Our Lips Are Sealed

    (After running afoul of a notorious gangster, Mary-Kate an...)

    2000
  • Passport to Paris

    (Mary-Kate and Ashley pack their bags for fun and plot a r...)

    1999
  • It Takes Two

    (From the Olsen twins, outspoken Amanda and quiet refined ...)

    1995
  • New York Minute

    (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen take their sister act to the n...)

    2004
  • How the West Was Fun

    (Olsen twins Mary-Kate and Ashley lead the battle of wits ...)

    1994
  • Beastly

    (Spoiled, shallow high school student Kyle (Alex Pettyfer)...)

    2011
  • Factory Girl

    (In 1965, Edie Sedgwick, the beautiful and wealthy young p...)

    2006
  • Double Double Toil and Trouble

    (Make way for spells, witches, wizards, and adventure! It'...)

    1993
  • Switching Goals

    (Mary-Kate and Ashley star as soccer-playing sisters who s...)

    1999
  • Winning London

    (Mary-Kate and Ashley get the royal treatment taking on th...)

    2001
  • When in Rome

    (Teenage sisters Charli and Lola are on the verge of an ex...)

    2002
  • Getting There

    (Taylor and Kylie Hunter are sweet sixteen and licensed to...)

    2002
  • Holiday in the Sun

    (Mary-Kate and Ashley are spending Winter Break in the Bah...)

    2001
  • Billboard Dad

    (One's a surfer. The other's a high diver. When these two ...)

    1998
  • The Wackness

    (NYC. Summer of 1994. The girls were fly. The music was do...)

    2008

• TV series

  • Full House

    (Set in San Francisco, Full House chronicles the adventure...)

    1987

Politics

Mary-Kate Olsen is a democrat. She also supported Barack Obama.

Views

The Olsen twins have constantly supported charitable organizations and Non-Governmental Organisations. In 2004, they were in the news for signing a pledge to grant the women workers in Bangladesh full maternity leave. These workers were working for their fashion line. The National Labor Committee praised the twins for their commitment to workers’ rights.

In 2011, Mary-Kate and Ashley designed an Olsenboye Change Purse and donated the money to Pennies From Heaven. The same year, they also teamed up with TOMS Shoes to design footwear for kids without shoes in more than 20 countries.

Quotations: "I wear weird things sometimes. I like to drink coffee. Neither of those things have anything to do with who I am."

"I'm a person that has high highs and low lows. A lot of things make me sad. Sometimes, it's almost easier to be sad. But you do end up finding a balance, and I think that as I get older, I am learning what I can do for myself to make me happy."

"The way I see it, you have to take every chance you get because there may not be another one. You have to learn from your mistakes because nobody's perfect. You have to laugh, love & live every day as if it's your last."

Personality

Mary-Kate got into horseback riding while filming the movie To Grandmother’s House We Go. She became a devoted equestrian. Since she was young, Mary-Kate has struggled with Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD.

Interests

• yoga

• Artists

  Jackson Pollock

• Sport & Clubs

  horseback riding, running

• Music & Bands

  Dave Matthews, Justin Timberlake

Connections

Olsen started dating French banker Olivier Sarkozy, the half-brother of former French president Nicholas Sarkozy, in 2012. The couple became engaged in 2014 and tied the knot the following November. The ceremony was held in New York City. Sarkozy has two children from a previous marriage. Olsen filed for divorce from Sarkozy in May 2020.

Father:

David "Dave" Olsen

Mother:

Jarnett Olsen

Sister:

Ashley Olsen

Sister:

Elizabeth Olsen

Brother:

Trent Olsen

half-sister:

Taylor Olsen

Half-brother:

Jake Olsen

Ex-husband:

Olivier Sarkozy

Acquaintance:

Cole Sprouse

Acquaintance:

Jared Leto

Friend:

Marc Jacobs

Acquaintance:

Oprah Winfrey

Friend:

Heath Ledger

In January of 2008, Olsen made headlines when her close friend, actor Heath Ledger, died of a prescription drug overdose. Olsen was silent on the matter, but sources say Ledger's staff contacted Mary-Kate through a speed-dial function on Ledger's cell phone. Olsen then called her security staff in New York to investigate the matter. Ledger was pronounced dead later that day.

References

• Mary-Kate & Ashley Our Story: Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen's Official Biography Here's your big chance to find out absolutely everything about the most famous twins on the planet! Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen give you the inside scoop on what it's really like to be superstars! Their whole family-including big brother Trent and little sis Lizzie. How they got started in show business.