We don't do sideshows anymore, because we have the internet now.
One of the saddest cases of a circus sideshow act was that of the Hilton sisters - conjoined
twins who were beautiful, talented, exploited, and eventually forgotten.
This is the untold truth of the conjoined Hilton sisters.
Daisy and Violet Hilton were pygopagus twins, which means they were back-to-back.
The sisters shared a circulatory system, but otherwise had their own separate internal
organs.
Still, doctors elected not to try and separate them.
Daisy and Violet's biological mother viewed them as punishment for her out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, and she gave them to her employer, Mary Hilton, in exchange for money.
As far as Hilton was concerned, she owned the twins from that moment forward.
Hilton put them on display in the back room of her tavern, collecting admission fees and
selling postcards with their picture as souvenirs.
In 1915 Hilton tried to bring them to the United States.
At first, U.S. officials were reluctant to admit them, but Hilton managed to work up
the local media to the point where authorities felt pressured to let the girls in the country.
They eventually ended up in San Francisco, where they became the wards of Hilton's biological
daughter Edith and her partner, a balloon salesman with the ridiculous name Myer Myers.
The twins' doctor noted that they were intelligent and that fact didn't escape Mary Hilton, who
realized that they might draw bigger crowds if they were performing rather than just sitting.
According to Gizmodo, Hilton had the pair practice singing and made them learn to play
musical instruments.
She dressed them up in frilly outfits and adorned them with bows, and taught them routines
designed to entertain the people who were gawking at them.
When they first came under the guardianship of Edith and Myer, the twins referred to the
couple as their owners, and they didn't seem to be too far off - the couple slept in the
same room as the twins and would threaten them with institutionalization if they ever
considered escape.
Myers was a smart businessman and also a villain.
After Edith's death, Myers obtained custody of the girls and successfully marketed them
on the vaudeville stage in America, while keeping them completely out of the loop.
They never saw their own contracts and they were forced to spend all their time practicing,
which not only made them even more marketable, but also ensured that they remained more or
less isolated from the rest of the world.
By the 1920s, the twins were practically superstars.
They were performing with legends like Charlie Chaplin and Bob Hope, and they were earning
profits of up to $5,000 a week.
But none of it actually went in their own pockets - Myers kept it all.
Myers couldn't keep them isolated forever, though.
When they were adults, they were befriended by Harry Houdini, who learned that the sisters
were essentially broke while their stepfather was living in obnoxious luxury.
He advised the pair to get a lawyer.
Daisy and Violet had an advance agent named Bill Oliver.
The twins claimed that the relationship was strictly professional, but according to the
Biography of Daisy and Violet Hilton, Oliver's wife filed for divorce on the grounds that
her husband was spending too much time with the twins, and she also filed a lawsuit against
the Hiltons in the amount of $250,000.
Daisy and Violet got a lawyer, and that was when the truth about their appalling situation
finally came out.
The lawyer was shocked that the twins, now legal adults over 21, were still tied to Myers
and essentially penniless while he was living high on the hog.
With the help of their new lawyer, the twins were finally able to achieve separation from
their abusive relationship with the Myers.
In 1931, Violet and Daisy became emancipated and got the equivalent of $80,000 for their
troubles.
Once they were free, Violet and Daisy had no idea what to do with themselves.
They became U.S. citizens and did what any naive kids would do when suddenly turned loose
in the world with a bunch of money and no oversight.
They partied.
The twins knew nothing else but show business and tried to make their way in an often unforgiving
industry, entering into bad deals with managers and entertainment companies.
Daisy and Violet, like many of their contemporaries, had aspirations of appearing on the big screen.
They landed roles in a film called Freaks the year after they were emancipated, and
the roles were exactly as exploitative and cringeworthy as you probably guessed they
were.
“Go ahead close em!”
“What did I do?”
“Pinched Daisy's arm.”
“Well what do you know about that!”
The movie was really just the film version of a circus sideshow, starring a handful of
people with real disabilities.
Daisy and Violet were essentially subplots, critics were predictably horrified, and the
film was banned in several European countries, including the twins' home country of England.
Their love lives weren't great
The twins dated but had difficulties keeping relationships with anyone, for obvious reasons.
Violet dated a couple of musicians and a boxer before finally settling on a bandleader named
Maurice Lambert.
The couple even got engaged.
“Oh yes I am, we are getting married.”
“Hurray!
Congratulations!”
But when they tried to apply for a marriage license they were refused "on moral grounds."
So they tried again in 21 different states, and even after they got lawyers to help, that
wasn't enough.
The pair eventually split and Violet married her dance partner, James Walker Moore, but
that didn't last.
Daisy also got married to vaudeville dancer Harold Estep, but their marriage only lasted
two weeks.
Despite the lack of a lasting relationship, Daisy became pregnant.
But times being what they were, Daisy gave her son up at birth and the twins are said
to have never talked about the child again.
By the late 1940s vaudeville was over and Daisy and Violet were no longer in demand.
In 1950 they got what looked like it could be a second chance — a starring role in
Chained for Life, a film about all the terrible things that can happen when conjoined twins
try to have a love life.
The story follows two vaudeville stars who seek separation so one of them can marry a
man that the other one deeply dislikes.
Unfortunately, Chained for Life was a flop.
“I don't see a lot of money here.”
After that, the twins could no longer find employment in the entertainment industry,
and hadn't exactly been frugal with their money.
They weren't out of ideas yet, though.
In the mid-1950s, the duo opened a hot dog stand in Miami and called it "The Hilton Sister's
Snack Bar."
But once the novelty wore off, business faltered, and the menu wasn't enough to keep customers
coming back.
Within a year the sisters had to close their hot dog stand.
After that, Violet and Daisy only survived because of charity.
A motel owner offered them a free place to stay and three meals a day.
The owners of a grocery store gave them jobs as produce weighers.
They were also offered a place to stay by the elders of a nearby church.
It wasn't exactly the glamorous life of show business lived before, but they were finally
comfortable.
They continued to work at the grocery store for seven years.
In January of 1969, Daisy and Violet Hilton failed to report to work.
After a day or two of trying to reach them by phone, their employers got the police to
break into their home, where they were found dead, victims of the Hong Kong flu.
Tragically, there wasn't enough money to buy their own cemetery plot, so they had to share
one with the son of an acquaintance.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the twins were laid to rest at a quiet funeral with
friends and co-workers.
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