The photograph that inspired the twins in ‘The Shining’
1980 brought around the collaboration of two storytelling titans, as Stanley Kubrick adapted Stephen King’s The Shining to the big screen. Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd, the film followed the ghostly happenings of the Overlook Hotel and the swift descent into madness experienced by the Torrance family during their time there. Despite a relatively underwhelming reception at the time of release, the film has come to be recognised as one of the best horror movies of all time.
The Shining’s horrific allure was often driven by its unsettling and sinister characters, from the alcoholic antagonist Jack to the ghostly Grady twins. The twins, in particular, have become a major part of The Shining’s iconography. With their matching blue ruffled dresses, monotonous voices and blank stares, the girls are just as memorable as the hotel itself or Jack’s famous manuscript, which simply reads: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.
Played by identical twins Lisa and Louise Burns, the Grady twins are seen lurking around the Overlook Hotel by Danny Torrance, often hand-in-hand. In their most famous scene, Danny encounters them in one of the hotel’s many hallways. The twins urge: “Come and play with us, Danny. Forever and ever and ever”. The line is interspersed with Danny’s visions of the girls lying next to an axe, covered in blood.
Part of the Gradys’ iconic status comes from their twinhood. However, in the original novel, author Stephen King never specified that the girls were twins. Instead, they were sisters aged eight and ten. Kubrick’s decision to amend the characters to twins was inspired by a photograph by Diane Arbus. In a feature with i-D, the director’s assistant Leon Vitali revealed Kubrick’s thought process.
Vitali notes how he saw Louise and Lisa Burns for the roles before Kubrick did, sharing: “He was just so struck by them and how kind of eerie they were and he talks about how they reminded him of a famous Diane Arbus photograph of identical twins.”
The photo Vitali is referring to is titled Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967. It has become widely associated with Arbus’s career as a photographer, which often focused on capturing unusual people in their natural locations, from nudists to carnival performers. The photo featured two young twins named Cathleen and Colleen Wade in matching outfits not dissimilar from those worn by the Grady twins.
The photo of the twins is simultaneously normal and unnerving. Patricia Bosworth, who wrote Arbus’ biography, suggested that it channelled Arbus’ vision: “She was involved in the question of identity. Who am I and who are you? The twin image expresses the crux of that vision: normality in freakishness and the freakishness in normality.”
It was this freakish normality that King and Kubrick were trying to create with The Shining and that Kubrick was trying to conjure with the twins specifically. Kubrick’s assistant “knew right away that when he showed them to Stanley that Stanley would respond positively. And he did, and they were pretty much cast right on the spot.”
Though King wasn’t a fan of many of Kubrick’s changes, the casting decision served the story well, elevating The Shining‘s overwhelmingly unsettling feeling. The eerie twins have since become one of the most iconic images in the film and a go-to Halloween costume for horror fans everywhere.
