‘Inseparable’: The true story of the twins who inspired the Amazon Prime Video series with Rachel Weisz and the David Cronenberg film

The new Amazon Prime Video series is giving a lot to talk about. Rachel Weisz plays the Mantle twinstwo surgeons specialized in gynecology whose bond transcends the fraternal and whose profession crosses the barrier between pleasure and medicine.

The disturbing and sly ‘Inseparables’ (2023) raises an interesting proposal: “When you have a twin, everything is reduced to half… Or double?“, in an interesting nihilistic, hopeless and sarcastic drama about individuality, addictions and identity, with an almost sexual fascination for anatomy and surgical tools. Not in vain is an adaptation of the Messiah from “The New Flesh”, David Cronenbergwho with the invaluable help of Jeremy Irons in the shoes of the twins brought all these issues to the big screen in 1988.

But what few people know is that Cronenberg’s film ‘Inseparable’ was also based, in turn, on the true story of two twins who died in New York City in 1975

‘Inseparable’: The true story of the Marcus twins

Stewart and Cyril Marcus were also women’s health professionals in New York City until their mysterious deaths in 1975, both at the age of 45.. The sinister circumstances of his deaths served as the perfect recipe for master body terror David Cronenberg and screenwriter Norman Snider, who used his sordid history to build one of the most chilling and disturbing portraits of sibling rivalry in the cinema and, now, on the small screen.

Similar to the various iterations of ‘Inseparable’, the Marcus twins led lives primarily obsessed with their research, rendering them incapable of forming social connections. The main difference, yes, is that They weren’t identical twins, and therefore couldn’t switch identities like Jeremy Irons’ and Rachel Weisz’s characters do in the movie and the series, respectively.. But they might as well have been conjoined twins and joined at the hip, since they were always together.

The Marcus twins were well respected in their field, established their own private clinic in the 1960s and published pioneering research in medical journals. They would also become assistant professors of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Hospital, as well as co-directors of the Cornell Hospital Infertility Clinic.

In the 70s, Cyril and Stewart became addicted to barbiturates and amphetamines, and his once thriving business failed. His superiors urged them to clean up or resign. They tried to rehabilitate without help, but to no avail. In July 1975, the bodies of both brothers were discovered in Cyril’s Manhattan apartment in scruffy conditions, surrounded by trash., dirty furniture, dirty dishes and leftover food. Among the dirt there were also dozens of empty bottles of barbiturates. There were no signs of a struggle, leading investigators to initially theorize that their deaths were due to accidental overdoses or an orchestrated suicide pact.

However, after a series of initial tests to determine the cause of death, no traces of drugs or alcohol were found on their bodies. A second investigation determined that it was possible that Stewart may have died of withdrawal, but the question remained as to the circumstances of Cyril’s death, which was estimated to have occurred several days after his brother’s.

Only the Marcus twins know what happened in that Upper East Side apartment, and they took the secret to their graves.. However, the enigmatic deaths of Cyril and Stewart sparked a frenzy of media speculation. A former patient of the twins, Linda Wolfe, published an article in New York magazine titled “The strange death of twin gynecologists“, in which he describes the strange and erotic behavior of the brothers. ‘Inseparable’ is not only inspired by Wolfe’s article, but also by Bari Wood’s sensational 1977 novel ‘Twins’ and in an article published in a 1976 issue of Esquire magazine written by Ron Rosenbaum and Susan Edmiston.

The series ‘Inseparable’ starring Rachel Weisz is now available in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video.