The original Shining twins spotted in London

Lisa and Louise Burns, the identical twins who played the Grady sisters in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic horror ‘The Shining’, were spotted in London this week as they attended a screening of ‘Dr Strangelove’ at the BFI.

The 46-year-old siblings were attending the LOCO London Comedy film festival when they were snapped on the red carpet ahead of a showing of Kubrick’s war comedy.

The sisters were just 12 when ‘The Shining’ was released in 1980, and have become one of the most enduring horror duos ever thanks to their creepy hall-dwelling appearances and the immortal line (spoken in stereo): "Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever.”

The pair have recently joined Facebook and Twitter posting images of their everyday lives which seems much cosier than that of the ghostly sisters lurking in the blood-soaked corridors of the Overlook hotel.

‘The Shining’ was to be their final film, and Lisa went on to study literature while Louise became a microbiologist. They are regular guests at horror conventions.

Danny Lloyd, the child star who played young Danny Torrance in the film, only made one more film after 'The Shining’ before dropping off the showbiz radar. He’s now 41, plying his trade as professor of biology at a community college in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.


In an interview with NY Daily News, Danny explained that the acting lark hadn’t panned out as he’d hoped, “I’m glad I was in ‘The Shining.’ It was not a bad experience for me. It just wasn’t something that panned out and I decided to go back to being a regular kid.”

Actress Shelley Duvall, who plays the beleaguered wife of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in the film, described working with Kubrick on the film as “almost unbearable” after being made to cry continuously for multiple takes over the 13 month shoot.

She carried on acting throughout the 80s and 90s, with her last IMDB credit coming in 2002. Like Lloyd, she also retired from public life, moving back to Texas in 1994. A 2009 National Enquirer article painted a very dark picture of her current situation.


"Shelley wanders around town by herself, looking disheveled, strange and, to be honest, totally crazy. She mutters to herself and talks about aliens living in her body,” a neighbour from her home town Blanco, Texas reported to National Enquirer.

A hardware store employee says the actress visited the store looking for wooden boards to fix a hole in her backyard. "She said, 'That's a portal into another dimension. That's where the aliens are coming in'" the source recalled.

However, the then-60-year-old Duvall herself is quoted in the article saying "I would love to go back to acting if it was the right role” - doesn’t sound that crazy to us!

Jack Nicholson, the primary lead in the film, is still a big star although he hasn’t appeared in a film since 2010 leading to rumours suggesting the lothario actor’s health might be fading.

Just one look at him shamelessly flirting with Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Oscars shows that there’s plenty of life left in the old dog just yet.