Bound by Flesh Page #9

playing a nightclub,

they said to the magician,

"Would you like to become

the most famous magician

in the world?"

And he said,

"Well, how would I do that?"

And they said,

"Marry one of us."

[laughs]

- Can I imagine a courthouse

or a judge saying,

"We can't have that"?

Yeah.

Depending on where you go.

I can also imagine promoters

and the Hilton sisters

themselves going...

"Where is it most likely

that we're gonna get told no?"

And showing up there.

And then parlaying that

into what you really need,

which is money,

because ultimately,

when you're in

the sideshow business,

it's not just

what I can perform as onstage... -

sword swallower,

fire-breather.

Fine.

You're a working act.

But when you're

a freak attraction,

what you see is what you are.

They're going

to always be aware,

as they've been aware

since they were infants,

"What people see

is what I am,

and what I am

has to be about making money,

because this is it."

- L, Daisy, fell in love

with the singing, dancing

master of ceremonies

of our act.

His name was Harold Estep,

known professionally

as Buddy Sawyer.

He was eight years

younger than I.

- Little guy with hair

the color of corn on the cob.

Buddy Sawyer was pretty much

wired the same way

that Jim Moore was wired.

- They were attracted

to gay men.

There is some advantage to that.

- The marriage

was just totally and simple

a publicity stunt.

And they only

remained married for...

maybe a month, two months.

- There would be

these streams of people

after the theater closed,

would go to the motel

and be out in the streets,

crying up to their room,

asking,

"Hey, Buddy,

are you in bed yet?"

And that sort of thing.

He was married to freaks,

but then he was a freak

himself, he thought,

and he just

couldn't handle it.

- Then one morning

we looked across the twin bed

where Buddy had been,

but he had disappeared.

- I don't know how many years

it took them

to find the difference between

gay and straight,

but I guess eventually they... -

they knew nothing about sex.

- All these people were

approaching them

all of the time with these... -

what they insisted were

can't-fail money schemes.

- Chained For Life,

their autobiographical film... -

somewhat autobiographical... -

inarguably one of the scariest

and worst films ever made.

- That was not their best film.

- We've always been

the headliners.

The Hamilton sisters.

I thought you'd given up

your, uh, career.

I guess there's nothing left.

- The picture was that one

of the girls had accidentally

or intentionally

killed someone, and so,

could that person then... -

could she be executed?

- They tried to exert

some control

over how they were being

portrayed in the movie,

and by all accounts,

their interference

with the people

who were the professionals

certainly showed.

- People that approached them

about doing this film

really didn't have

any money to do it.

It was up to the twins

to not only act in it

but pay all the bills.

It came out,

and mostly it was screened

in tiny little theaters.

Sometimes

they weren't even theaters.

It was like some little venue

somewhere where, you know,

somebody put up a bedsheet,

or at drive-in theaters.

- And they're there;

they're gonna answer questions

from who?

The people getting

out of their cars?

- They made the movie;

they had high hopes

that this was gonna make them

movie stars,

and it never did.

And it became one of those

things, sort of like Freaks,

that they weren't very proud of

but were stuck promoting.

- They were so out of it

by that point in time

in their lives,

in terms of what

the business had become,

they were trying to go from town

to town to screen that film.

They were trying to take trains

from town to town.

Trains hadn't been the principal

means of transportation

in the U.S.

since probably the '30s.

Nobody really cared

about their film.

People couldn't have cared less

that they were actually

showing up with it.

- They would do a little show

before the screening.

Sometimes the drive-ins

were better known

for showing, uh,

other types of movies.

They would come in,

and all of a sudden,

you'd have this movie,

and it would be

a change of fare,

but you would have

your regular patrons.

- They would appear

on little stages

or inside

the concession stands.

Put on their little dances.

It was pathetic, really.

both:
You stole

the silver moonlight

And left all heaven dry

- It was awful.

Their greatest audience

was probably made up

of the mosquitoes in the air.

- It was a big step down

from where they had been.

You really see them starting

to age more rapidly.

Some of the spirit

wasn't there anymore.

- They weren't taking care

of themselves well.

They weren't eating well.

They drank.

They smoked.

They were wearing costumes

that were out of date

in fashion

but were also

kind of moldering

and, you know,

not very fresh-looking.

But they were trying

to stay alive.

They were trying to survive.

They made these appearances

at a few nightclubs in Miami.

When they left,

the owners of these clubs were,

"Oh, thank God,"

you know, "They're gone."

- When you end up in the age

when everybody

wants to consider you sort of

a dowager and an old-timer,

and, you know, "Shouldn't

you be playing a role right now

that reflects

your increasing age?"

That must have been

fairly brutal for them.

In their heyday,

there was probably nothing

any bigger a draw

than the Hilton sisters.

- How's it all going, girls?

- Just too good for words.

- Holding on to that money

is very tough

in a business where you always

have to keep up the front;

you always have to be

mounting the next big thing.

And the Hilton sisters,

in their career,

fetched up on

the bad end of that.

The huge money,

the huge success you are today,

you're not quite that

tomorrow.

The Hilton sisters were not

prepared for the tomorrow

that they ended up confronting.

And nobody likes

to go onstage and die.

And that's pretty much

what they were doing

in their last days.

They got out of the business.

They pulled out and got into

a number of failed

business ventures.

- They would do this

sort of thing for a while.

They would bubble back up again

into show business.

They ran a snack bar in Miami.

- The girls,

bless their hearts,

really did not understand

business.

- I don't think

that I've ever had

as bad a case of nerves

onstage,

opening or production,

or doing pictures,

as I did

as serving a hamburger.

I actually had stage fright

serving hamburgers.

I was so scared,

I didn't know what to do.

Of course, the cooking

and the cleaning was no problem

because we learned that

years ago when we were children.

- Initially, the snack bar

attracted some attention.

Merchants in the same area

thought it was just bad

for business.

They thought most people

were gonna be grossed out

by seeing conjoined twins

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