In the 1998 movie The Parent Trap, two identical-looking 11-year-old girls discover they’re twins separated at birth. If you think that’s a bizarre story, real life can lead to funny connections too. Two stars from the Disney flick, Lisa Ann Walter and Elaine Hendrix, recently discovered they have their own family tree connection.
In The Parent Trap, Lisa Ann Walter played the wholehearted housekeeper Chessy while Elaine Hendrix played the evil Meredith. While these two may have portrayed fictional sworn enemies, they’re real-life best friends. Other than Disney classic and their budding friendship- there was another connection between the two. According to People, Walter starred in the premiere episode of the YouTube series unFamiliar, visiting the buildings and streets her relatives lived on in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
During the filming of unFamiliar, Lisa Ann Walter discovered she had something in common with Elaine Hendrix. Her family lived on the same street! Hendrix didn’t appear entirely surprised by the revelation as she speculated, “It was fate.”
“I knew that my mom’s side of the family was Italian and had came in through New York, and several of my family members were later born in New York and grew up there. And at that time, it was a very small community, a very tight-knit community. The Italians all lived in one area,” said Hendrix to People. “So when Ancestry came back to me and said, ‘You’re never going to believe this’ . . . I was like, ‘Of course they did.’ And we’re speculating, but the chances are extraordinarily high that they knew each other.”
While an emotional experience, Hendrix had the two sneak into one of the buildings tied to their ancestry. The Abbott Elementary actress said she admired Hendrix’s rebellious nature. The Superstar actress, on the other hand, valued Walter’s “warmth.”
How did Lisa Ann Walter and Elaine Hendrix Meet?
Surprisingly, Lisa Ann Walter and Elaine Hendrix’s earliest memory of each other wasn’t from starring in one of Nancy Meyers’ best movies. According to Vanity Fair, these two met at a Television Critics Association event a few years earlier. When Hendrix first saw Walter, she was singing to the room songs about members of the press with piano stylings and floor rolling. Impressed at this entertaining lady, a friendship was born soon after. The pair are still the best of friends and were even each other’s dates at the 73rd Tony Awards. The extraordinary link of their ancestors being neighbors long ago proves some friendships truly are meant to be.
