Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton defied the odds and carved out successful entertainment careers before unfortunately meeting a tragic demise.
According to Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, it’s estimated that the frequency of conjoined twins being born is between 1 in 30,000 to 1 in 200,000.
However, because they are so rare, it’s rather difficult for experts to determine an exact frequency.
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Conjoined twins are two children joined in utero, and are sometimes born sharing limbs, organs and/or muscles.
The phenomenon takes place when one fertilised egg partially splits into two embryos.
After the slight split, the pair of embryos are monochorionic, and continue to share a placenta and amniotic sac in the womb.
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Conjoined twins unfortunately have a poor mortality rate, according to the National Institutes of Health.
It’s claimed that the total survival rate is just 7.5 percent while only 60 percent of surgically separated cases live.
However, Daisy and Violet Skinner, born in 1908, are a pair of conjoined twins who managed to defy these statistics and lived until 1969.
A tragic start
Joined at the hip, the duo were born in Brighton but were later sold by their mother to a woman called Mary Hilton.
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After purchasing the twins, Mary bestowed her surname on the girls. She then hauled them out on tour from the age of three.
It’s said that she would also flog pictures of the conjoined twins to punters in the pub she owned in an attempt to make some cash.
Following Mary’s death, Daisy and Violet were then willed to her daughter Edith - like property - who ensured the twins learnt how to dance and play musical instruments while keeping all the money they earned.
Fortunately, though, they found a way out of the ‘contract’ and eventually gained autonomy over their own lives.
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The Hilton sisters continued to make their money as performers and in 1952, they starred in the movie Chained for Life.
The exploitation film was directed by Harry L. Fraser and incorporated aspects of the twin’s real life as well as several vaudeville acts.
However, their time in the limelight came to a close in 1961 after their manager abandoned them.
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After making their last public appearance at a drive-in in Charlotte, North Carolina and having no money to their names, the siblings went on to work in a local shop.
A sad demise and a lasting legacy
However, tragedy struck in 1969 when both twins caught the flu.
Daisy died soon after contracting the illness and suffered greatly from symptoms, while Violet dying two to four days after her twin - meaning she was attached to the remains of her sister before she eventually succumbed to the same illness.
Nowadays, conjoined twins can undergo surgery to be separated if one of them falls terminally ill.
But as medicine and procedures were not as advanced in the 20th century, it’s thought that this wasn’t an option for the pair.
Following the English-born entertainers’ death, the duo have had musicals performed in their memory and have had a bus named after them.
A commemorative blue plaque has also been erected at the property they were born in Brighton which reads: “The Hilton Twins. Violet and Daisy Skinner. 1908-1969.
“Stars of stage and screen. Born here”.
Ella Scott