Rejected at birth, exploited as kids: Famous conjoined twins died 52 years ago in NC
Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton were found dead in their Charlotte home 52 years ago today, huddled over a heating grate in the midst of the 1968 flu pandemic.
Theirs was a story of tragic proportions — and a touch of glamour.
The Hilton sisters weren’t from North Carolina. Rejected at birth and exploited by their adoptive family, it took a lawsuit to grant them their freedom. But their fame dwindled after World War II, and the pair settled in Charlotte as produce clerks before their untimely death.
“They led a hummingbird’s life,” reporter Dot Jackson wrote in the twins’ 1969 obituary for the Charlotte Observer. “Color and glitter, and always on the move. For a time they knew glamour and wealth. But both preceded them in death.”
‘Paupers living in slavery’
Daisy and Violet Hilton were born in Brighton, England in 1908, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Their mother, Kate Skinner, had conceived them out of wedlock and believed their birth to be “God’s punishment for her indiscretions,” blogger Messy Nessy wrote in a 2015 post.
Skinner’s midwife Mary Hilton took the sisters in, according to the DNCR. But it was far from an act of kindness.
“From the time that they were infants they were exhibited by Hilton and her daughter,” the state agency said. “Soon Hilton’s son-in-law, Myer Myers, became their agent and exhibited them in the United States. They were kept in isolation when not being exhibited on midways across the country.”
Hilton charged spectators two pennies to see the conjoined twins and more to touch them where their bodies were joined, the Observer reported.
Taught to play instruments and forced onto the carnival sideshow circuit, Daisy and Violet Hilton forfeited all of their earnings to their adoptive mother — who was prone to whipping them with a belt when they misbehaved, according to the Observer.
The girls were eventually brought to the U.S. When Mary Hilton died, her daughter Edith and son-in-law Myer Myers took control of the 11-year-old twins, The Dallas Morning News reported in 2018.
“We were [lonely], rich girls who were really paupers living in slavery,” Daisy Hilton said of their time under Myers’ control, according to Messy Nessy.
Newfound freedom
It wasn’t until 1931 at the age of 23 that Daisy and Violet found some independence after suing Myers to break off their performance contract. They received a $100,000 settlement in return, a mere “fraction of what they had earned,” according to the N.C. DNCR.
$100,000 in 1931 is roughly the equivalent of $1.7 million today.
With their newfound freedom, the twins headed for vaudeville, a type of entertainment popular in the early 20th century that featured a variety of performers who told jokes, juggled, sang and danced.
They appeared in two films during their career: “Freaks” in 1932 and “Chained for Life” in 1950, according to the DNCR. The sisters also published an autobiography in 1942 titled “The Lives and Loves of the Hilton Sisters.”
Violet Hilton was engaged for a time to the musician Maurice Lambert. But their application for a marriage license was routinely rejected, causing the pair to eventually split up, The Dallas Morning News reported.
At least 21 states turned them down “on the grounds of gross indecency,” according to the Observer.
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Violet Hilton eventually married another performer, James Moore. The couple charged 25 cents for admittance to the ceremony — which many wrote off as a publicity stunt — and later received an annulment, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Daisy Hilton was also married for a short time to the actor Harold Estep, also known as “Buddy Sawyer,” according to the newspaper. But the marriage didn’t last.
Descent into obscurity
Vaudeville and sideshows lessened in popularity after the second World War, and the Hilton sisters’ stock in life plummeted as they got older.
The pair toured drive-in theaters for a time to promote their movie “Chained for Life,” which largely flopped, according to the DNCR. They later opened a food stand in Miami, Messy Nessy wrote.
When that failed, the twins connected with Philip Morris of the Morris Costume empire in Charlotte, the Observer reported. He put them up at the Clayton Hotel and tried to arrange some bookings at theaters and shopping centers, but there weren’t many takers.
Eventually the pair found themselves behind the produce counter at the Park-N-Shop market on Wilkinson Boulevard, according to the Observer.
“Hundreds of people went through there and didn’t realize they were conjoined,” Morris told the newspaper.
Around Christmas in 1968, Daisy and Violet Hilton came down with the flu — a strain of influenza that killed about 100,000 people in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The twins, then 60 years old, were found dead after friends who hadn’t heard from them for a few days convinced police to “force open the door of their cottage,” the Observer reported.
Daisy and Violet are buried together at the Forest Lawn West Cemetery on Freedom Drive in Charlotte. Their grave site is marked by a simple plaque that reads: “Daisy and Violet Hilton. 1908-1969. Beloved Siamese Twins.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 5:32 PM.
