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Daisy and Violet Hilton
Daisy and Violet Hilton were English-born entertainers who were conjoined twins. They were exhibited in Europe as children, and toured the United States sideshow, vaudeville and American burlesque circuits in the 1920s and 1930s. They were best known for their film appearances in Freaks and the biographic Chained for Life (1951).
The twins were born at 18 Riley Road, Brighton, England. Their mother was Kate Skinner, an unmarried barmaid. 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.
They were referred to in the media variously as The Siamese Twins, The Hilton Sisters and The Brighton Twins or The Brighton Conjoined Twins and in the United States as the San Antonio Twins. The sisters performed alongside Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin. After years of being managed professionally by their legal guardians, in the early 1930s, on the advice of Harry Houdini, they were legally emancipated.
A medical account of the birth and a description of the twins was provided for the British Medical Journal by physician James Augustus Rooth, who helped deliver them. He reported that subsequently the Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society considered separation, but unanimously decided against it as it was believed that the operation would certainly lead to the death of one or both of the twins. He noted these twins were the first to be born in the UK conjoined and to survive for more than a few weeks.
Their mother was a woman named Kate Skinner. Her then-employer, Mary Hilton, gained custody of the twins through uncertain means, with differing accounts claiming that Skinner disowned the pair, sold them, or was swindled into relinquishing custody over her daughters. The girls stayed for a period above the Queen's Arms pub in Brighton. They later moved to the Evening Star pub.
Most accounts agree that Mary Hilton recognized the novelty presented by a pair of conjoined twins who had survived birth (a rarity at that time) and quickly sought to exploit them as a carnival sideshow exhibition.
The Hilton sisters toured first in Britain in 1911 (aged three) as "The Double Bosses".They went through Germany, then to Australia, then in 1916 to the US. In 1926, Bob Hope formed an act called the Dancemedians with the sisters, who had a tap-dancing routine. When Mary died in Birmingham, Alabama, the girls were bequeathed to Mary's daughter Edith Meyers, and Edith's husband Meyer Meyers, a former balloon salesman.
The couple took over management of the twins. Held mostly captive, the girls were punished if they did not do as the Meyers wished. They kept the twins from public view for a while and trained them in jazz music. Violet was a skilled saxophonist and Daisy a violinist. They lived in a mansion in San Antonio, Texas.
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Daisy and Violet Hilton
Daisy and Violet Hilton were English-born entertainers who were conjoined twins. They were exhibited in Europe as children, and toured the United States sideshow, vaudeville and American burlesque circuits in the 1920s and 1930s. They were best known for their film appearances in Freaks and the biographic Chained for Life (1951).
The twins were born at 18 Riley Road, Brighton, England. Their mother was Kate Skinner, an unmarried barmaid. 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.
They were referred to in the media variously as The Siamese Twins, The Hilton Sisters and The Brighton Twins or The Brighton Conjoined Twins and in the United States as the San Antonio Twins. The sisters performed alongside Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin. After years of being managed professionally by their legal guardians, in the early 1930s, on the advice of Harry Houdini, they were legally emancipated.
A medical account of the birth and a description of the twins was provided for the British Medical Journal by physician James Augustus Rooth, who helped deliver them. He reported that subsequently the Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society considered separation, but unanimously decided against it as it was believed that the operation would certainly lead to the death of one or both of the twins. He noted these twins were the first to be born in the UK conjoined and to survive for more than a few weeks.
Their mother was a woman named Kate Skinner. Her then-employer, Mary Hilton, gained custody of the twins through uncertain means, with differing accounts claiming that Skinner disowned the pair, sold them, or was swindled into relinquishing custody over her daughters. The girls stayed for a period above the Queen's Arms pub in Brighton. They later moved to the Evening Star pub.
Most accounts agree that Mary Hilton recognized the novelty presented by a pair of conjoined twins who had survived birth (a rarity at that time) and quickly sought to exploit them as a carnival sideshow exhibition.
The Hilton sisters toured first in Britain in 1911 (aged three) as "The Double Bosses".They went through Germany, then to Australia, then in 1916 to the US. In 1926, Bob Hope formed an act called the Dancemedians with the sisters, who had a tap-dancing routine. When Mary died in Birmingham, Alabama, the girls were bequeathed to Mary's daughter Edith Meyers, and Edith's husband Meyer Meyers, a former balloon salesman.
The couple took over management of the twins. Held mostly captive, the girls were punished if they did not do as the Meyers wished. They kept the twins from public view for a while and trained them in jazz music. Violet was a skilled saxophonist and Daisy a violinist. They lived in a mansion in San Antonio, Texas.