“Young, English and twins was our calling card. Everybody we wrote to bar famed recluse Greta Garbo wrote back. Each response echoed a similar sentiment. ‘How nice it is to be remembered’.”
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“When aged 12 teachers at my school said to me, “you twins will do something different,” it had already dawned on me that writing letters on Air Mail paper to impossibly faded silent sirens was about as different as different could get.”
Learn More“It’s a case of what happened next, when the phone stopped ringing and the fan mail died off – I Used to be in Pictures has all the answers”
Daniel Garcia Lopez
Learn More‘I Used to be in Pictures’ is an on-the-road story told by English suburban teen twins. After years of corresponding with the stars, they live their dream, arriving in California for extended pit-stops with pen pals. Whilst some of these encounters superseded expectations, with others, the letters concealed what meeting them revealed – the gold had turned to grey.
For stars hidden in the shadows of nursing homes or crumbling mansions the boys’ presence brought a glimmer of hope that being remembered could lead to a comeback, particularly in the case of one Garboesque star. It’s not long before Austin tries to find a way to escape but is held back by Howard, who is adamant she can shine once again whilst maintaining his own dark secret.
We like to bring humour to the characterizations of the people we meet, and not always Hollywood folk. Much of our work for fashion brands centres on the past reinterpreted in the present. Thing is as much as the movies defined the stars we knew their very existence has defined us in many ways, so it just happens that the people we think often than most used to be movie stars.
We wager many of you at some point have sat at home snuggled-up on the sofa, switched on the TV and watched a black and white movie; a western, melodrama, film noir or comedy and perhaps asked the question ‘whatever happened to…?’ We did, and whatsmore we wrote to the stars we saw, hundreds of them major and minor, and they wrote back in their droves out ‘calling card’ being ‘English, young and twins’. We decided to tell their stories through our eyes, put to bed the famous lives lived after the camera stopped rolling with humour and honesty.
