Within six months of their birth, my mom enrolled my brothers, Keith and Kevin, in the Screen Extras Guild, and then, after they had some experience under their tiny belts, the Screen Actors Guild. As babies, they were sometimes hired to play one role because labor laws restricted infants from being on camera for more than just a few minutes at a time, so they’d switch them out when more screen time was needed (as in The Long Gray Line with Tyrone Power and Maureen O’Hara).
Eventually, they played twins (as in the TV series The Monroes with Barbara Hershey) and for this Doublemint commercial. As they each told me (separately but almost verbatim…after all, they’re twins), they were flown first class to the Virgin Islands for two weeks. There they spent the entire first week basking in the sun in preparation for their time in front of the camera. Then the weather changed, the clouds rolled in, and suddenly tensions were high on set as they raced to actually shoot the commercial.
Double double toil and trouble.
And just for fun (because why not), here’s a pic of me and Barbara Hershey from the set of The Monroes where I played her stand-in for the pilot.
Barbara BucklesArtist, writer, storyteller, spy. Okay, not a spy…I was just going for the rhythm.
I call myself “an inveterate dabbler.” (And my husband calls me “an invertebrate babbler.”) I just love to create one way or another. My latest passion is telling true stories live, on stage. Because it scares the hell out of me.
As a memoirist, I focus on the undercurrents. Drawing from memory, diaries, notes, letters and photographs, I never ever lie, but I do claim creative license when fleshing out actual events in order to enhance the literary quality, i.e., what I might have been wearing, what might have been on the table, what season it might have been. By virtue of its genre, memoir also adds a patina of introspection and insight that most probably did not exist in real time.
I’m glad you wrote this, Barb, and as a bonus we get to see your photo! Must have been pretty exciting for your brothers to be child actors.
Thanks, Mare…it didn’t take much prodding to get me to post this, did it?! You know, I’m not sure anyone was excited about the acting thing…it was just a way of life, albeit fun, and well paying! And national commercials were always the best…residuals!
Very cool story, Barbara. Good thinking on your mom’s part too! Those residuals are nothing to sneeze at! My son’s residuals from a couple of commercials paid his college tuition. Your brothers had double the fun and the earning power!
Thanks, Risa! My mom then became a children’s agent…she might have even represented your son. Did he have an agent?
My son did indeed have an agent in San Francisco. When he was a kid, I took him to auditions all over town, and flew with him to LA a few times. He landed two commercials and an industrial and had non-speaking roles in a few things, and then went off to UCLA’s school of Theater Film and Television. Most recently, he appeared as a contestant on Jeopardy!
Barb, I love this story so much, thank you for succumbing to our prodding! That picture of your brothers in the Doublemint commercial is gorgeous! And how fun that part of the job was basking in the sun in the Virgin Islands!
Thanks for also including the pic of you and Barbara Hershey. Great that your brothers were in that show, and you got a job as a stand-in.
What fun Bebe, and I hope they are good bros to their sis!
The absolute best, Dee!!!
Lucky you with double bros!
What fun, Barb…double good, double good, double Buckle fun!
p.s. I sat behind Barbara Hershey at the premiere of “The Age of Innocence” in NYC when I was in hot pursuit of Daniel Day-Lewis back in 1993. I wrote about that in “My Love Affair with Daniel Day-Lewis”. A LONG time ago!
Barb, you are almost famous! Thanks for sharing this story and the picture of your Doublemint brothers.
Wow, Barb. You were right in the midst of it all! I’m amazed. Are those two guys different people? I’ve never seen such identically identical (and handsome!) twins! Are they still in showbiz?
No longer in show biz but still handsome!
Barbara Hershey was lucky she stayed healthy and kept you off the set! Thanks for the most star-studded Retrospect memoir of the past year! These images also remind us of the pre-multicultural days in which we all grew up.
Great story, great experiences. You mean people really exist like in those advertisements? Thanks for sharing.
Now I have the Doublemint jingle is my head!
That makes two of us!