Daisy and Violet Hilton The Famed Hilton sisters were born in Brighton, England on February 5th. 1908 and were joined at the hips and buttocks while sharing the same blood circulatory system. Both sisters also claimed that they could separate themselves mentally. Their unmarried mother sold the twins to their midwife Mrs. Mary Hilton shortly after their birth, then at a young age they were touring the sideshows under their adopted name. After their guardian died and with the help of a lawyer, the Hilton twins managed to free themselves from legal guardianship and received $100 thousand in the ensuing lawsuit.
Although they claimed to dislike the life of the carnival, they were amongst the highest paid freaks on record, earning $5 thousand a week while on the road touring with circuses and vaudeville. Daisy Hilton once told a reporter, "We don't mind having people stare at us. We're used to it. We've never known anything else." Both girls had many romances, and both had been married and divorced to husbands who cheated them of vast amounts of their money. Curiously there is no mention of their appearance in Freaks in any of their publicity releases, interviews or even in their memoirs. Their only other film appearance was in the exploitation classic Chained for Life (1950) billed as the Hamilton Sisters and the sequel TORN BY A KNIFE. During a promotional tour, the sisters found themselves stranded in Charlotte, North Carolina where they found work at a Park and Shop grocery store on Wilkinson Boulevard. In their red and white checked shirts they would weigh the produce on twin scales for the customers. On the 6th. January 1969 the Hiltons failed to report for work and when the police were notified they were discovered to have died from influenza.