Twins Double Their Fun as De Facto S.F. Mascots
Don’t ask them when they were born.
There’s no need to inquire about when they graduated from high school or ask for any other piece of information that would give away their age.
Twins Vivian and Marian Brown aren’t about to budge.
“We’re 21-plus,” the perky retirees like to say.
Even Ellis Schuman, their piano teacher for 10 years, doesn’t know.
“It’s the best-kept secret in San Francisco, as far as the twins are concerned,” Schuman says, laughing.
Image is, after all, everything for the identical pair who’ve become the city’s unofficial mascots. Known as the San Francisco Twins, they have gained international attention, starring in commercials and on billboards for everything from Reebok athletic shoes to IBM, Southwest Airlines and Joe Boxer underwear.
The fame has made them sticklers about collecting any and all photographs taken of them.
“We have more than a thousand,” Marian says.
Around town, the self-proclaimed clotheshorses are known for their perfectly matched outfits and overlapping banter that has earned them the nicknames “Chip and Dale.”
“Their whole attitude is very uplifting,” Schuman says.
But, no matter how much they smile and giggle, don’t take these sisters for pushovers.
“We do what we want to do,” Vivian says. “If we don’t want to do it--no way.”
And if they have something to say, they say it--including opinions on everything from immigration policy (toughen it) to safe sex (they’re for it) and subsidized housing (there’s too much of it).
But appearance, especially where clothing is concerned, has to be their favorite topic.
“We say kids today all dress alike. It’s awful. All those baggy pants,” Marian says. “When people dress up, they look like they’re going places.”
Their own clothing--right down to the accessories--is a study in duplication, as is just about everything else in their lives.
They’ve lived in the same rent-controlled apartment on Nob Hill since 1978, sharing one bedroom with (what else?) twin beds.
Each day, they rise at 9 a.m. in time to watch “The Price is Right” at 10.
When Marian is not cooking dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they eat at the same series of restaurants every week.
And, without fail, they show up 45 minutes late for church on Sundays so they miss the hand-clapping Pentecostal music.
“God is not deaf,” Vivian says, holding her ears. She quickly adds, “But the pastor preaches the Word.”
The life they’ve created in San Francisco is a long way from Mattawan, Mich., the sleepy farm town where they grew up. As they tell it, the town had a grocery store, a filling station, a church and Mattawan High School, where the twins were co-valedictorians.
“But it wasn’t because we were geniuses,” says Marian, who, like her sister, couldn’t wait to shake off the snow of Mattawan and nearby Kalamazoo, where both received degrees in business administration at Western Michigan University.
Ever independent, they still roll their eyes at their late father’s suggestion that “girls get married.”
They often tell the story of a set of fraternal twins who asked for their respective hands years ago, but to no avail.
“There’s nothing glamorous about housework,” Vivian says.
“Or changing babies’ diapers,” Marian adds. “I knew that at age 16.”
Instead, the twins taught high school and later worked as secretaries for the Kalamazoo-based Upjohn pharmaceutical company, now Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc.
By the early 1970s, Vivian’s chronic bronchial condition was worsening, prompting a move to San Francisco, their permanent home since 1973.
Before retiring, Vivian worked as a legal secretary for Allstate insurance and Marian for the audit department at First Interstate Bank.
“I feel more at home out here than we ever did [in Michigan],” Marian says.
And they feel most at home with one another, so much so that they want to die at the same time.
Why don’t they drive each other crazy?
“We agree on the majors and disagree on the minors,” they often say.
Adds Marian, “I don’t let her boss and she doesn’t let me boss. We’re the best of friends.”
