Long before Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson won the hearts of fans by appearing in a series of movies that played upon classic twin tropes, there was another set of famous twins, Lee and Lyn Wilde. The only set of identical twins to have contracts with a major movie studio in the 1940s, the Wilde twins originated the twin-based plot twists and shared the screen with Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and Gordon McRae. Let’s learn about the lives and careers of these wonder twins from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Even the birth of the twins, Lee and Lyn Wilde is remarkable. Lee, the older twin, was born just before midnight on October 10, 1922. Sister Lyn arrived just after midnight, in the wee morning hours of October 11. It is unusual for twins to be born on different days, though it does happen. The girls grew up singing in their church choir. As teens, they sang on a local radio station and in live shows in their hometown of East St. Louis, Illinois. Bright as well as beautiful, the twins skipped a couple of grades in school and graduated from high school in 1939 when they were 16 years old.
Lee and Lyn Wilde started their entertainment careers as band singers and performed with Bob Crosby. As vocalists with the Charlie Barnet Band, the girls made their movie debut when the band performed a song in the 1942 film, Juke Box Jenny. Audiences were captivated by the talented identical twins. This led to them being cast in the 1942 Judy Garland film, Presenting Lily Mars. After this success, the Wilde twins signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The studio cast Lee and Lyn Wilde in their next movie, the first one to really showcase their acting ability. It was Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble, starring Mickey Rooney, which was released in 1944. In the film, Rooney’s character pursues romances with both twins, but he doesn’t realize they are two different girls. He mistakenly believes he is flirting with the same girl.
After the success of Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble, MGM decided to create a vehicle to show off the Wilde twins and offer them up for a mainstream audience. The film they selected for the twins was Twice Blessed, a movie that was written for the girls.
The plot of Twice Blessed might remind you of the storyline of The Parent Trap. Lee and Lyn Wilde play identical twins who have been separated from each other for several years when their divorced parents each take custody of one sister. The girls have different personalities and interests. They finally reunite for a brief time and decide to switch places for a few days so they can experience each other’s lifestyles. They have a series of wacky misadventures but team up to get revenge on their father’s new love interest and make their parents fall in love again.
The Wilde twins appeared in three more movies together in the 1940s – Till the Clouds Roll By in 1946, Campus Honeymoon in 1947, and Look for the Silver Lining in 1949. In all, they made nine movies together. By this time, Lee wanted to retire from show business, but Lyn did not. She went on to appear in an additional six films without her twin, but her career ended in 1953.
There was a reason why Lee wanted to step away from Hollywood. In 1947, she married Tom Cathcart, the brother of her twin, Lyn’s husband, Jim Cathcart. Lyn and Jim wed in 1942. Shortly after Lee and Tom’s marriage, the couple was eager to start a family. On September 28, 1948, she gave birth to a daughter by caesarian section and suffered severe complications from the surgery. She wanted to focus on her family.
In addition to raising her family, Lee became interested in flying and received her pilot’s license in 1961. She also returned to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign languages. With her twin, Lyn, she recorded a reunion album in 1989 which the Wilde twins titled Back Together Once Again. Lee died in 2015 at the age of 92. The following year, Lyn died.