Leora eisen biography of albert

When Toronto documentary filmmaker Leora Eisen and her identical twin sister Linda Lewis were 14, they had a devastating experience at the junior high dance. They were standing against the wall as the last dance started and a pimply faced awkward guy approached and said: “Which one of you wants to dance, it doesn’t matter, you’re both the same.”

That moment — excruciating when adolescence is about differentiating yourself — propelled Linda to get a very bad poodle perm so she wouldn’t look like her sister.

The two laughed and shuddered about the experience for years.

Once that poodle perm grew out, Linda and Leora went back to being identical physically and continued throughout life as best friends and soulmates. “How did we not get sick of spending so much time together?” says Eisen.

Welcome to the psychologically intricate human ecosystem known as identical twins, who arrive in only three of 1,000 births, when one egg splits in two.

They have 100 per cent identical DNA,