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This vibrant color lithograph poster heralds the vaudeville act of Daisy and Violet Hilton—famously billed as "San Antonio's Siamese Twins." Produced by Quigley Litho. Co. in Kansas City, Missouri, circa 1927–1930, the image captures the twins around the age of twenty, each posed with a saxophone in hand.
Though marketed as San Antonio's, the Hiltons were born in 1908 in Brighton, England, and thrust into the world of entertainment by an exploitative guardian. Their early years were spent performing across Europe before their arrival in the United States in 1916, where further management challenges followed. Despite their difficult beginnings, they honed their talents—evidenced by their vaudeville dance routines, including a noted performance with a then-unknown Bob Hope in 1926—and later successfully fought for their independence by breaking their management contract in 1931.
Celebrated for their crossover appeal from sideshow novelty to mainstream variety and cinema, the Hilton twins graced the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit, appeared in Todd Browning's cult film Freaks, and headlined Chained for Life, a fictionalized portrayal of their struggles in show business. While they once enjoyed lucrative success, their fame waned with the decline of vaudeville, and later in life they found employment in a supermarket in Charlotte, North Carolina.
This poster, issued before they secured their independence, serves as a poignant reminder of the twins’ complex and bittersweet legacy in American entertainment history.
