90 Fun Facts About The Parent Trap

Who plays both twins, Hallie Parker and Annie James, in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Lindsay Lohan was an 11-year-old newcomer in her first movie, and playing both twins turned her into an overnight star.

Which filmmaker directed and co-wrote the 1998 Parent Trap?

Nancy Meyers had to shoot the twin scenes twice, choosing a take for one twin and matching the other to it on the spot.

Who play the divorced parents, Nick Parker and Elizabeth James?

Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson play the divorced parents, and Nick's scheming fiancée wants to marry him for his money.

What are the parents' professions in the 1998 film?

They married aboard the QE2 in 1986 and remarry on the same ship at the end.

Where do Hallie and Annie meet?

Camp Walden, a summer camp in Maine, punishes the girls' escalating prank war by sending both of them to its isolation cabin.

Which fruit does Hallie hold behind Annie's ear while piercing it?

An apple slice is the landing pad for the needle. British censors cut the moment from the film so that children would not copy it.

What sport are the twins playing when they first see each other's faces?

They lift their masks and are stunned to be looking at themselves.

In the 1961 Parent Trap, which city is the proper twin raised in by her mother?

Boston is the proper twin's home, while out west their father is about to marry a much younger woman who is after his money.

What is the name of the Parkers' housekeeper, played by Lisa Ann Walter?

Chessy has known Hallie all her life, so she is the one who works out that the girl back from camp is really Annie.

What is the name of the James family's butler in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Martin drops Annie off at camp, and before she goes the two of them perform a long secret handshake of many moves.

Who plays Meredith Blake, Nick Parker's fiancée in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Elaine Hendrix plays her as the film's villain, a fiancée who tries to get the twins sent away from their father.

Which actress is a gold-digger in the 1961 film and her mother in the 1998 film?

Vicky Robinson in 1961, Vicki Blake in 1998.

How does the family finally get rid of Meredith?

Elizabeth insists Meredith go camping in her place; the pranks mirror the 1961 honey-and-bear-cubs sequence.

How do Nick and Hallie beat Elizabeth and Annie back to London at the end?

Elizabeth's father Charles, played by Ronnie Stevens, had earlier caught Hallie on the phone and coaxed out the truth.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, what did its young star say helped her turn into the other twin?

Putting on a wig, the long hair she wore as Annie, made her feel different, stepping out of her comfort zone into the other character.

Which creature do the twins sneak onto Meredith's head in the 1998 Parent Trap?

A lizard makes Meredith shriek, yet the actress who played her loves lizards and says every bit of that fear was acting.

Which film kept the 1998 Parent Trap from the number one spot on its opening weekend?

Saving Private Ryan was already in its second weekend, yet it still took more than double The Parent Trap's $11.1 million.

Who attended the film's London premiere in November 1998?

It was a Royal Film Performance; a deleted scene had Jeannette Charles playing the Queen meeting Hallie.

Which Nat King Cole song plays over the opening wedding sequence?

The 1961 song 'Let's Get Together' is quoted over the Disney logo and in Alan Silvestri's end-credits suite.

Which song plays when Hallie walks into Annie's poker game at camp?

'Parents Just Don't Understand' by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince plays on Meredith's car radio.

What snack do both twins eat with peanut butter in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Oreos with peanut butter are the taste the girls bond over in the isolation cabin, just before they learn they are twins.

Which relative of Lohan's plays the 'Lost Boy' who did not realise Camp Walden was all-girls?

Her mother Dina and siblings Aliana and Dakota also appear uncredited at the London airport.

In the 1961 Parent Trap, what did its star say helped hide her wavering American accents?

The twins keep swapping places, so each is always faking the other's accent, and the star felt that covered her slips.

Who plays both twins in the original 1961 Parent Trap?

Hayley Mills played both twins, so after dishing out a cream pie as one sister she had to switch roles and take one in the face.

Who wrote and directed the 1961 Parent Trap?

David Swift still shares the writing credit on the 1998 remake, nearly four decades later.

Who play the divorced parents in the 1961 Parent Trap?

Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith play the parents, who reunite once a disastrous camping trip sends his fiancée fleeing.

What are the twins called in the 1961 Parent Trap?

Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers share their mother Maggie's and father Mitch's surnames respectively.

Who wrote 'Let's Get Together' and the other songs for the 1961 film?

Hayley Mills's double-tracked single, credited to 'Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills', reached number 8 on the Billboard chart.

Who sang the 1961 film's title song?

They were on the Disney lot shooting Babes in Toyland; Funicello also sings 'Let's Get Together' on the camp record player.

For which two Academy Awards was the 1961 original nominated?

It grossed $25.1 million.

What was the girls' summer retreat called in the 1961 film?

It was based on a real girls' camp, Camp Crestridge in North Carolina; the California scenes used a Carmel ranch and Pebble Beach.

How was one star shown as both twins at once in the 1961 Parent Trap?

Split screen and a body double did it, with the star and her double rehearsing a scene together, then switching places to play it again.

The Parent Trap is based on which 1949 German novel?

Erich Kästner first pitched the plot as a film in 1942, but the Nazis stopped him working.

In Kästner's novel, in which two cities do the separated twins live?

Luise Palfy lives in Vienna and Lottie Körner in Munich; both were born in Linz on October 14.

Where did The Parent Trap II premiere in 1986?

The Disney Channel premiered it in July 1986, with one twin's daughter now playing matchmaker for her divorced mother.

Who served as Lindsay Lohan's double, playing the second twin in shared scenes?

Disney CEO Michael Eisner reportedly remarked at the premiere that two different girls had played the twins.

Who co-wrote and produced the 1998 Parent Trap?

Charles Shyer and his then-wife, the director, named the film's twins after their own two daughters.

Which future star turned down the 1998 Parent Trap's twin roles multiple times?

Jena Malone kept turning the roles down, while the director went on hunting for 'a little Diane Keaton'.

Which Natalie Cole song plays over the 1998 film's end credits?

It bookends the opening sequence, which uses her father Nat King Cole's 'L-O-V-E'.

Who hosted the virtual cast reunion for the 1998 film's 22nd anniversary in July 2020?

Katie Couric hosted the reunion on Instagram, and it raised money for José Andrés's World Central Kitchen.

A child actress in the running for the twins of the 1998 Parent Trap grew up to play which Avengers hero?

Black Widow went to Scarlett Johansson, who was up for Hallie and Annie when she was about twelve. She only landed the Marvel part after Emily Blunt had to drop out.

Maggie Wheeler, a camp counselor in the 1998 Parent Trap, is best known as which recurring Friends character?

Janice, Chandler's on-off girlfriend, turned up in 19 episodes and at least once in every season. Wheeler's camp character is the younger half of a mother-and-daughter team.

Which future film star rapped on Parents Just Don't Understand, heard from Meredith's car in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Will Smith was still the Fresh Prince, one half of a duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff, when he made the 1988 single. It won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance the following year.

Hallie and Annie, the twins of the 1998 Parent Trap, were named after whose two real-life daughters?

The director's daughters both turn up in small parts, one of them credited only as Towel Girl. The film itself is dedicated to the real Hallie.

The actress who plays Elizabeth James in the 1998 Parent Trap was the daughter of which Oscar-winning star?

Vanessa Redgrave won her Oscar for the 1977 film Julia. In 1985 mother and daughter shared a West End stage in Chekhov's The Seagull, the younger woman's first West End role.

The actress who plays the Parkers' housekeeper in the 1998 Parent Trap later joined the main cast of which sitcom?

Abbott Elementary cast her as the second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti from 2021, and its ensemble won a Screen Actors Guild Award. She and the film's Meredith became best friends off screen.

In Parent Trap III, a 1989 TV sequel, who are the matchmaking daughters of the widowed father Jeffrey Wyatt?

Teenage triplets, played by the real sisters Leanna, Monica and Joy Creel, set out to stop their father marrying the wrong woman. The first film's star came back as both grown-up twins.

Which Olsen twins film, co-starring Kirstie Alley, echoes The Parent Trap with lookalikes who meet at summer camp?

It Takes Two pairs an orphan with a wealthy lookalike, and the girls scheme to match the adults who look after them. It reached cinemas three years before Disney's own remake.

Five years after the 1998 Parent Trap, its young star led which other Disney remake opposite Jamie Lee Curtis?

Freaky Friday has a mother and daughter wake up in each other's bodies. At the young star's own suggestion, her character was rewritten from a Goth into someone more mainstream.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, a stunned Nick topples into what on first seeing Elizabeth at the hotel?

The swimming pool claims him because he cannot take his eyes off his ex-wife. Those poolside scenes were shot at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, far from the city where the story sets them.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, Hallie grows up on her father's vineyard in which American wine region?

Napa Valley is where Nick Parker grows his grapes while his other daughter is raised an ocean away. The estate seen on screen is a real working winery in Rutherford.

At camp in the 1998 Parent Trap, where are the feuding twins sent to live together after their prank war?

The Isolation Cabin is meant as a punishment, but being shut in together is what ends the fight. The two rivals begin to bond once nobody else is around.

Who catches Hallie secretly phoning Annie from London in the 1998 Parent Trap, prompting her to confess the switch?

Her grandfather hears the whole story and encourages her to tell her mother the truth. That confession is what sends mother and daughter across the Atlantic.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, the twins recreate the night their parents met with a romantic dinner aboard what?

A yacht stands in for the ocean liner where Nick and Elizabeth fell in love, with the household staff helping out. Over dinner Elizabeth admits she had hoped Nick would come after her.

The actress who plays Elizabeth James in the 1998 Parent Trap was married to which Schindler's List star?

Liam Neeson met her in 1993, when the two starred together on Broadway in a revival of Anna Christie. They married the following summer at their home in Millbrook, New York.

The actor who plays Nick Parker in the 1998 Parent Trap was married at the time to which romantic-comedy star?

Meg Ryan married him on Valentine's Day 1991, after the pair fell for each other while making the thriller D.O.A. Their son Jack was born the following year.

At the wedding that ends the 1998 Parent Trap, who proposes to the Parker family's housekeeper?

The butler from the James household fell for her when the two families collided at the hotel. His proposal comes aboard the liner where Nick and Elizabeth marry for the second time.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, the twins trick their parents into meeting again at a hotel in which city?

San Francisco is the setting, but the hotel is a patchwork: its interiors were filmed far to the south at the Langham Huntington in Pasadena.

The 1998 Parent Trap's first-time filmmaker said she wanted a little version of which actress to play the twins?

Diane Keaton had first worked with her on Baby Boom in 1987. More than 1,500 young actresses sent in audition tapes for the two parts.

Which Disney boss reportedly suggested at the 1998 Parent Trap premiere that two different girls had played the twins?

Michael Eisner ran the company from 1984 to 2005, and his reported remark was the best review the effects could get: one girl had played both sisters.

Which composer of the Back to the Future and Forrest Gump scores wrote the music for the 1998 Parent Trap?

Alan Silvestri slipped a phrase of Let's Get Together, the hit song of the 1961 film, into his music over the Disney logo and again at the end of the closing credits.

Which Glenn Miller big-band hit plays as the two families cross paths at the hotel in the 1998 Parent Trap?

In the Mood is an instrumental, so the near misses in the hotel play out without a word sung. Miller's band was not the first to record it: Edgar Hayes got there in 1938.

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye, heard as the family parts in the 1998 Parent Trap, is sung by Betty Carter and whom?

Ray Charles recorded the ballad with Carter for their 1961 album of duets. Cole Porter had written it in 1944 for the stage revue Seven Lively Arts.

Which prize did the star of the 1998 Parent Trap win for playing both twins in her first film?

The Young Artist Award for leading young actress in a feature film was hers in 1999, shared in a tie. She was also nominated as favorite newcomer at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.

Which company's cookies turn up in both the 1961 and 1998 versions of The Parent Trap?

Nabisco's Newtons turn up in the 1961 film, and 37 years later the remake featured another of its best-known brands.

Which future star of The Vampire Diaries made her film debut as a camper named Jackie in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Kat Graham played one of Annie's friends at camp, then waited eleven years for her breakout part as the young witch Bonnie Bennett.

Polly Holliday, the camp owner in the 1998 Parent Trap, made her name as the waitress Flo on which sitcom?

Alice made her so popular as the sassy Flo that the character was given a spin-off of her own. The part also won her two Golden Globes.

Which child star of Mrs. Doubtfire auditioned for the twins of the 1998 Parent Trap but was judged too young?

Mara Wilson was barely a year younger than the girl who got the parts, and already had Miracle on 34th Street and Matilda behind her.

Elmer Bernstein's theme from which war film is heard in the 1998 Parent Trap as the twins trudge to their punishment?

The Great Escape follows Allied prisoners breaking out of a German camp, so its jaunty march turns a summer-camp punishment into a prison joke.

The actress who plays Meredith Blake in the 1998 Parent Trap later played Alexis in the reboot of which soap?

Dynasty brought her in for its third season in 2019, when Nicollette Sheridan left the part of Alexis Carrington Colby. She stayed with the series until it ended in 2022.

Before the 1998 Parent Trap, its young star spent a year as Alli Fowler on which daytime soap?

Another World hired her at ten, by which point she had modelled since the age of three and appeared in more than 60 television commercials.

After debuting with the 1998 Parent Trap, its filmmaker next made which hit comedy starring Mel Gibson?

What Women Want, about a man who can suddenly hear women's thoughts, became the most successful film directed by a woman up to that time.

Before making the 1998 Parent Trap, its debuting filmmaker turned down which 1996 hit comedy?

The First Wives Club was offered to her by Paramount's Sherry Lansing and became a blockbuster without her. She signed a development deal with Disney the following year instead.

The stand-in who played the second twin in the 1998 Parent Trap later starred on Broadway as which Wicked character?

Glinda was her role between 2006 and 2010 in Chicago, Los Angeles, on tour and in New York. The film, made when she was a child, had been her first screen job.

Dean Cundey, briefly seen as the ship's captain in the 1998 Parent Trap, did which job on the film's crew?

Cinematographer Cundey, who had photographed Jurassic Park, stepped in front of his own camera uncredited. His captain marries Nick and Elizabeth in the opening scene.

The East Coast summer camp of the 1998 Parent Trap was really filmed on location in which state?

California doubled for the far side of the country: the camp scenes were shot at Camp Seely, a real camp in the town of Crestline.

In the 1998 Parent Trap, what is the name of the hotel where both halves of the family end up staying?

The Stafford is fictional, and no single building plays it: the exterior, the interiors and the pool were each filmed at a different location.

The husband-and-wife team behind the 1998 Parent Trap had earlier remade which comedy starring Steve Martin?

Father of the Bride, their 1991 update of a 1950 Vincente Minnelli film, was the pair's biggest hit up to then and led to a sequel four years later.

Which Top Gun actor plays the widowed father and love interest in The Parent Trap II, the 1986 TV sequel?

Tom Skerritt plays Bill Grand, whose daughter teams up with a friend from summer school to pair him off with the friend's divorced mother.

Which country turned the novel behind The Parent Trap into a 29-episode animated TV series in 1991?

Japan had already filmed the story once in 1951, ten years before Disney got to it. The anime's title translates as The Two Lottes.

In the German novel behind The Parent Trap, what does the twins' father do for a living?

An opera conductor with a successful career, he is unhappy all the same, as his former wife sees whenever she secretly buys a ticket to watch him perform.

In the novel behind The Parent Trap, who senses that the twin now living with her father is the wrong girl?

A doctor's dog called Peperl sniffs at Lottie over supper at a hotel and knows she is not Luise. The two later make friends, and he is a witness at the parents' second wedding.

In the novel behind The Parent Trap, the twins Luise and Lottie were each given half of what?

Their mother's name is Luiselotte, and she divided it between her daughters. The divorce then divided the daughters between the parents in just the same way.

How did the 1950 German film of The Parent Trap's source novel put two identical girls on screen?

It cast real twins, Isa and Jutta Günther, who had trained in ballet and were making their first film. The novelist wrote the screenplay himself and narrated it too.

Which real winery in Rutherford stood in for Parker Knoll, Hallie's home in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Staglin Family Vineyard supplied both the vines and the house, so Nick Parker's fictional business was filmed at a working one.

Which Beverly Hillbillies actress from the 1961 film lent her surname to the camp owners of the 1998 Parent Trap?

Nancy Kulp, television's Miss Jane Hathaway, played a camp counselor in the first film. The remake's mother and daughter in charge are both called Marva Kulp.

The 2020 virtual cast reunion for the 1998 Parent Trap raised money for which José Andrés charity?

World Central Kitchen was the cause when the cast met by video chat during the COVID-19 pandemic. An extended version of the reunion went out on a podcast the next day.

Which supermodel, also Mr. Freeze's wife in Batman & Robin, models a bridal gown in the 1998 Parent Trap?

Vendela Kirsebom poses in the photoshoot at Elizabeth's studio. A year earlier she had been Nora Fries in Batman & Robin, and her 1990s magazine covers included the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

The actress who plays Meredith Blake in the 1998 Parent Trap finished fifth on which TV contest in 2025?

Dancing with the Stars also reunited her with the film's housekeeper, her best friend, who joined her for a foxtrot on Dedication Night.

Which 1990s hit by the New Zealand act OMC plays in the background of the 1998 Parent Trap?

How Bizarre topped the charts in five countries, Australia and Canada among them, yet OMC never managed another hit outside New Zealand.