[projector whirring]
[film reel clicking]
- I am Violet Hilton.
This is my prospective
bridegroom, Maurice Lambert.
We tried very hard to procure
a marriage license,
both in the states of New York
and New Jersey,
but were refused
in both places.
I feel very, very unhappy
about it
because I love Maurice
very, very dearly,
and he loves me.
And I don't see any reason
in the world
why we should be denied
the pleasure of being happy.
[rock music]
- The eyes of the curious world
have been focused on us
almost from the moment
of our birth.
- They were born on
a February night in 1 908...
- In Brighton, England.
Their mother was unwed.
- Kate Skinner, a grocery clerk
and also a barmaid.
Kate worked for Mary Hilton,
who operated a pub
and also worked
as a midwife,
along with her husband,
Henry.
Usually got the service
of their barmaids free
because they promised
the young women
that she would be there
to attend to the births.
She had a very difficult labor,
started early in the morning.
They lived in row houses,
and because she was tormented,
people were pounding on
the walls on either side of her,
telling her to shut up.
Twins actually
ran in Kate's family,
so it wasn't a great surprise
when the delivery took place
that twins were born.
Mary Hilton, of course,
detected immediately
that something
was peculiar here.
They were joined back-to-back.
And then when Kate
discovered it moments later,
she was absolutely horrified,
you know, that she had brought
into the world "freaks."
She would not even hold
the children,
much less suckle the children.
She thought that this was
a punishment from God.
She had these children
out of wedlock.
Dr. Rooth came,
and while the babies appeared
vigorous and healthy,
he said the twins would die
in a very short period.
At that point in history,
the mortality rate
for conjoined twins
was probably something like
1,000 deaths
per 1 survival.
There had never been
any successful separations.
Kate was probably
somewhat cheered,
knowing that her babies
were going to die
and prayed that
they would pass overnight.
But in the morning,
they were always there,
always squirming.
Mary Hilton visited Kate
every day
to bathe the babies
and feed the babies,
and the twins seemed to be
getting ever stronger.
- She sold the girls
to Mary Hilton.
- Initially, she just kind of
took possession of them.
Ultimately,
they were legally adopted, yes.
- Did she have genuine affection
for these little girls,
or, you know,
was she always thinking
that perhaps there was
the opportunity
to display them,
to promote them?
- She was
a poorly educated woman
but a savvy woman
at the same time.
She saw from the beginning
that these two little things
were cash cows.
Kate did ultimately name them
Daisy and Violet.
They both had
entirely separate organs
with this kind of
little ribbon of flesh
through which
the bloods and fluids
would circulate
from one to another.
Initially,
they were rather tightly
fastened to one another,
but as they grew older,
that ribbon of flesh became
more and more elasticized,
just from their movements.
- We seem to move
without much effort
because we've propelled
each other.
- Mary was a real promoter.
She had a real knack for
how to sort of sell the story,
and she would have
these little photo postcards... -
and you could buy
one of these little postcards
as a souvenir... -
and would set them up
in one of the family rooms
of the home,
and you could go off,
and, you know,
for a small fee,
you could go into the home,
see the little girls,
and if you wanted a souvenir,
you would buy
one of these little postcards
and see
The Brighton United Twins.
- Her pub was called
the Queen's Arms.
She displayed the children,
now a month old or so,
in a back room of the pub,
and people could come in
and, for a couple of pence,
have the opportunity
to view the children.
So there was
this constant stream of people
now coming to the bar.
- One of their first memories
is being little girls
in the tavern
and having people
lift up their dresses
and testing
the connection between them
to prove that
they were really conjoined.
- The little ribbon of flesh
was sensitive to touch,
so if somebody touched it,
you know,
it might bring about
a movement.
Brighton, England,
at this time,
was a popular seaside resort.
There were wax museums,
boardwalks,
a great variety
of entertainment.
It was a very glitzy place
on the sea.
- One of the things that
they did very, very early
when they were quite small
was appear in pit shows,
which were popular
among lower-class communities.
- When you would come in,
the performers would be on
little stages
that were only 6 inches
above the ground.
And there would be a railing
almost the length of the tent
and the width of the tent
that enclosed these stages.
And the people then would
come in and lean on the railing.
- As babies,
they weren't doing much
other than being
in this space
with people
looking down on them.
It must not have been
a very enjoyable experience.
- Our earliest memories
center about
a doctor pleading with Auntie
to permit him to cut us apart.
- Doctors always wanted
to poke and prod
and talk openly in front of them
about separating them.
- Maybe it was
primitive enough
that one of them
would've died.
I don't know.
- After she had been
in the original pub
and they had made some money
off of displaying the girls,
they invested in
a larger property.
But that was really
kind of small potatoes.
- Mary Hilton,
ever the opportunist,
decided after
some several months
to actually
take them on the road.
- When they decide that
they're going to leave England
and travel to other parts
of Europe,
they're making appearances
more in sort of theaters
and more established
sorts of places.
- There was a speech
repeated to us daily,
over and over again
like a phonograph record.
It was spoken by
a big, curly-haired woman
who bathed, dressed,
and fed us.
She never petted or kissed us
or even smiled.
She just talked.
"Your mother gave you to me.
You are not my children. "
- She would remind them
that their mother
didn't want them,
that their mother
had given them up
and that they should be
grateful
for anything
that she gave them.
- Mary was sort of
a controlling, demanding person
and, of course,
wouldn't allow the twins
any freedoms at all.
- We were taught to call her
"Auntie, "
and each of her five husbands
was "Sir. "
- They were afraid of her.
But love her?
No.
- They ran afoul
of an assortment of "Sirs,"
as they were calling them,
usually who were promoters.
And they were simply used
for their drawing power.
- The woman who cared for them
really drilled into them,
I think, that, you know,
they were going to be
performers;
they're gonna be
exhibitioned.
They're gonna be on the road
to make her money.
There was a lot of brutality
that was involved with it
just to, so-called,
keep them in line.
- Mary would get angry,
tell them that
they were so repellent.
- Her temper was something that
her daughter or her husband
could not control.
And when we displeased her,
she whipped our backs
and shoulders
with the buckle end
of a wide belt.
- They started showing
elsewhere.
- On circuses and sideshows,
they became
very, very big attractions,
but the girls never saw
any of the money.
- At an early age,
we were taught to recite,
read, and sing.
- They studied
violin and piano,
saxophones, clarinets.
- It was amazing
how much training
was crammed into
our early lives.
In preparation
for our debut in Berlin,
our first appearance
in a theater,
l, Violet,
played The Princess Waltz
2 1 /2 hours
without a mistake.
- They became multitalented
by the time they were
six, seven, and eight.
Wax museums were all over
at that time.
Wax museums usually offered
a variety of entertainment
that changed periodically.
So they might bring in
magicians;
they might bring in
various "freaks."
Houdini had seen the twins
at this wax museum
and was absolutely fascinated
with people with unusual
and extreme anomalies.
He was particularly drawn
to Daisy and Violet.
Not only did they have
this curious anomaly... -
very rare for conjoined twins
in that period
to even have reached
the ripe old age
of six or seven or eight... -
but they were also
such fetching things to look at,
like one of Raphael's
paintings of cherubs.
They were that lovely.
- If you go back
to the turn of the century,
to the '20s and '30s,
if someone had a deformity,
normally you did not see
that person out on the street.
The parents would maybe
raise the child
but would not take them
out in public.
But here are two girls
that are absolutely gorgeous... -
I mean, just marvelous... -
and, you know,
if anybody saw them,
they would just fall in love
with those girls.
- Those old dime museums
that they performed in as kids,
the audience could be tough.
I mean, here you are,
gorgeous young girls
out there onstage,
appealing to not only the fancy
of all the young men
in the audience
for legitimate reasons
but also for
pretty freaky reasons.
- Ike Rose was the operator
of Rose's Midgets,
a troupe
of performing midgets.
- Ike Rose visited Mary
and asked
for an opportunity
to represent the Hilton twins,
and Mary agreed to that.
At this point,
they were called
The Brighton United Twins.
They played in some
quite impressive venues... -
concert halls,
musical theaters.
And lke Rose,
at the same time,
was representing
the Blazek sisters,
who were also conjoined twins.
The Blazeks were grotesque,
almost,
they way they were
joined together.
Sometimes lke would show
both Daisy and Violet
and the Blazek sisters
in the same venues.
Ike Rose prevailed
on Mary Hilton
to take the pair
to Australia.
- They had initially been
brought down
to a pier at Luna Park
in Australia.
And when that venture failed
and it looked like they weren't
going to make the money
that they had been promised...
- Ike Rose dropped
from the picture.
- They hooked up
with another show,
and they started traveling
across Australia.
- Traveling was just horrendous.
The interior of Australia,
frying-pan heat,
traveling by train
and by horse-drawn wagon,
and it was while
they were out in the outback
that they met Myer Myers,
who was essentially
a balloon salesman.
He was instantly enamored
of the twins.
Myer Myers, another person
that was very savvy,
asked Mary Hilton, you know,
if he could begin
trouping with them.
Mary would have been
well into her 50s.
- Mary wasn't very happy
traveling across the outback.
There were certain troubles
that, you know,
she wasn't quite prepared for.
- She was there
in this desolate country
with her daughter, Edith,
and herself,
so she needed somebody else.
- He kind of takes on
this sort of protection role
for Mary.
He met Edith,
Mary Hilton's daughter,
and really pursued that
as a relationship.
- We thought that even when
he begged Auntie
to let him marry Edith,
his eyes were cruel.
- Edith was very much
a maternal figure to the girls.
- The twins
were much fonder of her
than they were of Mary Hilton.
- Daisy had a twisted limb.
One leg was bent
or something,
and she was kind of
half-crippled,
and she talked about
how she would rub it nightly
with liniment
and, you know, have the... -
have her exercise, and finally
the limb straightened out.
- Edith was in
her middle to late 20s.
She had about as many curves
as a cornstalk.
He himself
was pneumatically enlarged
because he was just
this kind of, like, round man... -
very short but very stout.
- And once he's married
to Edith,
he really starts
to assert his influence
over how they're managed.
- They started showing
in country fairs.
- What we would now call
the state fair
and the county fair... -
all those fairs
that we think about now
as being principally about
carnivals and rides.
But in their day,
in their birth,
they were all about farm folk
getting together
at the time of harvest
and creating the fair
not only to sell their produce
but also to compete
and were entertained thereby,
because
it was the perfect excuse
for the carnival folk,
who were looking for a place
to make their money,
to be attracted to those
state and county fairs.
- Myer was a big reason why
they actually came
to the United States.
- About 1 91 5,
they landed in San Francisco.
They got to Angel Island.
Angel Island, of course,
is like Ellis Island.
They'd have to pass through
customs to get into the country.
When the twins
got off the boat,
the authorities initially
refused to permit them
to enter the country.
So they were held there
for several days.
Mary, again, very sharp woman,
went into San Francisco
and started talking
to the newspaper people there,
and it became
a bit of a cause celebre
that these
poor little children
were being held
in confinement.
Ultimately,
the authorities agreed
to let the two
into the country.
- Once they were in
and were booking gigs,
you really see Myer and Mary
working jointly
to try to promote the girls.
- They began receiving offers,
and one of them came from
a traveling carnival,
Clarence Wortham's
World of Wonder.
- C.A. Wortham,
Clarence A. Wortham,
was the king of the carnivals.
And by 1 91 0 to 1 920,
he had the most-recognized,
largest carnival
in the United States.
The Wortham show
was a Midwestern show... -
north and south,
on up to Canada to Toronto.
Carnivals were an outgrowth
of the Columbian
World's Exposition
in Chicago in 1 893, '94.
- They called the White City
"The Columbia Exposition."
- They had
lots and lots of shows.
They had two rides.
One was a water ride.
One was the original
Ferris wheel.
The rest were all shows.
They were all
independently owned.
And they had been booking
affairs in other places.
- When all those assorted
dime museum operators,
which were premiere forms
of entertainment
in the 1 9th century,
circuses which traveled
and dime museums,
which cost a dime to get in... -
think
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
and roadside attractions... -
that's the kind of thing
that were dime museums... -
smashed together
with the Smithsonian,
because you saw
items of natural wonder
and items of freakish wonder
and live performance.
- When they all were together
for those two years... -
they got together;
they got acquainted
with one another... -
and they decided,
"Instead of us splitting up,
going our separate ways,
let's stay organized."
- If they could clump together
and move like circuses
and create carnival... -
"Oh, we can make money
off of this,
because rural America has
no other form of entertainment."
It's before movies.
It's before radio.
It's before TV.
It's before any of that stuff.
It's before most towns
even have a theater.
- And this was the start
of carnivals as we know them.
- When your circus came to town,
that drew thousands of people
from the community.
Now carnival comes into the mix,
and the carnival is drawing
thousands of people.
- There was an area
that was midway between
one part of the fair
and the other.
That's where all these sideshows
and the big wheel sat.
- The circus created the midway,
because from that big top
to the marquee out front
to the front door... -
that's the midway
to the big show.
Of course, what carnival did
was realize,
"You know, we could make
an entire life
off of the midway."
- I remember the sideshow
very well
because, of course,
you know,
the sword swallower,
who used to get drunk
and burn his throat,
and the fat ladies,
fish and humans... -
mermaids,
which were not, of course.
It was very interesting.
- Sideshow is seen as this
amazingly American institution,
but in fact, of course,
its roots are ancient.
I mean, any time,
prehistorically,
somebody said,
"Hey, come here;
I got something really weird
to show you,"
that's the birth of sideshow,
especially if they're gonna
charge you money to look... -
the performance
of such weird things
as sword swallowing
and eating horrible things
to prove to people
that you can do it.
But really, the sideshow
is only about 1 00 years old
in the United States.
- So every carnival
had a sideshow.
Every fair had a sideshow.
Every circus... -
and there were 30 circuses
in operation in those years... -
every circus had a sideshow.
Most of them had some freaks.
If you were lucky
and you had
four or five legitimate freaks,
those were your stars,
but you filled it in
because you had to have
entertainment.
- You always hard-sell the freak
on the front of the show.
You want people to think that
they're gonna come in
and see 80 turtle boys,
1 4 pairs of Siamese twins... -
I mean,
you got to do that because,
whether people like to admit it
or not, freakery sells.
'Cause you once
you get 'em inside,
it's 50 cents to get in
and $50 to get out,
because every act
is selling you something.
Every... - The Hilton sisters... -
they're selling that
autobiography.
What you principally see
in a sideshow
is not freak acts at all.
What you see are what they call
working acts... -
you know,
an accordion player,
Hawaiian bands,
glassblowers.
I mean, all this wacky stuff
was in sideshows
because those things
were exotic.
They're amazing acts.
Some would argue they're
the most entertaining thing
in the sideshow.
The freak performers
didn't do all that
the Hilton sisters could do.
- And a lot of the freaks,
they just stood up
and said, "Look at me.
Here I am."
- They did one thing
because their act is
supposed to take five minutes,
and then you go to the next guy
and you get five minutes,
and you go to the next performer
and you get five minutes.
- The freaks would be seated
on a stage throughout the show.
- And you walk
down through that show.
Usually you're led by that
inside talker
or the inside lecturer,
usually the magician
because he's the most disposable
commodity on the sideshow.
People drank,
and people got uppity.
Percilla the monkey girl
and her husband, Emmitt
the alligator-skinned man,
literally had a sign
that they kept right in front
of the platform that says,
"If you will be quiet
and behave,
we will give you a good show."
The born freaks were the royalty
in those shows.
- Those were the people
that drew the customers
to the carnival.
- They got the lion's share
of the money.
The two highest-paid people
on the show
were always the born freak
and the guy who owned the show.
And sometimes
the guy who owned that show
might take a hit on the money
to make sure that the born freak
stayed loyal to the show,
because if you couldn't pay 'em,
they're leaving.
They're out of there.
Because they know they can get
big money from any sideshow.
And, of course, the Hilton
sisters certainly could.
The old line
from the born freaks,
all the ones
I ever interviewed
who'd been in the business
in the heyday
between World War I
and World War Il,
all of them told me... -
every last one of them... -
A, if they could still do it
and it was still
like it was,
they'd still be doing it,
and, B,
"I got paid to be up there.
They had to pay money
to look at me."
Given the alternatives to
working in the sideshow business
for a lot of those performers,
there wasn't much else
other than hoping
the government or your family
would take care of you.
It's just, the Hilton sisters,
over their long careers,
trained to be many,
many different things,
with the hook being,
"Look.
We're conjoined."
- There were freaks
who had to perform
to show what they could do.
Armless wonders... -
it was really just doing things
they normally would do
in their everyday lives.
I ran freak shows
for many years,
and I always preferred
that the people
did some kind of an act
to entertain.
Handicapped people,
if you want to call them that,
on the sideshows,
certainly were never mistreated.
They were our stars.
You don't mistreat
your stars.
They were the ones
who were making you a living,
and in change,
you made them a living.
- The people who were
in those sideshows
found community
and camaraderie
with other people
that had to go through
the same challenges in life
that they did.
Daisy and Violet,
very early on,
were still set apart
from other sideshow performers.
They weren't allowed
to really interact with them
in the same way
when they were children
in large part
because of Myer Myers.
He didn't want them to have
that stigma of being freaks.
"Yes, we're going to
display the girls,
"and, yes, we're going
to make money off of them,
but they're not freaks."
And so they always sort of had
a division between them.
- I felt a kind of sorrow
at this whole thing.
They were very sad people.
Most of them drank too much,
or they... -
they just... -
they had problems,
which you can imagine,
being exploited.
It was a very debasing... -
it was a very nasty way
to make money.
But these were very miserable,
unhappy people.
I don't know a happy freak.
- In Birmingham, Alabama,
Auntie died,
and as we looked at her,
our first corpse,
the cunning and shrewdness
seemed out of her face.
l, Daisy, did not care
that she was dead.
"Why cry?" I asked Violet.
"We hated her forever. "
- "I'm afraid without her, "
l, Violet, answered,
"Now Sir will boss us. "
- Let's run away.
- Their existences then
were almost Dickensian
in the sense that they were
so fully controlled
by Myer Myers.
He was really
a quite hateful man.
- After Mary Hilton's death,
he had total control
at that point
over what was happening
with their careers.
- He thought he was
inheriting them.
- Willed as an old ring
or a chair?
It couldn't bel
- See,
Auntie left you to us.
You and her jewelry
and her furniture are ours.
Do you understand?
- They anticipated that,
as hellish
as their lives had been,
things were going to get
even worse.
- He had a terrible temper,
and that was something that
even his wife admitted.
- If they didn't do things
right,
they got punished.
They got hit.
They got slapped.
- We had to work as hard,
and the only privacy
we were to have
was in our minds.
The new owners slept
in the same room with us.
We were never
out of their sight.
- They always had to live
with him and Edith,
and when they were traveling,
they would stay
in the same hotel room.
He was very protective,
that he didn't want anybody
to see them
when they weren't performing.
He wanted them to pay
to come and see the girls
and to keep this aura of mystery
around them.
- Other freaks were so troubled
by the treatment
that Daisy and Violet
were receiving from Myer Myers
that, in effect,
they rebelled.
They refused to work.
It was sort of like
a sit-down strike by the freaks.
And they made the decision
that the midway was closed
to the general public,
and the whole joint
was Daisy and Violet's.
They were sort of princesses
for the day.
- Most of the time,
they were working,
and if they weren't working
and spending time
with Edith and Myer,
they were honing their craft.
They were taking dance lessons.
They were taking music lessons
and singing lessons,
and everything that they did
was about the show,
about the performance,
to make more money
for Edith and Myer.
When they were onstage,
they had this really sort of
witty repartee with each other.
That's... - That's inborn.
I think even if they hadn't
been conjoined twins,
that they might have been
drawn to show business
in some way, shape,
or form.
- Every time you see
a child star,
there's likely someone
behind that child star
who maybe is helping
the kid accomplish
what the kid wanted to do
but is probably,
in 1 0 or 1 5 years,
going to come up
on the wrong end
of a lawsuit that gets filed.
They were simply
used for their money
and given, in a sense,
a pittance in return.
- They were really cash cows
for the Myers.
And they were loath
to let go of them,
and they kept them
very, very confined.
My mother
and Dorothy, my aunt,
and a few other people were
the only ones allowed
close to them.
- They were working
with the Wortham carnivals,
and they came to do a stand
in San Antonio as part of... -
we call it fiesta now.
Back then it was called
the spring carnival.
- San Antonio
was a great wintering place
for both circuses and carnivals.
- Myer really liked
San Antonio,
and when they ended
their run with Wortham
and come back to San Antonio
in the off-season,
he has this dream
that he's going to become
a wealthy Texas rancher.
He certainly made
quite a bit of money
off of managing
Daisy and Violet.
Though he did not become
a rancher, by any means,
he certainly invested
in a lot of properties
around the area,
and while he was here
in San Antonio,
he built a very large mansion.
- It would have been
about a $5-million
or $6-million house now.
- Sort of Japanese-influenced
brick home.
Great circular driveway.
Greenhouses, fountains.
- We could never enjoy the
magnificent, splendid estate,
let alone call it
our own home.
During periods,
the servants were fired,
and we did the cleaning.
"You need the exercise, "
we were told coldly.
- When I was a little boy,
riding in the car
with my mother
down Vance Jackson Road,
she... -
when we would pass
this breathtakingly beautiful
house, mansion,
she would say, "That's where
the Siamese twins used to live."
- People were paying to see
the twins, maybe 1 5 cents or so.
Great streams of them
were going into the town.
So, yeah, he was making
an enormous amount of money.
- I never saw them
with other people.
They never went to school,
for one thing.
- Myer Myers takes the girls
to New York
to try to get them
in vaudeville.
- This would have been
in the mid-'20s.
The twins now would have been
1 6, 1 7.
- They'd gotten
quite a few rejections.
Nobody could see
where a Siamese twin act
would fit into
the vaudeville scene.
Myer Myers had staged
this little showcase
to kind of try and get interest
in them, and, unfortunately,
they got out on the stage,
and they kind of froze up.
They didn't really have
the projection
and the charisma that they would
later really embody.
Despite all of that,
they did find somebody
who really took interest
in them
and thought
that they had potential.
- Terry Turner was a big force
in the world of entertainment.
He would promote
flagpole sitters
and all kinds of crazy stuff
like that.
He was smitten
when he saw the girls perform
and took over
the agenting of the twins.
- He really
was instrumental in shaping
how they would be presented
to vaudeville,
and he was the one
who really kind of came up with
their costume of the ringlets
in the hair and the big bows
that were sort of outsized
to their tiny little bodies
and the little, white,
frilly dresses.
If they were just
these sweet little girls,
like your little girls at home,
it didn't matter so much
that they were conjoined twins.
You know, that was just
sort of a bonus.
They couldn't be
The, you know,
Brighton United Twins anymore.
They needed to be American.
When they hit vaudeville,
they became
the San Antonio Siamese Twins.
- Theatrical lights soon blazed
with our names.
Our work as musicians, dancers,
and singers stood out.
- The initial thing
that got people in
to see Daisy and Violet
was the fact that they were
conjoined twins.
- It was pretty poignant,
you know,
because people go to the theater
with some cares of their own;
then when they would see
Daisy and Violet,
who were carrying a cross
that was far, far heavier
than any others...
- Once they saw the talent
and putting on a very
entertaining, high-quality show,
they really drew
a wider audience after that.
- They had this joie de vivre.
They radiated that
to the audience.
They earned $1,000 a week,
which was,
in the mid-'20s,
a staggering sum of money.
- We were big-time.
46 weeks on the Marcus Loew
circuit at $2,500 a week.
Our salary jumped
then to $3,000,
then followed 44 weeks
on the Orpheum circuit
at $3,850 a week.
- They were hugely popular,
and at one point,
they were earning $5,000 a week.
- They were one of
the highest-grossing acts
in vaudeville.
- They were inimitable.
I mean, there was not
anything else like them.
They would conclude
their turn on the stage
with a four-part dance,
and there would be
two young men
who would come out from the left
and right wings of the stage
and join with the twins,
and then the four of them
would glide around the stage.
It never failed
to bring down the house.
And one of the dancers
was Lester Townsend.
In fact, Lester Townsend
was Bob Hope.
- They were right up there
with the big stars of their day,
and, you know, they had
every right to be there.
- They were appearing on
the same bills
with George Burns
and Gracie Allen,
Fanny Brice,
Sophie Tucker,
Charlie Chaplin.
On and on and on,
the people
who really shaped much
of popular amusement
in America.
And there would be
after-show soirees,
and they would go out to dinner
with them and all that,
so all of these people
became their friends.
They appeared in advertisements,
newspaper advertisements.
They made records,
and a lot of sheet music
was produced,
and the twins would appear
on the covers.
- We signed contracts,
which Sir never read to us.
All our activities
were in his hands.
And we learned that
he had himself named
as our legal guardian.
What's more, we understood that
if we ever ran out on him,
if we ever refused to perform
at his command,
we would be put
in an institution.
- We had learned, you see,
to put our worries aside
as we danced, played,
and sang, :
only pleasure
and the feeling of well-being
ever was projected by us
over the footlights
of the theaters.
- You see this crafted persona
of who they presented
to the world,
as opposed to who
they might have been.
- It wasn't easy to laugh
while our hearts ached and
yearned for freedom and love.
- They were optimistic,
sweet, totally innocent.
- They were these bubbly,
vivacious girls
that had everything
going for them in life.
- But at 1 8,
with the world at our feet,
we'd never had a date,
never held hands with a man
or been kissedl
- Myer Myers was able to
legally gain control of them
at the age of 1 8.
They would have been
legally adults
and able to exercise
their rights,
but he had gone to a lawyer
to say that
they weren't capable
of taking care of themselves
in that way,
and they didn't realize
what had been going on
or that they had
any legal rights until, I guess,
they were almost 22,
at the time of the trial.
- They did not even know
what money was.
They didn't have pocket money
or anything.
- "Read all the newspapers
you can, "
Harry Houdini whispered to me,
Daisy,
one night as he passed me
in the wings,
as if he knew
we had never been permitted
to read a newspaper.
- They saw the fabulous income
that they were producing.
- He would always say,
"I'm gonna give you
an allowance,"
or, "I'm putting some money
in the bank for you,"
but it doesn't really
ever materialize.
If they ever wanted
to spend any money,
they had to ask permission.
- The Myers did not let
anyone near them
who might have interfered
with their money-making ability.
And they were not allowed
to have guys around.
- In my country,
all you need
to make a hit
with the ladies
is to sing to them.
- Stage fame did not answer
the wish in our hearts.
l, Daisy, was in love.
- Daisy had fallen in love
with Don Galvan.
He was a singer.
- That's the story of
That's the glory of love
- Myer Myers absolutely
prohibited any kind of contact.
- Why can't we go out
and have some fun?
Other girls our age do.
We've never smoked a cigarette,
tasted a cocktail,
had our hair cut.
- You are not other girlsl
You are Siamese twins.
- Don Galvan, at one point,
bought a vase of flowers
and placed it outside
Daisy and Violet's room
at a theater.
Myer Myers happened to spot
that vase,
and there was this note
of endearment.
He kicked that vase,
and Daisy was so upset,
she and Violet
ganged up on Myers
and put their foot down
and say,
you know,
"From here on,
"things are going to be
somewhat different.
We want our own room.
We want our own money."
And he started loosening
his reins on the twins
a little bit
and turning over
some of the responsibilities
for promoting them and traveling
with them to others,
and one of them
was Bill Oliver,
who had been primarily
a promoter
of professional wrestlers.
He looked after the twins.
Bill Oliver was married
but a relationship developed.
He would somehow carry on
this romance
with both twins
simultaneously.
Yeah, it absolutely caused
friction between the sisters.
There were, you know,
times when they wouldn't speak
to one another.
I mean,
they're inches apart,
but they wouldn't speak
to one another.
They would go onstage
and, you know, perform
as effervescently as always,
but then when
they got offstage,
they would not speak
to one another.
The twins bought Bill Oliver
all kinds of things,
including a new car.
He wasn't content
just to have Daisy and Violet,
but apparently he had some
other women out there as well.
His wife found out...
- And was suing them
for alienation of affection.
- And that became a great
cause celebre in the papers.
Bill Oliver, in the eyes
of some men, I guess,
became sort of a heroic figure.
Everybody was speculating about
what his nights were like.
Here's this
40-some-year-old guy
being able to service
two 25-year-old women.
That's pretty great.
- And so when Myer
found out about this lawsuit,
I mean, he really,
you know, blew up.
- Sir put us in the car
and drove us to the office
of the lawyer
Martin J. Arnold.
- Martin Arnold,
who was primarily the lawyer
with my father, who got them
liberated from the Myers,
was a friend,
and he was a really fine man.
- Bill Oliver and his wife
lived in Kansas City,
far away from San Antonio,
so it wasn't even
in the same jurisdiction.
Arnold said,
"Don't worry about
ever having to appear in that."
- L, Daisy,
seem to have found courage
in the kindly appearance
and soft voice
of the Texas lawyer,
who I felt
would give us protection.
- He whispers, you know,
kind of behind the scenes
about what
the real situation is,
and he steps in
to try and say,
"Is there anything else that
you need to talk to me about?"
- After learning about
how hateful
Myers' treatment
of the twins was,
he told the twins that
he would represent them
in an emancipation suit.
A trial was held
in San Antonio,
and it received
national publicity.
- We wanted freedom,
an accounting of our money,
and a receiver appointed
to manage our property.
- Isn't it a fact
that they signed...
- During my, Violet's,
time on the witness stand,
I looked at Sir and said,
"The contracts we signed
were always covered,
except for the dotted line. "
When we hesitated to sign,
Sir would rave and ask us
if we thought he was a thief
and if we didn't trust him
and if we were afraid,
so we always signed.
- Myer Myers was forced
to testify.
- I'm asking you again,
did the girls get that money?
- I don't know.
They were paid through
my bookkeeper in New York.
- Did you ever strike them
or threaten to strike them?
- No.
- So it was just
a family affair?
- Yes, and a happy family too.
Until you stepped in
and corrupted it.
- All this property was bought
with the money earned
by these little girls...
- People would be waiting
outside the courthouse
every day
for the trial to start.
When the courthouse opened
in the morning,
there was a flood of people,
you know, racing through
the corridors.
Some of them
almost got stomped to death.
- W.W. McCrory
was the judge on that.
He and his children were
close friends of my parents
and of the Arnolds,
so the judge on that case
was very close to the twins.
That's why they picked him.
- All contracts existing between
him and us were dissolved.
- The court awarded them
something approaching $1 00,000.
- The judge ordered Sir
never to interfere
with our lives again.
Our new life began
almost immediately.
We went to shows, nightclubs,
dinner parties.
- We drank wine and smoked.
- And that was
the beginning of the end,
because under the Myers,
they were taken care of,
but they had absolutely
no chance of any kind of freedom
that would have enabled them
to handle fame on their own.
- We looked forward to a future
promising real happiness.
- Be careful what you wish for.
You may get it.
- They're gonna try to sample
and do all the things
that they had never
been able to do.
They could cut their hair,
buy their own clothes...
- I am gonna have yellow hair
just like...
- Could drink champagne
and explore
what life was gonna be like
on their own.
- Their freedoms now were
completely unchecked.
They were out all of the time,
every night.
- I think it was probably
sexual freedom.
- One of the great stories
is that during the trial,
they were living
at the St. Anthony Hotel,
and for the first time,
they could really have
gentlemen callers.
- They had boyfriends,
and I would see one of them
fall asleep
while the other one
was doing something else.
Not...
[laughs]
having relationships.
They could remove themselves... -
almost, it was a psychic thing... -
one from the other.
Never from each other
as performers or sisters.
- "I can get rid of you, "
l, Daisy,
would say to my sister.
I could, mentally.
Just as she could dismiss me.
- We had to do, as Harry Houdini
once said to us,
"Live in your minds,
girls. "
He told us that as we stood
beside him in the wings
one night
in a Detroit theater.
"It is your only hope
for private lives.
Just recognize no handicap. "
- They knew they were
individuals, actually.
You could tell Daisy
from Violet
or Violet from Daisy.
But they were making
the best of their world
after they got free,
but they could not cope.
- They tried to have
some sense of normalcy.
At one point, they had
a small apartment
here in San Antonio,
and here was a place
that they could call their own,
that they could, you know,
get their own groceries,
and, you know,
they could fix it up
just the way they wanted,
and that it was kind of
playing house.
- Tod Browning,
the great film director,
who had done Dracula movies,
wanted to do this film
that was based on a short story
that involved
a lot of sideshow freaks.
He wanted the real thing.
The twins were not
in the circus.
They were in vaudeville now.
I mean, they were, you know,
sort of the elite
of the "freaks."
Initially,
they bridled at the idea
of appearing with other freaks.
I mean, they did it
for the money,
but I think they thought
that appearing in a movie
might be a first step
for them to move
to bigger and better things.
Tod Browning was, at that time,
a very prominent director.
He didn't want the makeup
department to create his freaks.
He, again,
wanted the real thing.
So he hired all of these freaks
from various circuses.
- We'll make her one of us!
- When the film came out,
it was banned in Boston
and was banned
in a lot of other places.
- Gooble-gobble!
- Gooble-gobble!
- [laughs]
- They were physically
better off with the Myers
than they were when
they were out on their own
with the predators...
In the theater and on Broadway
and on the stage.
- They had the right
to hire and fire
the people
who worked with them.
- They had a series
of managers
who, some were okay
but inadequate,
and the others
were downright evil.
- Because they'd been
so sheltered,
they didn't necessarily
make the best choices
for managing
their own careers
or managing
their own finances.
But the mistakes
were theirs to make.
- They were malleable
and passive in a way... -
Daisy more than Violet.
They couldn't tell a real scam
or a con man
from a good person.
They had no ability
to judge anybody or anything.
Remember, in the Depression,
everybody was starving.
These managers of acts
were vociferous
in their approach.
They were hungry.
- Unfortunately,
they're right at the point
where vaudeville
isn't at its heyday anymore.
You're starting to fight
with motion pictures
for people's attention.
While they had
a winning performance,
it wasn't the same.
They didn't know
how to necessarily fight
and stay quite as relevant.
- It was in the '30s,
I believe,
sometime just before
the second World War,
when sideshows
or performance shows
became kind of declasse,
and people just quit going.
That's when people
who were managing them
got more greedy, and they had
less gigs, so to speak.
- They left San Antonio
and moved to New York.
In their apartment
in New York,
they had constructed
in their living quarters
and old-time phone booth,
the kind
with the sliding door.
You put your money in
and, you know, make a call.
Well, they had one of those
in their apartment.
Sisters could go into
the phone booth,
whisper sweet nothings,
and then the other sister
would be sitting right outside
the phone booth
but unable to hear
the goings-on.
And then it became
really interesting
because when one sister
or another had a man over,
things started heating up;
the other sister
was always there.
- Oh, Violet...
- When sparks
were beginning to move
from a man
and one of the sisters,
the other sister might just
pick up a magazine
and start reading
or eat an apple
or something like that.
When one of the sisters
took a male companion to bed,
that other sister
was always inches away.
- Close your eyes, Violet.
Go ahead.
Close 'em!
- What did I do?
- Pinched Daisy's arm.
- Had to be so intimidating
for the man,
because he knows
that his performance
is always being graded by that
non-participating sister.
They frequently had romances
with musicians
and with band leaders.
- Both had been engaged
on more than one occasion.
Apparently their relationships
didn't tend to last.
- An orchestra leader named
Blue Steel,
a big RCA recording artist,
who also had a coast-to-coast
live radio program,
his signature song
was one called Darling,
and he would frequently
dedicate it to Violet.
And he was married
as well.
They returned to England.
They were hoping to see
their mother, Kate Skinner.
They had no contact with her
over the years,
so they went back to Brighton
and did find their mother,
but she was,
by then, in a cemetery,
had died giving birth
to another child.
It was believed that
the father of that child
was the same father
to Daisy and Violet,
who came to a prominent family,
the Andresses.
His father
was a newspaper publisher.
If it's true
that he was the father,
his father did everything
to keep that suppressed.
It was during that time
that they met Harry Mason,
and Harry Mason
was a pugilist, a boxer.
He was a welterweight champion,
and Violet
developed a romance.
Violet was a boxing enthusiast.
They returned
to the States then.
They were in this troupe,
The Hilton Sisters' Revue.
Violet and a band leader
that the twins had,
Maurice Lambert,
became romantically involved.
Maurice Lambert proposed,
and Violet
ecstatically said yes.
They would go
from one state to another,
giving performances.
And they tried everywhere
to get a marriage license.
They were rebuffed everywhere
because marriage clerks
concluded that it was illegal.
- 27 different states
have denied you
the right to marry.
- But why?
- The way it was viewed
most places
was that this would
constitute bigamy.
- And I don't see any reason
in the world
why we should be denied
the pleasure of being happy.
My sister, Daisy,
feels the same way about it,
as she, too,
wants me to be happy.
- I think my sister's marriage
will be a wonderful thing,
because I am very sure
that they love each other
and will be married
as soon as possible.
- Maurice, who was pretty shy,
he was absolutely desolated
and became the butt of jokes.
- Their romance died
of frustration.
- One day, he just
wasn't there anymore.
He couldn't take it
another day.
- There was a kind of...
Desperate...
"I'm okay"-ness about them
that was admirable.
- The twins were traveling
with their own revue.
Daisy became with child
by one member of the show band.
Ultimately,
they had to disband.
Just wasn't generating
enough money.
- When they were little girls,
they were the... -
you know,
the top of the pile.
And I don't think
when they were independent
that they had
the same sort of knowledge
of how the audience
and the market was changing.
- In 1 936,
which was the year
of the Texas Centennial
Exposition
at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas... -
it celebrated the 1 00 years
of Texas' statehood.
Terry Turner
was managing them.
He had this crazy idea
to have one twin or the other
marry at the fair.
- It's just
a little publicity stunt.
This is an engagement.
We're gonna get married!
- Just a little publicity stunt?
- Nothing serious, eh?
I've heard enough.
- Thought this would be
a great promotion,
that it would attract
great, great crowds.
Daisy, of course,
was visibly pregnant,
so ultimately it was left
to Violet to assume this role.
- Maybe he's right after all.
This is show business.
- I knew you'd come up
with some crazy idea,
but this one might have
possibilities.
- By the way,
who's the groom?
- Jim Moore, who was
this song-and-dance man
who appeared in their shows... -
Terry Turner told him
that he was going to be
the husband.
Jim Moore was absolutely
horrified.
- But he was gay as a grig.
- He said, "If I can get
the license, will you do it?"
And they said okay.
- A part of them really wanted
to have that wedding,
and Violet, in particular,
I think that was something
that she had always desired.
- I hope you're not falling
for that sharpshooter.
- Even though it was arranged
for the event,
I don't think
it mattered so much
that it may not have been,
you know, a marriage for love.
- There were billboards
all over Dallas,
you know,
promoting this wedding.
Terry Turner was anticipating
this huge, huge crowd,
for which people
had to pay an admission.
- How many people are there?
- Well, I would judge
about 5,000 people.
- Jim Moore,
who towered over 6 foot,
almost pencil-thin guy,
and Violet, who was maybe
4 1/2 feet tall.
- When were you married,
Mr. Moore?
- Well, we were married
at the Cotton Bowl
at the Dallas Centennial,
Dallas, Texas,
on July the 1 8th.
- One report had Daisy giggling
throughout the ceremony.
- Hold it!
Still!
- Following which,
people from the audience
were able
to stream down on the field
and congratulate the newlyweds.
- When they got through
with the ceremony
and got out of the range
of the cameras and everything,
everybody kind of
retired backstage,
and they all had a glass
of champagne and a laugh.
- They tried to leave
as inconspicuously as possible
and go to the hotel.
Camping outside
the honeymoon suite
were all these damn reporters
who camped there every night,
and they would be putting
their ears against the door,
try to hear a squeaking bed.
- And nobody came out
of the closet in those days,
believe me.
- So there was no real
honeymoon night.
- The newspapermen
wanted to get a picture
of the three of them,
and he messes up his hair
to look like
all kinds of things happened
in an interesting way
the night before.
But nothing happened,
I can assure you.
- He was a young man.
He thought
it was just a, you know,
crazy part of his job.
- Jim Moore loved Violet
but not that way.
No, that was not Jim Moore's
predilection at all, sexually.
- Daisy, her sister,
was pregnant at the time.
And I always thought,
"Well, why didn't Daisy
"take the opportunity
to get married
and to try to legitimize
this child?"
- This did bring about
a certain rise
in the marketability
of the twins.
You know, they became
a little more interesting
now that one of them
was married.
- Well, I first consulted
an attorney about ten days ago,
and he told us that the
nicest way to get out of this
was to sign a joint petition.
And, actually,
to get an annulment,
you have to never have lived
together as man and wife.
- Jim Moore...
Ended up... -
and I didn't know this until... -
there is a theater in
San Antonio called the Aztec.
Below it was a restaurant.
- As we started talking
in his restaurant
called El Matador... -
this was 30, 40 years later... -
he casually mentioned that
he had been in vaudeville
and knew the Hilton sisters.
He said, "In fact, I married
one of them, kind of."
- I think their fans
felt duped.
They did turn on them, yeah.
- We understand
it was all a publicity stunt.
- Yes, that's right.
The office that we worked for
made all the arrangements
for us
before we even
arrived in Dallas,
and it was advertised
several days before we were even
consulted or asked if we would
go through with it.
- Our marriage was just
a publicity stunt.
Publicity stunt.
- It was all a publicity stunt.
- Jimmy and I are
the very, very best of friends.
He sure is a swell guy.
- I think the world
of the girls,
and they still think the same
of me.
- In spite of the annulment,
Jimmy and I and my sister
are still going to continue
as partners
and travel through
all the nightclubs and theaters.
- Well, wait a minute.
Turn the thing off.
- It was the start
of their hard times.
Daisy gave birth to a child... -
and it was a boy... -
in Minnesota,
probably in one
of the Twin Cities,
Minneapolis or St. Paul... -
but gave it up for adoption
immediately.
- There was no way that they
would have been able
to continue their careers,
and I don't think
there was any other way
that they really could have
supported themselves.
At this point,
they were so far down the road
of being performers
that I think
that was really the only thing
that they ever foresaw
in their lives.
Having a child just
wasn't part of the picture.
- The whole show business thing
was changing drastically.
It was a totally different
business.
- It became unseemly
to pay money to see freaks.
Motion pictures then started
pushing out vaudeville
off the stage,
and it became
more and more difficult
for live entertainers
to find work.
The twins were 28.
Now, that is not ancient
by any means.
They were no longer these
dewy-faced ingenues anymore.
Everything was beginning
to slip away
in the entertainment world... -
not just for them
but for all live entertainers.
- Burlesque, in its day,
prided itself
on being a little sleazy
but a little bit big-time
but not too big-time
that everybody couldn't
sort of show up
and get a little raucous
and a little wild.
- So they went into burlesque,
and it was pretty demeaning.
Stripping, yeah.
- I worked with them
at a theater
in Steubenville, Ohio.
Their dressing room
was right next to mine.
They did a nice little act.
They played ukuleles,
and they did harmony.
And they had perfect little
Barbie-doll bodies.
But I used to
get a kick out of them
'cause one would always scream
at the other one to shut up.
[laughs]
- The Hilton sisters
were a vaudeville act.
Vaudeville didn't exist
in the '40s,
and these people
still needed a job,
and I guess maybe
they were a draw.
both: Never say
you'll be the kind
To ever keep one sweetheart
on your mind
- I don't know if they danced.
I mean,
they couldn't be, like,
separating them on either side
of the stage.
They had to stay together.
both: Love
[applause]
- All I know is that
my father said
they stayed drunk
the whole time they were here.
- They were not great dancers.
I mean, well,
how do you dance
when you got somebody
attached to you?
And they were not
great musicians,
but I think they were
great entertainers.
- It's hard to know how the
Hilton sisters saw burlesque
when they started doing
more of that
than what wasn't around anymore.
- It was heart-wrenching
for them,
because these lonely men sitting
out in the darkened seats
of the striptease houses
really weren't
too interested in,
you know,
seeing these Siamese twins.
They wanted to see Evelyn West
and her $1-million chest,
and that's the kind of freak
they wanted to see.
I think
they were kind of, like,
hooted off the stage
sometimes
and booed,
and, you know,
"Hey, let's get on
with the real babes here."
- I don't think they had
the skills to do anything else.
And besides, they had
had a reputation that was
deeply entrenched
of what you see in the pictures
of Daisy and Violet,
Siamese twins.
So their skills
and their talents were not such
that they would have stood out.
Sometimes they were grateful
that it made them a living,
and sometimes they were tired
of being exploited.
They didn't know what
the word "exploited" meant,
but they knew the feeling.
They were used
by guys who took their money
and who did mistreat them
and worked them too hard.
- I think they started to drink
to excess at that point.
They both drank.
- I'm sure one of those
boyfriends or husbands
along the line
encouraged them to drink.
- If one sister drank to excess
and became woozy
or intoxicated,
ultimately, the other sister
would get in that same state.
They used to fight about that.
- They really could not
understand why it was
that they could no longer draw
thousands of people
into the theaters.
- They're watching
the death of vaudeville.
Burlesque is slowly but surely
guttering out
as a place
where they can really perform.
The carnival midway,
despite the fact that it still
could have been bigger money
for them, is grueling.
It's exhausting.
You're on the road.
You're sleeping in your car.
You got... - Maybe you got
a little trailer,
but you're living in a trailer
nine months out of the year.
It's a horrible life.
But when you got to do it,
you got to do it.
Well, the Hilton sisters
had made
a lot of money in their day.
They'd lost a lot;
they'd wasted a lot;
they'd frittered
a lot of it away.
They got in some bad
business ventures.
But they still made
a lot more money
than most of that
sideshow talent.
- They were doing, you know,
whatever they could to survive.
Sideshows were disappearing
at that point,
but they made some appearances
even into the '40s.
- When they go back to that
a little later in life,
I think they realized
the degree to which
they'd been sheltered from
some of the reality of that.
And I don't think
it was a pleasant experience
in their life.
- It's hard to separate
fact from fiction
with the marriages
of the Hilton sisters,
and I say that plural
because I couldn't tell you
how many were actually
reported on,
were really recorded in
court documents... - Who knows?
And then there's
the old apocryphal
and not-so-apocryphal
carnival marriages,
which I don't know that
they ever got into,
which basically is,
"I love you, honey,
but the season's over."
- When they were in Atlanta
playing a nightclub,
they said to the magician,
"Would you like to become
the most famous magician
in the world?"
And he said,
"Well, how would I do that?"
And they said,
"Marry one of us."
[laughs]
- Can I imagine a courthouse
or a judge saying,
"We can't have that"?
Yeah.
Depending on where you go.
I can also imagine promoters
and the Hilton sisters
themselves going...
"Where is it most likely
that we're gonna get told no?"
And showing up there.
And then parlaying that
into what you really need,
which is money,
because ultimately,
when you're in
the sideshow business,
it's not just
what I can perform as onstage... -
sword swallower,
fire-breather.
Fine.
You're a working act.
But when you're
a freak attraction,
what you see is what you are.
They're going
to always be aware,
as they've been aware
since they were infants,
"What people see
is what I am,
and what I am
has to be about making money,
because this is it."
- L, Daisy, fell in love
with the singing, dancing
master of ceremonies
of our act.
His name was Harold Estep,
known professionally
as Buddy Sawyer.
He was eight years
younger than I.
- Little guy with hair
the color of corn on the cob.
Buddy Sawyer was pretty much
wired the same way
that Jim Moore was wired.
- They were attracted
to gay men.
There is some advantage to that.
- The marriage
was just totally and simple
a publicity stunt.
And they only
remained married for...
maybe a month, two months.
- There would be
these streams of people
after the theater closed,
would go to the motel
and be out in the streets,
crying up to their room,
asking,
"Hey, Buddy,
are you in bed yet?"
And that sort of thing.
He was married to freaks,
but then he was a freak
himself, he thought,
and he just
couldn't handle it.
- Then one morning
we looked across the twin bed
where Buddy had been,
but he had disappeared.
- I don't know how many years
it took them
to find the difference between
gay and straight,
but I guess eventually they... -
they knew nothing about sex.
- All these people were
approaching them
all of the time with these... -
what they insisted were
can't-fail money schemes.
- Chained For Life,
their autobiographical film... -
somewhat autobiographical... -
inarguably one of the scariest
and worst films ever made.
- That was not their best film.
- We've always been
the headliners.
The Hamilton sisters.
I thought you'd given up
your, uh, career.
I guess there's nothing left.
- The picture was that one
of the girls had accidentally
or intentionally
killed someone, and so,
could that person then... -
could she be executed?
- They tried to exert
some control
over how they were being
portrayed in the movie,
and by all accounts,
their interference
with the people
who were the professionals
certainly showed.
- People that approached them
about doing this film
really didn't have
any money to do it.
It was up to the twins
to not only act in it
but pay all the bills.
It came out,
and mostly it was screened
in tiny little theaters.
Sometimes
they weren't even theaters.
It was like some little venue
somewhere where, you know,
somebody put up a bedsheet,
or at drive-in theaters.
- And they're there;
they're gonna answer questions
from who?
The people getting
out of their cars?
- They made the movie;
they had high hopes
that this was gonna make them
movie stars,
and it never did.
And it became one of those
things, sort of like Freaks,
that they weren't very proud of
but were stuck promoting.
- They were so out of it
by that point in time
in their lives,
in terms of what
the business had become,
they were trying to go from town
to town to screen that film.
They were trying to take trains
from town to town.
Trains hadn't been the principal
means of transportation
in the U.S.
since probably the '30s.
Nobody really cared
about their film.
People couldn't have cared less
that they were actually
showing up with it.
- They would do a little show
before the screening.
Sometimes the drive-ins
were better known
for showing, uh,
other types of movies.
They would come in,
and all of a sudden,
you'd have this movie,
and it would be
a change of fare,
but you would have
your regular patrons.
- They would appear
on little stages
or inside
the concession stands.
Put on their little dances.
It was pathetic, really.
both: You stole
the silver moonlight
And left all heaven dry
- It was awful.
Their greatest audience
was probably made up
of the mosquitoes in the air.
- It was a big step down
from where they had been.
You really see them starting
to age more rapidly.
Some of the spirit
wasn't there anymore.
- They weren't taking care
of themselves well.
They weren't eating well.
They drank.
They smoked.
They were wearing costumes
that were out of date
in fashion
but were also
kind of moldering
and, you know,
not very fresh-looking.
But they were trying
to stay alive.
They were trying to survive.
They made these appearances
at a few nightclubs in Miami.
When they left,
the owners of these clubs were,
"Oh, thank God,"
you know, "They're gone."
- When you end up in the age
when everybody
wants to consider you sort of
a dowager and an old-timer,
and, you know, "Shouldn't
you be playing a role right now
that reflects
your increasing age?"
That must have been
fairly brutal for them.
In their heyday,
there was probably nothing
any bigger a draw
than the Hilton sisters.
- How's it all going, girls?
- Just too good for words.
- Holding on to that money
is very tough
in a business where you always
have to keep up the front;
you always have to be
mounting the next big thing.
And the Hilton sisters,
in their career,
fetched up on
the bad end of that.
The huge money,
the huge success you are today,
you're not quite that
tomorrow.
The Hilton sisters were not
prepared for the tomorrow
that they ended up confronting.
And nobody likes
to go onstage and die.
And that's pretty much
what they were doing
in their last days.
They got out of the business.
They pulled out and got into
a number of failed
business ventures.
- They would do this
sort of thing for a while.
They would bubble back up again
into show business.
They ran a snack bar in Miami.
- The girls,
bless their hearts,
really did not understand
business.
- I don't think
that I've ever had
as bad a case of nerves
onstage,
opening or production,
or doing pictures,
as I did
as serving a hamburger.
I actually had stage fright
serving hamburgers.
I was so scared,
I didn't know what to do.
Of course, the cooking
and the cleaning was no problem
because we learned that
years ago when we were children.
- Initially, the snack bar
attracted some attention.
Merchants in the same area
thought it was just bad
for business.
They thought most people
were gonna be grossed out
by seeing conjoined twins
serving food.
- When Daisy and I
were seven years old,
we shook hands on a promise
that after putting
a set number of years
in this world,
we would get out of it.
- In 1 962,
I owned a theatrical agency.
We would book shows
in theaters
and for television
and traveling shows,
and my secretary said,
"I have a call for you,"
and it was Violet Hilton.
She said,
"Well, do you know who I am?"
And I said, "Absolutely.
"You were the highest-paid act
in vaudeville.
"You were the sensation
of the show business world
for many, many years."
She said,
"Well, my sister and I
"have decided
to go back on the road
"and are wondering
if you would be kind enough
to book our act."
I said, "Well, certainly,
"but, now, it would take me
some time to set this up.
I'll call you back
in a couple weeks."
Two days later, this gentleman
walks into my office
and said that he was
a taxi driver.
I walked down the steps
with him,
and there
in the backseat of the cab
were the two Hilton sisters.
And he would like me to pay
for their cab fare
from the train station.
And they said,
"Well, we're ready to work."
And I said,
"Well, I told you
it was gonna be
a month or so."
I said, "It would be better
for you to go back home."
She said, "We do not have
a home to go to."
And one of the girls said,
"Well, is there
a theatrical hotel in town?
You think they would
check us in on the cuff?"
Meaning, they didn't have any
money to check into the hotel.
These girls were a tremendous
success in show business.
Now, as I started to call
the different theater circuits
and say, "Could you book
some dates for the girls?"
I began to feel
some resistance.
I said to them, "Listen,
"maybe you would book
just a trial date
"so that we can put them in
as an engagement
"and let's see how they do... -
"an engagement here,
an engagement there.
"We'll try it
in different-size theaters
"and different-size towns.
"I'll even book them in
some of the drive-in theaters,
and we'll see how it goes."
I said, "Now, incidentally,
girls, after we book the dates,
how do you plan on traveling
from town to town?"
They said,
"Well, we'll take a train."
"But it would be almost
impossible to book a route
for you to travel by train."
Then it came time
for the engagements.
I had several television shows.
And Uncle Zeke hung around
the television station
and would want to help me
carry bags in
or do this and do that.
[chuckles]
And poor old Uncle Zeke.
He... - He was an alcoholic.
[laughs]
And this was a children's show
I'm doing.
And so finally the director
came over to me one day,
and he said, "Listen,"
he said,
"We've had some comments
about his breath."
I said, "Uncle Zeke,
you can't drink
and come here and be on these
television shows."
He was a person
who was driving their car
and taking them
from town to town.
They were willing to do... -
if you had a project
and say,
"Here's what we're gonna do.
I want you to do this
publicity," or whatever... -
"Oh, yeah.
Oh, absolutely."
The girls did not like
the drive-in theaters,
but I felt that the picture,
Chained For Life
and Freaks,
which we played
a double feature with them
when they appeared
in the theaters,
would go better with
a drive-in theater crowd.
The only thing
was that nobody cared.
Nobody showed up.
I says, "I think
their personal appearance days
are almost over, Zeke."
I said, "Girls,
we need to do something here.
"Tell me, do either of you
have any skills?
Like, office skills?"
She said, "Well, yeah.
We play musical instruments,
and we dance."
I said, "No, no, that's not
what I'm talking about.
"I know that.
"Have either one of you
ever had a job where you worked
at a store or you worked
in an office?"
"Oh, no.
Oh, absolutely not."
I had booked them in
a grocery store here in town,
making a personal appearance.
It was this place called
Park-N-Shop,
operated by a fellow
by the name of Charlie Reid,
very fine person, who had three
stores in total in Charlotte.
- They were at
the front of the store,
and they were advertising
twin-pack potato chips.
Now, that's a good sport.
The twin-pack potato chips
came put together.
- They became more cynical,
but it didn't seem to teach them
anything about handling money
or to acknowledge that those
around them had used them.
They got robbed.
They got taken by almost
every male in their life.
And I can remember where they
asked my father for money,
and they were always somewhere
near where they ended up.
They were in the Carolinas,
and they would wire him
for money,
and he would always send it.
- They were promoting
the movie Freaks.
And they came to Monroe,
which is a little town
east of here.
- They were abandoned
after one of their gigs.
They had had a manager
that was less than honest,
and they were going to do
a performance at a drive-in,
and he took off
with all their earnings
and left them with nothing.
- These Siamese twins
were basically dumped out,
and my father, Clay Keziah,
owned the motel
and the restaurant next door.
And he allowed the twins
to come and stay here
for free of charge
and allowed them to eat
at the Bonfire restaurant.
And they stayed
in this end unit.
They were here several months... -
two little tiny, tiny twins
and very delightful,
were just thrilled to know
they had a roof over their head
and somewhere to eat.
- A church in
Gastonia, Belmont,
heard about them,
and they moved them
to Tanzy's Trailer Park.
- My dad had about
20, 25 trailers.
A lot of them were rented
week to week.
Some were rented
month to month,
and we had people that stayed
there for years and years.
I would say
they weren't unfriendly,
but they were
a little more standoffish.
- [sighs]
And it was hard for them,
like it's hard
for a lot of entertainers.
You know, a day comes
when it just is over.
- They had been in the spotlight
most of their lives,
and to be honest,
the spotlight had not
treated them all that well.
- I think the first reaction
that everybody had
was to feel sorry for 'em
a little bit
by the time they got here,
because they were really
down on their luck.
They were basically broke.
They were looking for work.
They had been sort of
left behind.
They didn't have family.
And so
people in that situation,
I think it was natural
for people here
to feel sorry for them
and to reach out a little bit.
- My dad and mom,
independent grocers,
came to Charlotte and built
a pretty good size store
on Wilkinson Boulevard
out by the airport.
And my dad loved produce.
- They were known
for their service,
and he was known
for his kind of big promotions.
- If you bought groceries,
you could get a piece of Alaska
when Alaska became a state.
We had Buffalo barbecue.
Watermelons, 1 0 cents each.
If you came in your pajamas,
they were 5 cents.
One day,
they came in the store.
Now,
they were showgirls still.
They had the long fingernails... -
red long fingernails,
orange hair and the makeup
and caused quite a stir.
And they went over
to the office, and they said,
"We want to see Mr. Reid.
We want a job."
Well, my aunt was on
the receiving thing,
and she's like,
"Oh, my gosh.
"These people can't work here.
What are they thinking?"
I mean, they were destitute.
They... - I mean, they had nothing.
And their life was taken away.
They sat down on one chair.
You know,
they kind of cuddled.
And they said,
"Mr. Reid, we need a job."
They said, "You only
has to pay one... - One people."
And Daddy's looking at them.
He said,
"Well, I got to think about it.
You know,
let me get back to you."
And he prayed and prayed.
He was a quiet man
and quite Christian.
It came to him... -
the produce.
They could work in the produce.
'Cause they couldn't
bag groceries.
And Dad was smart.
He was gonna use four hands.
- Back in those days,
every cash register
did not have its own scale
to weigh produce on.
So you would go down
a produce aisle,
and there would be
a set of scales
and a person there,
and they would weigh them
and price them,
and then they would
ring it up at the end.
Well, what he did is,
he set up a double aisle;
then the twins could sit
each on a stool
and work a set of scales.
- Coming toward them,
you couldn't tell
that they were connected.
And people would
go on out this way,
and unless they turned back,
they would see
the connection here.
- My little nephew would go,
and he'd try
to stand behind them
and see where
they were connected at.
- My mother's job
was to clean them up.
[laughs]
- You can't show up
in your stage makeup
and your old stage costumes.
- They cut their hair
and dyed it
a little more normal color.
They had two separate shirts
and two separate skirts,
but it was split,
see,
to go around both of them.
- Certainly people
did come to the store
to see the Hilton sisters.
- It was an asset to the store,
I'm sure.
- And a lot of people,
I guess, come to see them,
you know,
just to see Siamese twins.
They were nice.
They would speak to you
and talk to you
while they was working on it.
- Kind of interesting,
because their mother,
way, way, way back
also worked in a grocery store.
- There was a break room
at the store,
and they loved
to go back there
and then start telling stories
among the employees.
I don't know how many
were really true,
or they were just trying
to see... -
but they would smoke
those cigarettes
and just talk and laugh,
and they'd always say,
"Yeah, I had a husband
for a while."
The way we remember it is,
they had one... -
each one had one
at a different time.
They just liked to entertain.
They were still entertaining,
and that's what I remember
about the break room.
That was their kind of stage,
'cause they had to be good
on the floor, you know?
They knew my mother
would get them.
I think they enjoyed
startling people, to a degree.
I mean, well,
they startled people
just with their appearance,
to a degree, you know?
But I can still see them walk.
It was very interesting.
They walked together,
and they never stumbled.
But they had to have a rhythm,
you know, to walk.
They rode the taxi a lot,
and they always had
dollar bills in their purses
to pay cab fare to get
from their house to the store.
- And after they died,
when they looking through
their things,
they came across a dresser,
and inside the dresser was,
like, a big stack of purses.
And in each purse,
there were maybe $3 or $4.
When they wanted
to go out the door,
they could just grab a purse,
and they knew there would be
cab fare in there.
- The bread man,
he became friends with them,
and he lived close to them,
and so he'd take them home
in the bread truck
a lot of times.
- He came through
their neighborhood
and kind of kept watch over them
and gave their dogs toys.
When they were living
here in Charlotte,
there was a doctor
who came to town, who... -
supposedly his specialty
was separating conjoined twins.
And he came to diagnose them,
and his conclusion was that
they could be
successfully separated.
They didn't share
any organs or anything.
So, he said, you know,
"If you want this,
we can do this,
and it'll be successful,"
and they chose not to.
- They were too dependent
on each other,
not just because
they were cojoined
but because there were so many
things they did as one.
- They were a little... -
apparently a little difficult
to become friends with.
- When a lot of what you are
as a talent isn't your act,
however much the Hiltons
would have argued,
"It is our act"...-
it's what you are;
it's what you appear to be.
It's hard to let people in,
and it's hard to let people
pass the front,
because that's what you are.
I mean,
you're putting up the front.
You know,
"I'm putting up a good front."
- There was a house
that the church bought.
Dad, in his wisdom, again,
figured a way that
they could rent the house.
- It was the site
of an old World War I camp
where a lot of soldiers stayed
during that time.
- They did join the church.
They kind of had to
in order to use
the church property.
- When they went
to Sunday school,
it would be with
the men's class.
The men's class was on
the ground level.
The women's class
was in the basement.
There was one theory that
it was just a physical thing,
that it was hard for them
to get down the stairs
to the basement.
The other theory was that
they were more talkative
and more comfortable
among the men.
They were here six-plus years.
They sort of became just
more of a regular part
of the community,
even though they were loners,
in a sense.
- I think they had a good life
toward the end.
I feel in my heart, you know,
that they did.
- Until their final days,
they probably never had friends
as strong and as important
and as legitimate
as the friends they had
in their final days.
I'd say they were as well-loved
in that small town
as they had probably ever felt
in their whole lives.
- They had not been seen
for several days.
- It was close to Christmas,
and they always gave gifts
to all their friends,
even though they were not
in really great circumstances.
- One of the twins
caught the Hong Kong flu.
- Hong Kong came through
Charlotte very, very hard.
That was mean stuff.
I mean, I...
You had it,
and then you just felt so bad.
- Daisy had become ill.
- And it got worse and worse.
- They went to a doctor.
He gave her some prescription.
She continued to deteriorate.
She actually called Rue Reid,
the owner of the Park-N-Shop,
said things were not
going well.
She began to suspect that
she was imminently dying.
She pleaded with Rue
not to call any authorities
or medical people,
'cause she didn't want
any intervention,
nor did Violet.
It was always their fear,
you know,
from the time
they were reckoning children,
that some doctor
would try to separate them.
- We've always been together.
And we'll be that way
forever.
- So Daisy died.
- Violet,
after her sister died,
had made the choice
to refuse medical intervention,
to, you know, just say,
"It's okay.
You know, we made a pact
that we would go together,"
and to know
that your sister's gone
and to wait for
the inevitable to happen.
- I don't think
she would have wanted to live
without her sister
at that point.
I don't think they could have.
- Daisy was with her
every second.
And, you know, how could you
imagine a life without her?
But the fact that
she had to, you know,
witness her sister's death
is heart-wrenching.
- The house was one of those
that had a heat grate
in the floor.
And I believe
it was in the hallway.
And they were found dead
on the heat grate.
Because of this flu,
they had gotten really cold,
and they were trying
to stay warm.
- Daisy's decomposition
was greater than Violet's,
so those last couple of days
must have been nightmarish
for Violet
with her sister there.
I think, you know,
she drank a lot, smoked a lot,
and then ultimately just...
slipped away.
- They found that
they had already wrapped
all of their Christmas presents
and marked them
to go to their friends.
- And they felt that, you know,
"We came into this world
together.
Let's go out together,"
you know?
They had that kind of a pact
they had made,
and so it was.
- It was not a huge funeral.
Mostly people from around town
who knew them
and came to see them.
They were buried in one grave,
obviously one coffin
and one grave.
It, I believe,
had to be specially built.
They're buried out in
Forest Lawn Cemetery
here in Charlotte,
which is probably
one of the prettier,
you know, of two or three
nicest cemeteries in town.
- My uncle, J.C. Carrel,
got to know them over the years,
became friends.
He was a guy with a... -
hard-drinking truck driver
with a tender heart.
He did a lot for people.
And when they died abruptly,
he had an extra plot
in the cemetery,
and they needed a place
to be buried,
so he was gonna give them
the plot next to his son.
- They knew no other life.
The tragedy in the life
was that their life changed.
The life around them changed.
The world changed.
That band of tissue
is what made them special.
- If you separate the two girls,
there no longer would have been
the Hilton sisters.
- Sometimes when life is bad
and you're broke
or your, you know... -
your manager's left you
or whatever,
you know, what else
do they have to hold on to
that made them special?
That was it.
- I don't know
that they ever had
that fairy-tale happy ending.
I think there was always,
you know,
complications
that got in the way,
and I think that
frustrated them.
But I don't think
they ever gave up.
I think they were always... -
you know, I think
they believed in the dream.
I think they believed
that they could have
that happily ever after.
They just didn't find it.
- Our physical bond was not
going to be our cross.
- There were many rules
we were forced to follow.
But we had learned
that most of our problems
could be settled inwardly... -
sleeping, eating,
living together.
There were no adjustments
in our relationship
we couldn't make.
We've always said
we were like other people...
yet different.
From the moment
we started to crawl,
when the leg of the table
got between us
and we couldn't pass,
but we decided
that our physical bond
would never be our cross.
But we've been successful.
We've reached the top
in show business,
and there isn't a thing
we can't have,
except happiness.
We've fooled ourselves
that by entertaining others,
we were making ourselves happy.