Hollywood began seeing double late in 1989. That's when a hugely voluptuous billboard went up on Sunset Boulevard--a goddess-sized pair of blonde, nearly nude beauties over two mysterious words: Barbi Twins. Who were they? No one seemed to know, but their impact was instant. Dazzled motorists turned Sunset into a small-scale demolition derby. The billboard, stage one of the twins' plan to become world-wide celebrities, had done its work: They were the buzz of a town that buzzes for a living. Now television calls them a "marketing miracle." To the Star tabloid, they are the "high-voltage Barbis with the living-doll looks." Prospective agents and managers look at them and see gold doubloons. To their fans, the Barbis are a double fantasy come to life. And to you, the reader, Shane and Sia Barbi are the latest in a procession of future stars you met right here in Playboy. Who are they? Identical twins from San Diego, 28 years old. "I'm six minutes older," says Shane, the athletic twin. "I'm the young one," says Sia. Both twins call Sia "the sensualist." Physically, they are so similar that their parents can't tell them apart. Mentally, they are as sharp as tacks--which shocks stereotypists who expect buxom blondes to say little more than "duh"--and funny, too. Looking at their photos, Sia says, "Sometimes we can't tell ourselves apart, but if one of us looks a little chubby, that's Shane." Delightful to interview, lovely to view, they're a new binary star over the Hollywood hills. Like most twins, they share a kind of ESP. "We like to finish each other's----" Shane says. "Sentences," says Sia. In 1989 B.C. (before celebrity), they were belly dancers, rotating their hips for $20 tips at Middle East festivals from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. Few California girls belly-dance, but the sultry discipline suited them. "It's hypnotic," says Shane. She can still do a back bend called the Turkish drop and place a halfdozen quarters in a circle around her navel and flip them using nothing but her stomach muscles. Sia isn't quite so adept. "I can do only four quarters," she says, "but I'll let you keep the change." In 1989, they quit performing for small change. The billboard was followed by a poster and a torrid Barbi Twins calendar--too sexy for some stores, says Sia--that outsold 336 of Landmark Calendars' 342 offerings. Soon, Shane and Sia were awash in business--and personal--propositions from agents, producers and at least one amorous rock star. They haven't signed away their futures yet. They're in no hurry; and with their fast start, quick wit and Olympian looks, the world may beat a path to their door.
There are advantages to being a twin: "We dated the same man and never told him we were two people," says Sia. The man, a noted pro athlete based in L.A., thought his lover was inexhaustible. "Shane's athletic and I'm very sensuous. We took turns." There are drawbacks to twindom as well: "We started wondering which of us would go to the wedding, and which would get the honeymoon," Shane says. That affair ended before the jock became an unsuspecting bigamist. Says Shane, "We had to stop being codependent!" She and Sia (seen here and on the next seven pages--that's Shane on the left, or is it the right?) seldom agree about men. "I go for intelligence," says Shane. "Right," Sia says. "She likes nerds. I like bad boys." Eggheads and hunks agree: There's something for every man in this dynamic duo. Just don't be hypnotized by appearances. The Barbi twins are more than Barbi dolls. Shane and Sia are savvy.
