Is Dead Ringers based on a true story?

The series explores their perplexing relationship with one another as well as their unflinching determination to change the medical world with their revolutionary – and ethically questionable – practices. The pair are leading obstetricians and known throughout America in the series, but is it based on a true story?

Read on for everything you need to know about the events that inspired Dead Ringers.

Is Dead Ringers based on a true story?

Simply put, mainly no but also slightly yes. Let us explain...

This new six-part series has been written by Alice Birch (The Wonder) as well as being executive produced by Rachel Weisz, who leads the drama as the Mantle twins.

The series has been labelled a "modern take" on David Cronenberg’s film and is a different version of the tale of twins turned complicated medical professionals, but also draws very close similarities to the original.

It is very much grounded in the present-day though, and technology, social climate, circumstances and more are reflective of the reality of today.

However, the film that the series is based on is actually based on real events in a roundabout way. Stick with us here.

The new Prime Video series hasn't been framed around any true story in particular, but the award-winning 1988 film was based on Bari Wood and Jack Geasland’s 1977 novel Twins.

The synopsis for the novel reads: "Doctors David and Michael Ross were both handsome, and successful. They seemed like mirror images except that one was ruthless and the other gentle. To the beautiful woman who loved one and feared the other, they were at first a mystery she knew she must solve, and then a force she tried to fight."

Sounds familiar, right? While the book itself is a work of fiction, it was in fact inspired by the real-life case of twins Stewart and Cyril Marcus.

The Marcus twins were, like their fictional on-screen counterparts, leaders in their field of gynaecology and were both clinical assistant professors of obstetrics and gynecology, as well as being co-directors of Cornell Hospital’s Infertility Clinic.

Born in 1930, the pair were nationally known throughout their careers. They went on to open a private practice and published many influential articles in medical journals but their deaths still remain a mystery.

It's not known when exactly but eventually in the '70s, the pair became addicted to prescription drugs (as is explored in the 1988 film), namely to barbiturates and amphetamines.

By 1975, Dr. Fritz Fuchs, the chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Hospital, gave the twins an ultimatum of either getting treatment for their addiction or resigning, as noted by Esquire.

Aged 45, in July 1975, the pair were found dead in Cyril's New York apartment surrounded by rubbish, dirt and dozens of empty bottles of barbiturate, which led investigators to believe that they died from a suspected overdose or a suicide pact.

But after multiple tests were done in the post-mortem, no traces of substances, alcohol or drugs were found in their systems. While the initial report was found to have been done in error, it was concluded that Stewart (who died first, days before Cyril) had suffered an overdose while the cause of Cyril's death remained unknown.

The strange circumstances surrounding their deaths grew when the doorman of Cyril's apartment block said that he had encountered Cyril in a possible bid to leave the building. Cyril apparently appeared disoriented and frail, but would later retreat back into the apartment to die days after his brother Stewart.

The unusual and perplexing circumstances of their death is somewhat explored in the film, which is a nod to the story that it's ultimately based on. As for the series, it does draw parallels to the film but is also "its own thing", according to Birch when speaking at the London screening for Dead Ringers.

She said: "[I want it] to go in its own new direction and to feel like this new version. There are nods to the film throughout, Easter eggs."

Dead Ringers is coming to Prime Video on Friday 21st April. Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime Video and pay £8.99 a month after that.

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