The Dead Ringers mini-series that was recently released was a wild ride. If you watched it, you may be vaguely aware of the fact that it is an updated remake of a 1988 David Cronenberg film. Not only that, but the film was based on a novel, and the novel was based on a very strange real story. Let's get into all of these source materials!
The Mini-Series
The most recent Dead Ringers mini-series was executive produced by Cronenberg, but it has women at the helm directing and writing most of the episodes (with one of the most disturbing episodes directed by Jennifer's Body director Karyn Kusama). Rachel Weisz also stars as both Beverly and Elliot Mantle, twin gynecologists. If you like watching childbirth scenes, then this series has several. That might be the most Cronenberg part of the series: the unflinchingly casual and realistic-looking birthing scenes. 
By the way, Rachel previously played twins in the 2005 film Constantine. If you watch Dead Ringers, however, you will likely be stunned by Rachel's twin performance. She does each twin SO well that you might forget each twin is being played by the same person. She apparently shot scenes as Elliot first and acted opposite Kitty Hawthorne who was her scene double. Then she would do hair and makeup for Beverly and act in the same scene while wearing an earpiece with her lines (Elliot's) in her ears. It sounds complicated, but it turned out effortlessly!
In this series, one Rachel is a lesbian while the other is simply insatiable in the sack. When one of them "wins" Britne Odlford's character for the other, she is shocked to watch her sister actually fall in love with the woman. This fills the other twin with jealousy and fears of abandonment which starts the great unraveling that becomes the core conflict of the series. It gets wild!
The Film
The original Dead Ringers was released in 1988 and even then it was based on a novel that was based on a real story. In the original film, the twins - who are still named Beverly and Elliot - are men - just as they were in real life - and they were still gynecologists. They shared EVERYTHING. They swap women, drugs, their swanky Manhattan apartment, and their jobs.
This film focused a little bit more on womanizing. One of the twins was more confident with women, so he would do the seduction and then pass the girl onto his twin after he got bored. That was only played a little bit in the miniseries.
The True Story
The boys partied A LOT and were allegedly swarming in drugs, especially barbiturates and amphetamines. So what is the true story here? The story is twisted, but it isn't as criminal as either the movie or the mini-series makes it seem. In real life, the twins were named Stewart and Cyril Marcus and they died days apart in their apartment in 1975.
Both men were 45-years-old and their deaths have never been explained. It was initially assumed that they overdosed as there were empty pill bottles all over their apartment, but toxicology reports came up clean. Some speculated Stewart was going through withdrawal...but then what happened to Cyril? Stewart was the first to die and his brother Cyril just casually continued to live in the apartment while his dead brother's body was rotting away.
It remains a mystery which is why the story continues to be remade and it continues to shock and disturb audiences.
