Daisy and Violet Hilton were conjoined twins (joined by their
hips and buttocks; they shared blood circulation and were fused at the pelvis
but shared no major organs.)
who leaped to fame on the vaudeville scene and were the subject
of a series of exploitation films like Freaks and Chained for Life. It was
believed that an operation to separate them would certainly lead to the death
of one or both of the twins.
The girls were born in England in 1908 to an unmarried barmaid
who exhibited them in Europe while they were still children, and toured the
United States sideshow, vaudeville and American burlesque circuits in the 1920s
and 1930s.
The mother, who believed the girls birth defects was punishment
for her wicked ways, called the girls “The monsters” and sold the children to
her employer, a mean hustler named Mary Hilton. Hilton put the girls on display
in the read room of her tavern and charged customers two cents to see where the
children were conjoined. A number of Hiltons various boyfriend and lover, whom
the girls were required to call “Sir”, physically and emotionally abused the
pair.
Hilton took the girls on tour across the US. According to the
sisters' autobiography, Mary Hilton, their road manager, along with her husband
and daughter kept the twins in strict control with physical abuse. “When we
displeased her” they wrote “she whipped our backs and shoulders with the buckle
end of that belt."
When Hilton died, while on tour in the states, the twins were
“bequeathed” to Mary's daughter Edith and her husband Meyer Rothbaum, a former
balloon salesman. The twins referred to the Rothbaum’s as their
"owners," who never, ever, let them out of their sights, even
sleeping in the same room with them at night. If the girls complained they were
threatened with being left on their own or with being institutionalized. In
their early shows, the girls appeared with other freak acts like “The Turtle
Man”, “The Human Block head” and “The Monkey Girl”
As teenagers, in the 1920s, they appeared on the vaudeville
stage with mega stars of the day like Charlie Chaplin and Bob Hope. At the
height of their success, the sister were earning $5,000 a week, an incredible
amount of money at the time, but the Rothbaum’s stole every cent the girls
earned. A court inquiry later showed that the act made $3,800 a week and that
the girl, on record anyway, were paid $100 a week, although the sister argued
that they never even that small amount. The Rothbaum’s argued that the girls
travelling expense and school tutors cost an amazing $100,000 a year, or about
a million dollars today.
Finally, in January of 1931, the sisters fled their captures and
sued the Rothbaum’s to get out of their contracts and demanded $100,000 in
damages, arguing that they had been sold into bondage and that the Rothbaum’s
had cost them an estimated $2 million dollars and the court agreed. An
accounting of the girls earning was done under court order
Once free of the Rothbaum’s, they dyed their hair blonde, wore
tighter, shorter dresses (Although they now wore different outfits from each
other) and went on the road as "The Hilton Sisters' Revue". When
vaudeville died, they hit the burlesque circuit.
The sister could be charming, warm and witty and easily
attracted a string of lovers. The girls allegedly had dozens of affairs. Since
they had no physical privacy between themselves, the magician Harry Houdini
taught them how to mentally tune each other out while one had sex and the other
didn’t. One of their messier affairs was with a married man had them dragged
into an ugly divorce. Daisy tried to marry the musician Jack Lewis, (or
possibly musician Maurice Lambert) but 21 states refused to grant him a marriage
license.
In 1932, the twins agreed to appear in films like Freaks, but
they were aging, their act was old, and they began to struggle to get by. There
was a publicity stunt marriage in 1936 to a gay actor named James Moore and
another publicity stunt marriage to gay dancer Harold Estep, in 1941.
In the 1950s they opened a snack bar in Miami, but it didn't
survive and in 1951 the sister starred in another exploitation film called
Chained for Life.
In 1961, the girl appeared at a drive-in Monroe, North Carolina.
Their tour manager took the money for the appearance and left the sister there,
penniless, to make it on their own. With no other choice, they took a job at a
local grocery store, the Park and Shop. The store manager put them behind a
counter to weight vegetables and had the counter rebuilt to fit their physical
problems. The store employees pitched in and bough the girl three dresses since
all they owned were stage clothes. The sisters rented a small cottage from the
church they attended and otherwise settled into a peaceful routine.
On January 4, 1969, after they failed to report to work for
several days, the girls boss called the police who entered the sister tiny
apartment and found them both dead from the Hong Kong flu. Daisy died first; Violet
died between two and four days later. They were dead on the floor over the
heating grate, possibly huddled there for warmth in their final hours. They had
just turned 60 years old.
A few weeks before they died, a fan asked the girls if they
would like to his collection of photos of them from their days on the stage.
'No,' they said, 'we want to forget those days, forever.' "