Seeing double: a new look at twins

Ebony, April, 1993 by Douglas C. Lyons

It began as a feeling. Responding to a call for police back-up can get any cop's adrenalin going, but it's another matter when that officer in trouble happens to be your twin sister.

Kelly Curney, a Portland police officer, had been kicked in the stomach as she broke up a domestic dispute. Shelly Kirkland, her identical twin, was one of several officers called to the scene.

"I knew something was wrong," Kirkland says, recalling the incident. "When I got there, I just looked at her face. She wasn't crying or anything, but I knew that she needed me to come up there and check in with her."

"I knew that I was fine, but I got this weird feeling," Curney counters. "I knew that Shelly was there, and it was like, |Whew! Everything's okay now."' The "twin-thing"--that often perplexing bond between indistinguishable siblings--is still something many people just don't understand. Identical twins share a lot. They not only look alike, they often think alike, wear the same clothes, enjoy the same things together and may even end up in the same professions.

Strange, weird or downright bizarre, the abilities that come with twinship continue to astound almost anyone who crosses the path of identical twins. "We're two people operating with one brain," says Denice Murray, a teenage identical twin in Irvington, N.J., whose explanation of the bond between twins is about as good as any on record.

Currently, there are 3 million pairs of twins in the United States, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. African-Americans continue to have the highest frequency of twins, accounting for 1 in 77 births compared to 1 in 100 for Whites.

Science has yet to explain why Blacks have such a high rate of twin births. Nor have researchers been able to fully explain the mysterious bond that exists between identical twins--twins who result when a single fertilized egg splits after conception.

Pointing to the comparable brain waves of identical twins, some scientists believe that many twins possess extrasensory perception. Others believe that the close social contacts between these siblings may result in "ESP-like" events in the lives of identical twins.

No matter how the scientific community tries to define it, identical twins remain fascinating and their actions are often inexplicable.

Horace and Harvey Grant are twin brothers who fascinate thousands of basketball fans as players for the Chicago Bulls and Washington Bullets, respectively. Life in the NBA is a far cry from the dirt playgrounds of Sparta, Ga., where the two 27-year-old athletes first learned the game of hoops.

"We never switched uniforms to fool people," Harvey recalls. "But a lot of guys would still call me Horace by mistake."

As the NBA's only active twins, the Grants are constantly seen by many fans as mirror images. To hear the players tell it, nothing could be further from the truth. Horace continues to excel in his role as the Bulls' best rebounder, while Harvey, his younger brother by a mere nine minutes, has blossomed into the Bullets' scoring leader.

"All those stories comparing Horace and me used to bother me," Harvey says. "We have different styles. Horace is a great player in his own right, but now I have my own identity."

Lolita and Tarita Hollingsworth are two sisters who are no strangers to the ways of twins. The two have 15 sets of identical twins in their family, dating back to their great-great-grandfather. Growing up in New Orleans, Lolita and Tarita shared everything--well, almost everything. "Lolita likes avocados," Tarita says. "I don't."

Other than avocados, the two have a lot in common. In high school, they both had nearly identical grades, ranked "No. 1" in their class until a "B" grade in geometry dropped Tarita into secondplace. The two graduated as valedictorian and salutatorian.

They attended Tulane University, where they earned the nickname of a popular chewing gum. Both sisters remember confused instructors who would seat them at opposite ends of the classroom in order to tell them apart. They majored in political science and had initially decided to attend different graduate schools when a chance meeting with Jermaine Jackson resulted in a part in a TV miniseries.

Now the two 24-year-old look-alikes are working in Los Angeles as account executives while pursuing acting and singing careers. To date, they have appeared in several commercials and had a small role in the ABC miniseries, The Jacksons: An American Dream.

Los Angeles seems to be filled with twins. Another set of twin sisters seeking stardom is Renee and Rosie Tenison. Having recently appeared in automobile and shoe commercials, the two are beginning to turn heads with their unique brand of double exposure.

"Being a twin has given us an edge," Rosie says. "It's helped us land jobs, and we always have a best friend. If everyone in Hollywood hates me, I'll still have my sister."

Albert and Allen Hughes are another pair of twins who expect to make a big noise in Tinseltown as directors of a new movie, Menace II Society, starring Tyrin Turner, Jada Pinkett and featuring Bill Duke and Charles S. Dutton.