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Ashley Olsen

Ashley Olsen has one of the more unusual screen careers of her generation: she began acting at six months old, sharing the role of Michelle Tanner on Full House with her twin sister, Mary-Kate. Born in Sherman Oaks, California, on June 13, 1986, Ashley is two minutes older than her sister, though audiences came to know them as an inseparable on-screen pair. Full House ran from 1987 to 1995, giving the sisters a remarkably early and sustained place in popular culture. They carried that familiarity into a run of films and television projects built around their contrasting twin dynamic, including To Grandmother’s House We Go, Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, How the West Was Fun and It Takes Two. Later came Billboard Dad, Passport to Paris, Our Lips Are Sealed, Winning London and Holiday in the Sun, along with the series Two of a Kind and So Little Time. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ashley and Mary-Kate had become household names with a particularly strong preteen audience. Their work extended beyond individual performances through Dualstar Entertainment Group, the production company created around them. When the sisters turned 18 in 2004, they became its co-presidents. That same year brought New York Minute, their final film together and Ashley’s last leading acting role. She subsequently stepped away from full-time acting, making only minor appearances in The Jerk Theory, I’m Still Here and Thirty Seconds to Mars’ “City of Angels” music video. She and Mary-Kate later declined to return as Michelle Tanner for Fuller House. Ashley’s career then moved decisively toward business and fashion design. With Mary-Kate, she developed fashion lines including The Row, Elizabeth and James, Olsenboye and StyleMint. The Row began with Ashley’s personal challenge to create a perfectly fitting T-shirt before expanding into a broader collection. It is a fitting second act for someone whose public career started almost before she could walk: not a return to the camera, but a deliberate move into creative work on her own terms.