Thought to have been lost, the 10,000 images in Worth's private collection were discovered shortly after his death by a second cousin. Their value was quickly spotted by a producer acquaintance of Worth's, as well as by the Discovery Channel, which proposed filming a documentary about the unearthing of the photographs. That's about the time the Mutti-Mewses were recruited to help identify the subjects of Worth's pictures. For the brothers, it was a dream project. Both freelance journalists (the Guardian, the Tatler), the twins say they've been ardent film buffs since pre-pubescence, when their maternal grandmother began weaning them on the silent-film classics regularly shown on the BBC. Austin was so enamored of Lillian Gish after seeing her in Victor Seastrom's "The Wind" that he wrote her "an over-the-top letter." To his astonishment, she wrote back thanking him and closing with, "P.S. How old are you?" The twins were then 12. From then on, the brothers began corresponding with more of their idols, many of whom thought the world had forgotten them. Occasionally, the stars would send along vintage photos of themselves, film scripts and even personal artifacts. After taking their bachelor's degrees in film and design, the twins began work on a documentary, "I Used to Be in Pictures," an affectionate group portrait of many of their former pen pals. The twins hope to secure funding to finish the project. Meanwhile, they're hoping their exhibition may help demonstrate that Old Hollywood carried itself with a sense of style and glamour that is imitated, but rarely equaled, by today's celebrities. "I think now, they want to keep it real, they don't want to be seen as stars, they want to be seen as guys on the block," Austin says. "But in a funny way, the stars of today are less approachable than the stars of yesterday." (Copyright (c) 2003 Los Angeles Times)

Website Designed by: WebDesigns-Studio.com