Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.
Today’s theme: Creepy twins
Daisy and Violet Hilton were born joined at the hips and buttocks, sharing the same blood circulation but no major organs. Their mother was a barmaid and when the owner of her bar, Mary Hilton, met them, she bought them outright. She controlled them with physical abuse and ran their careers until she died and their contracts were given to Mary’s daughter Edith Meyers and her husband Meyer, a former balloon salesman. In their San Antonio mansion, they beat the sisters into learning how to play jazz.
In the early 30s, they legally emancipated themselves with the help of Harry Houdini and went into vaudeville and then burlesque, even doing some limited exotic dancing that audiences did not react well about. Violet dated musician Maurice Lambert and despite applying in 21 states for a marriage license, no one would marry them. Around this time, they also appeared in the movie Freaks.
A few years later, Violet married actor James Moore — who was gay — as a publicity stunt. Daisy was also pregnant and gave her child up for adoption. She was also married to a dancer named Buddy Sawyer — also gay — for ten days.
This movie was made in 1952 — directed by Harry L. Fraser — and told the story of their lives. Well, except for the fact that Violet never shot a man that was in love with Daisy. It’s kind of a not true story, because they use the name Dorothy and Vivian Hamilton.
Their manager sets them up with a gun shooting expert named Andre Pariseau (Mario Laval) who is supposed to date Dorothy, who falls in love with him. The problem comes in when Andre still has a lover, Renee (Patricia Wright).
Yet because their marriage would be bigamy, they can’t get married until they meet a blind clergyman. Andre tells her on their wedding night that he can’t live this kind of life, but Vivian knows that he’s going back to the other way, so she shoots him dead. A judge has to decide what to do, because if he condemns Vivian to death, he’ll kill an innocent woman. The movie then asks you, the viewer, what you would decide.
The Hiltons had a hot dog stand — The Hilton Sisters Snack Bar — and their last public appearance was in 1961 at a drive-in double feature of Freaks and Chained for Life in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their tour manager had taken their money and left, stranding them. They applied to work at a Park’n’Shop grocery store and only asked for one salary. The owner, Charles Reid, was a religious man and hired them both and built a special desk for them so that customers couldn’t tell they were conjoined twins. The shop owner’s church also provided them with a small home and they devoted themselves to work and that church for the rest of the decade.
In early 1969, Daisy caught a horrible case of the flu and died. Four days later, Violet died as well. She never called for help, realizing that she couldn’t survive without her sister.
At their funeral, Reverend Jon Sills said, “Daisy and Violet Hilton were in show business for all but the last half dozen years of their life. In the end, though, they were cast aside by the glittery and glamorous world they had been part of for so long. In the end, it was only ordinary people who showed they cared about them.”
You can watch this on Tubi.
RESOURCES:
Memories of San Antonio. Violet and Daisy Hilton, San Antonio’s conjoined twins. Their uplifting story facing the odds and adversity.
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