Daisy and Violet Hilton
Daisy and Violet Hilton (born February 5, 1908 in Brighton , United Kingdom , † before January 4, 1969 in Charlotte , North Carolina , United States ) were actresses and Siamese twins .
Child stars
The unmarried Kate Skinner's daughters were adopted by Mary Hilton, her birth mother's employer, when she was two weeks old. The children had grown together at the hips and buttocks and shared the bloodstream but no major organs. Her adoptive mother soon presented her as a sensation at exhibitions, including Daisy and Violet, together with the “Bohemian Sisters” - the Siamese twins Rosa and Josefa Blažek - by Ike Rose in “Rose's Royal Midgets fame Panoptikum”. Possibly this was the first time that two Siamese pairs of twins were shown to the audience at the same time.
The Hilton family later went on a tour of Australia with the twins. Mary Hilton "bequeathed" the children to her daughter Edith and her husband Myer Myers. The Myers moved to the United States and used the income Daisy and Violet provided for them to buy a Frank Lloyd Wright- style mansion in San Antonio , Texas . Daisy and Violet continued to be shown at fairs and other occasions.
In the meantime they had learned to play the clarinet and saxophone and also presented themselves as singers and dancers. At the time, they were friends with Bob Hope and Harry Houdini . Houdini supported them in the effort to separate at least mentally.
She was close friends with her manager, William Oliver, which ultimately led to a scandal: Oliver's wife demanded a divorce and high compensation. In the course of the trial, the lawyer Martin J. Arnold, whom Daisy and Violet had consulted, succeeded in freeing the twins, who had now reached legal age, from the rule of the Myers family in 1931.
Life under your own direction
Daisy and Violet Hilton took American citizenship and are now continuing their show career on their own. In 1932, they appeared in the film Freaks . Violet had relationships with Blue Steel, Harry Mason, and Don Galvan before getting engaged to bandleader Maurice L. Lambert in 1933 . Her attempt to get a marriage license was rejected in 21 states. Daisy, for her part, was close friends with Jack Lewis, but dared not hope for marriage. The fact that the twins were not allowed to marry created a crisis between them.
Later, a marriage was arranged for Violet after all. On July 18, 1936, she married her long-time dance partner James Walker aka Jim Moore. Daisy married the dancer Harold Estep alias Buddy Sawyer on September 17, 1941; however, their marriage lasted only two weeks.
The descent
After the heyday of vaudeville theater came to an end, the twins tried their luck again with film. In 1950 they played the singers Dorothy and Vivian Hamilton in Chained for Life . The film was a failure, and Daisy and Violet ran into material hardships. They opened a hot dog stand in Miami in 1955 , but soon had to close this business, which had traded under the name The Hilton Sister's Snack Bar , as the long-established restaurants resisted competition from the Siamese twins. In 1962, they tried to make money at a North Carolina drive-in theater but were cheated on by their manager and left penniless. Eventually a shopkeeper gave them work. When the Hong Kong flu- infected twins did not show up for three days, the police were alerted on January 6, 1969. She found the sisters dead in their trailer. The autopsy revealed that Daisy was the first to die. According to the findings of the coroners, Violet is said to have survived her sister by two to four days, which is, however, very unlikely given their common blood circulation. At the time of their death, Daisy and Violet still owned approximately $ 1,000. They left no relatives.
musical
The story of the musical Side Show by Bill Russell ( screenplay and text) and Henry Krieger (music) from 1997 is based on the life of the twins. The play was choreographed by director Robert Longbottom and performed in 91 performances on Broadway between October 16, 1997 and January 3, 1998, with Emily Skinner as Daisy and Alice Ripley as Violet . The production was nominated for four Tony Awards .
literature
- Hans Scheugl : Show Freaks & Monsters. Felix Adanos Collection . 3. Edition. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-7701-0733-0 , p. 113f. with illus
Web links
- Daisy Hilton in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Violet Hilton in the Internet Movie Database (English)
swell
- ↑ Jensen, Dean. The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins , Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press , 2006; ISBN 978-1-58008-758-2
- ↑ Lefkowitz, David and Viagas, Robert. Side Show Cast and Fans Campaign To Save the Show ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , playbill.com, December 24, 1997
- ^ "Side Show" is Closing , December 23, 1997
- ↑ Viagas, Robert and Simonson, Robert. 'Ragtime', 'Lion King', 'Beauty Queen' Lead Tony Nominations ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , playbill.com, May 4, 1998
