Bound by Flesh Page #6

the real situation is,

and he steps in

to try and say,

"Is there anything else that

you need to talk to me about?"

- After learning about

how hateful

Myers' treatment

of the twins was,

he told the twins that

he would represent them

in an emancipation suit.

A trial was held

in San Antonio,

and it received

national publicity.

- We wanted freedom,

an accounting of our money,

and a receiver appointed

to manage our property.

- Isn't it a fact

that they signed...

- During my, Violet's,

time on the witness stand,

I looked at Sir and said,

"The contracts we signed

were always covered,

except for the dotted line. "

When we hesitated to sign,

Sir would rave and ask us

if we thought he was a thief

and if we didn't trust him

and if we were afraid,

so we always signed.

- Myer Myers was forced

to testify.

- I'm asking you again,

did the girls get that money?

- I don't know.

They were paid through

my bookkeeper in New York.

- Did you ever strike them

or threaten to strike them?

- No.

- So it was just

a family affair?

- Yes, and a happy family too.

Until you stepped in

and corrupted it.

- All this property was bought

with the money earned

by these little girls...

- People would be waiting

outside the courthouse

every day

for the trial to start.

When the courthouse opened

in the morning,

there was a flood of people,

you know, racing through

the corridors.

Some of them

almost got stomped to death.

- W.W. McCrory

was the judge on that.

He and his children were

close friends of my parents

and of the Arnolds,

so the judge on that case

was very close to the twins.

That's why they picked him.

- All contracts existing between

him and us were dissolved.

- The court awarded them

something approaching $1 00,000.

- The judge ordered Sir

never to interfere

with our lives again.

Our new life began

almost immediately.

We went to shows, nightclubs,

dinner parties.

- We drank wine and smoked.

- And that was

the beginning of the end,

because under the Myers,

they were taken care of,

but they had absolutely

no chance of any kind of freedom

that would have enabled them

to handle fame on their own.

- We looked forward to a future

promising real happiness.

- Be careful what you wish for.

You may get it.

- They're gonna try to sample

and do all the things

that they had never

been able to do.

They could cut their hair,

buy their own clothes...

- I am gonna have yellow hair

just like...

- Could drink champagne

and explore

what life was gonna be like

on their own.

- Their freedoms now were

completely unchecked.

They were out all of the time,

every night.

- I think it was probably

sexual freedom.

- One of the great stories

is that during the trial,

they were living

at the St. Anthony Hotel,

and for the first time,

they could really have

gentlemen callers.

- They had boyfriends,

and I would see one of them

fall asleep

while the other one

was doing something else.

Not...

[laughs]

having relationships.

They could remove themselves... -

almost, it was a psychic thing... -

one from the other.

Never from each other

as performers or sisters.

- "I can get rid of you, "

l, Daisy,

would say to my sister.

I could, mentally.

Just as she could dismiss me.

- We had to do, as Harry Houdini

once said to us,

"Live in your minds,

girls. "

He told us that as we stood

beside him in the wings

one night

in a Detroit theater.

"It is your only hope

for private lives.

Just recognize no handicap. "

- They knew they were

individuals, actually.

You could tell Daisy

from Violet

or Violet from Daisy.

But they were making

the best of their world

after they got free,

but they could not cope.

- They tried to have

some sense of normalcy.

At one point, they had

a small apartment

here in San Antonio,

and here was a place

that they could call their own,

that they could, you know,

get their own groceries,

and, you know,

they could fix it up

just the way they wanted,

and that it was kind of

playing house.

- Tod Browning,

the great film director,

who had done Dracula movies,

wanted to do this film

that was based on a short story

that involved

a lot of sideshow freaks.

He wanted the real thing.

The twins were not

in the circus.

They were in vaudeville now.

I mean, they were, you know,

sort of the elite

of the "freaks."

Initially,

they bridled at the idea

of appearing with other freaks.

I mean, they did it

for the money,

but I think they thought

that appearing in a movie

might be a first step

for them to move

to bigger and better things.

Tod Browning was, at that time,

a very prominent director.

He didn't want the makeup

department to create his freaks.

He, again,

wanted the real thing.

So he hired all of these freaks

from various circuses.

- We'll make her one of us!

- When the film came out,

it was banned in Boston

and was banned

in a lot of other places.

- Gooble-gobble!

- Gooble-gobble!

- [laughs]

- They were physically

better off with the Myers

than they were when

they were out on their own

with the predators...

In the theater and on Broadway

and on the stage.

- They had the right

to hire and fire

the people

who worked with them.

- They had a series

of managers

who, some were okay

but inadequate,

and the others

were downright evil.

- Because they'd been

so sheltered,

they didn't necessarily

make the best choices

for managing

their own careers

or managing

their own finances.

But the mistakes

were theirs to make.

- They were malleable

and passive in a way... -

Daisy more than Violet.

They couldn't tell a real scam

or a con man

from a good person.

They had no ability

to judge anybody or anything.

Remember, in the Depression,

everybody was starving.

These managers of acts

were vociferous

in their approach.

They were hungry.

- Unfortunately,

they're right at the point

where vaudeville

isn't at its heyday anymore.

You're starting to fight

with motion pictures

for people's attention.

While they had

a winning performance,

it wasn't the same.

They didn't know

how to necessarily fight

and stay quite as relevant.

- It was in the '30s,

I believe,

sometime just before

the second World War,

when sideshows

or performance shows

became kind of declasse,

and people just quit going.

That's when people

who were managing them

got more greedy, and they had

less gigs, so to speak.

- They left San Antonio

and moved to New York.

In their apartment

in New York,

they had constructed

in their living quarters

and old-time phone booth,

the kind

with the sliding door.

You put your money in

and, you know, make a call.

Well, they had one of those

in their apartment.

Sisters could go into

the phone booth,

whisper sweet nothings,

and then the other sister

would be sitting right outside

the phone booth

but unable to hear

the goings-on.

And then it became

really interesting

because when one sister

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