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Hidden Twins

From Scarlett and Gisele to Ashton and Kiefer, VIEW OUR GALLERY of stars and their secret siblings, as the annual Twins Day Festival kicks off tomorrow.

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Craig Ambrosio, Icon SMI / Newscom
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Both former Major League Baseball players, José Canseco and his identical twin brother Ozzie have a lot in common, including a history of standing in for one another. Ozzie Canseco posed as his brother in Season 5 of VH1's reality show The Surreal Life and tricked everyone until his true identity was revealed at the end of the season. Ozzie also recently pretended to pass for the current Celebrity Apprentice contestant at a boxing event in Los Angeles. Their ruse was found out when Ozzie took off his shirt. His biceps were as big as José's, but lacked the slugger’s notorious tattoos. Maybe Donald Trump pays better than a nightclub fight?

Craig Ambrosio, Icon SMI / Newscom
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The Bundchen household was likely a very popular place growing up. Supermodel Gisele has five sisters, including her fraternal twin, Patricia. The Brazilian beauty was said to lament her twin’s looks when she was younger, complaining that she was the “hotter one.” Patricia, who is seven minutes younger, has also modeled, but now acts as manager to Gisele—who seems to be doing just fine now as the highest paid supermodel in the world.

Newscom
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The former Punk’d prankster has a fraternal twin brother named Michael, who was born with cerebral palsy and successfully underwent a heart transplant when he was 13 years old. The two were quite close growing up in Iowa, until Ashton moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career in his early 20s. Michael, who lives in Iowa and sells retirement plans, says of his childhood, “I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses, the hearing aid. There was a lot of teasing, a lot of the normal mean stuff.” Ashton was his self-appointed protector.

Tom Vickers / Splash News
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Talk about good genes: The Rossellini sisters are the daughters of actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini, only the two couldn’t be more different. Isabella had a 14-year career as a Lancome model and famously starred in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, whereas Isotta (known as Ingrid) received her Ph.D. in Italian literature and is now an adjunct professor at New York University. She has kept some ties to cinema, often teaching classes revolving around the neorealist nature of her father’s works.

Express / Getty Images
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Raised in a Dallas suburb, Jerry Hall and her rhyming twin sister, Terry, grew up playing gin rummy and solving jigsaw puzzles, a rather tame precursor to Jerry’s wild career. The six-foot-tall sisters had divergent paths, as Jerry became as equally known for her modeling career as her nine-year common-law marriage to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, and Terry remains in Dallas. Her daughter, Elaine Ferguson, continues her family’s artistic tradition, showcased with a career in photography

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Retna
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Canadian twin sisters Jac and Jill have had similar careers—Jill moved south and starred in Law & Order and Crossing Jordan in the States, while Jacqueline remained in Canada with a successful career hosting the show Medical Intelligence and working as a magazine editor. The 42-year-old Hennessy sisters have starred together occasionally—the first as twin call girls in the 1988 film Dead Ringers, and then during a 1996 episode of Law & Order in which Jacqueline subbed in for her sister’s courtroom scenes.

Ron Galella, WireImage / Getty Images
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The Heder boys grew up in a Mormon family in Oregon with four brothers and sisters, and the identical twins both attended Brigham Young University and ended up in the entertainment business. Jon gained instant success as the titular character in Napoleon Dynamite and Dan recently animated the film Monster House. The two have their own production company called, oddly enough, Greasy Entertainment.

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Jack Bauer could have used an extra hand on 24—so why didn't his twin sister Rachel jump in to help? Kiefer and Rachel Sutherland were born in London while his father, actor Donald Sutherland, and mother were working. Hard-partying Keifer is seven minutes older (there must have been a countdown in the delivery room) and Rachel now works behind the camera in Hollywood as a post-production supervisor.

AP Photo; George Pimentel, WireImage / Getty Images
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Yes, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was born a twin. He and his sister, Efua, were born in Ghana and shared the middle name “Atta” which translates to “twin.” Being a twin was a sign of status in Ghanaian culture. Sadly, Efua died in 1991, 10 years before Kofi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Linda Hamilton, known for playing Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise, was born in Maryland with her identical twin sister, Leslie. Leslie works as a nurse in New Jersey, but made an appearance as Linda’s double in Terminator 2. Near the end of the film, when the T-1000 transformed into John Connor’s mother, the sisters were seen onscreen together, with no special effects needed.

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Indie film darling Parker Posey was born prematurely along with her fraternal twin brother, Christopher, who was named for their father. The two were raised in Mississippi and Louisiana. Parker briefly attended the State University of New York at Purchase before dropping out for a soap opera role, and Christopher now works as a lawyer in Atlanta.

Ron Galella, WireImage / Getty Images
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French stunner Eva Green, most recently the Bond girl opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, has a fraternal twin sister named Joy. The sisters grew up in Paris, and in 2003, before her breakout role in Kingdom of Heaven, Eva was candid about their relationship, saying, “We’re so different. We don’t really talk to each other. She hasn’t seen my plays, but now she wants to see my movie, and I’m very… moved. She’s studying business. She’s more…down-to-earth.” Joy breeds horses in Normandy with her husband, and even their father admits his daughters are “opposites.”

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Even though Joseph and Ralph Fiennes gained notoriety for their acting, few know about the hidden Fiennes family member, Jacob, Joseph’s fraternal twin. Jacob Fiennes is a conservationist and gameskeeper, and the only member of the family not working in the arts in London (two sisters are photographers and their other brother is a composer). Jacob lives in a 100-year-old cottage in Norfolk and Joseph praises his career: “He’s a brilliant conservationist. He's done astounding work with endangered species. He's all about reclaiming the land and bringing back the natural habitat. He's won an award equivalent to an Oscar for conservation.” At least one twin has something like the golden statue.

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Luckily Scarlett Johansson’s twin is male—it wouldn’t be good for any young girl to compete with a sister’s bombshell looks. Alas, 26-year-old Scarlett and her three-minute-younger twin brother, Hunter, were born in New York City and attended elementary school together. Hunter was a community organizer in Manhattan before working as a campaign organizer for Barack Obama. And having a high-profile sister has its perks—Hunter was named one of People’s Single and Sexy Men of 2008.

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