Daisy and Violet Hilton
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The girls were born in Brighton, England (East Sussex) on February 5 1908. Their mother was a single barmaid named Kate Skinner. The sisters were born joined by their hips and buttocks; they shared blood circulation and were fused at the pelvis but shared no major organs. Skinner's boss Mary Hilton, who helped in childbirth, apparently saw commercial prospects in them, and thus effectively bought them from their mother and took them under her care.
According to the sisters' own autobiography, Mary Hilton, her husband and daughter kept the twins in strict control with physical abuse; they had to call her "Auntie Lou" and her current husband "Sir". They trained the girls in singing and dancing.
The Hilton sisters toured first in England at the age of three as "The United Twins". Mary Hilton dragged them to a tour through Germany, Australia and to the USA. In the true sideshow manner, their performance was accompanied with a dubious "history". Their controllers kept all the money the sisters earned.
When Mary died in Birmingham, Alabama, her daughter and her husband took over. They kept the twins from public view for a while and trained them in jazz music. They lived in a mansion in San Antonio, Texas until the early 1930s.
In 1931, the sisters gathered enough courage to sue their "managers", gaining USD$100,000 in damages - and independence. They left the sideshows and went into vaudeville as "The Hilton Sisters' Revue". Daisy dyed her hair blonde and they began to wear different outfits so they could be told apart. As if to compensate for their deprived past, they had numerous affairs, failed attempts to get a marriage license and a couple of short marriages. In 1932, the twins appeared as themselves in the movie Freaks.
Eventually the sisters settled in Miami, Florida and kept a hamburger stand called the Hilton Sisters' Snack Bar. In the 1950s they tried Hollywood again and starred in a movie Chained for Life.
The Hiltons' last public appearance was at a drive-in movie theater in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their tour manager abandoned them there, and with no means of transportation or income, they were forced to take a job in a nearby grocery store.
On January 6, 1969, the twins were found dead in their home due to the Hong Kong Flu. Some debate circulates as to whether the twins' abandonment at the drive in helped to speed up their death, as they were reportedly forced to stand in the rain for hours while waiting for their manager, which could have resulted in making them more susceptible to illness.
In 1997, a Broadway musical loosely based on the sisters' lives, Side Show, with lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger, received four Tony nominations.
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