The Hilton sisters: the sad story of vaudeville actresses who were Siamese twins

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

At the beginning of the 20th century, newspaper headlines and billboards in European capitals were full of announcements of performances by unique vaudeville actresses - Daisy and Violetta Hilton. These pretty and certainly talented girls were Siamese twins and spent their whole lives together. Their sad and not at all vaudeville story has everything: love, and betrayal, and the world of glamor and intrigue.

Daisy and Violetta Hilton were born in British Brighton in 1908. Their mother, Kate Skinner, was single and worked as a waitress in a pub. The birth of the girls was a shock for everyone - it turned out that they are Siamese twins, fused in the buttocks and thighs. The only person who was not taken aback was the owner of the pub, Mary Hilton, who was present at the birth. She immediately realized how attractive these girls could be for investment, and bought the strange babies from their mother, who was not eager to raise her children alone.

The guardian gave the children her last name. At first, the little ones lived in the Queen's Head pub, and later they were transported to the Evening Star pub. The girls began performing in front of the public at the age of 3. They were taught dancing, music, and the sisters honed their skills on the stage of carnivals and fairs where they had to perform. Contemporaries said that the Hilton spouses, who raised the girls, were too strict with them and were severely punished for any offense.

It is known that members of the Sussex Medical-Surgical Society considered the possibility of separating the conjoined twins, but it turned out that the girls had a common circulatory system, so during the operation one of them would have died.

Time passed, the sisters grew and over time turned into pretty girls who, moreover, sang and danced beautifully. The people went to their shows so willingly that the guardians earned decent money from them. When their guardian died, the merged artists were used by her daughter, who in the 1930s bought a house in San Antonio, Texas with the money she earned from the twins. But in 1931, Daisy and Violette found the strength to get rid of bondage and went to court, demanding freedom from the guardians. As a result, they received $ 100,000 in moral damages and longed for freedom.

Once free, Daisy and Violette opened their own vaudeville, The Hilton Sisters Revue. And their life has changed significantly. Daisy became blonde, the girls began to dress differently in order to feel like different personalities.

The sisters had several love affairs. Violet even got engaged to Maurice Lambert, but the young people could not get permission to marry. Daisy married actor Harold Esther, but their marriage was annulled a few days later. According to rumors, one of the sisters gave birth to a child who was given up for adoption.

The sisters claimed that they did not bother each other in love affairs. Allegedly, Houdini, with whom the girls were friendly, taught them to find themselves in a mental private space, where they could "get rid of each other" when necessary. They had a special, similar to a telephone booth, in which one could exchange affection with her chosen one, while the other read or did a manicure.

In 1932, they appeared in the film 'Freaks', and another film with the participation of Daisy and Violette was in 1951 'Chained for Life', which just showed the real life story of the Hilton sisters.

As time went on, the savings of the girls, who did not like to deny themselves something, came to an end. Vaudeville was out of fashion by that time. But since, besides the entertainment industry, the girls did not know where to apply themselves, they still tried to sell themselves in this field. As a result, they got into burlesque shows and went on tour.

In 1941, Terry Turner, the twins' PR manager, made public the wedding of Violet and dancer James "Jim" Moore. True, this wedding turned out to be nothing more than a farce. Jim was homosexual and the sham marriage only lasted two weeks.

In 1955, when it became clear that the stage career was over, the sisters opened a bakery where they prepared hot dogs, and earned good money until competitors accused them of stealing their business. After that, in order to somehow earn a living, the sisters got a job as salesmen of chips in a small town called Charlotte, where they lived modestly for the rest of their lives. According to recollections, the twins always looked great: they had impeccable hairstyles, makeup and manicure.

In January 1969, after the sisters did not go to work and did not answer phone calls, police arrived at their house. They found the women dead. Doctors called the cause of death the Hong Kong flu, which was raging at that time, and found that Daisy died first, and Violette lived for another 2 to 4 days. The Hilton twins are buried in Forest Lawn West Cemetery.

Later, about the life of the Hilton sisters, the musical Side Show was staged on Broadway, which received four Tony Award nominations at once, and bus number 708 was named after them in their native Brighton.

This unique video captures one of the Hilton sisters' performances.

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