The other night, watching Dancing for the Devil, a new Netflix documentary, one of my biggest take-away was how familiar it all seemed. It features a pair of sisters taking the entertainment industry by storm, with much of their charm rooted in the fact of their sisterhood. The Wilking Sisters presented an appealing togetherness, a glossy picture of connection, family, beauty and talent - until older sister Miranda abandoned Melanie and their parents in favor of an LA management company 7M, and the associated, possibly cultish, Sheniken Church. TikTok was the Wilking Sisters’ platform of choice, but their story reminded me of a couple of much-loved sister novels, as well as some of the many sisters pairings that pepper the history of vaudeville in the 20th century.
My list of vaudeville sisters, culled from Vaudeville Old and New, an Encyclopedia of Variety Performances in America by Frank Cullen, includes the Boswell Sisters - one of whom always performed seated at a piano, perhaps because she had suffered from polio - the Cherry Sisters - possibly the most ridiculed sisters in vaudeville - and the Whitman Sisters - who I’ve written about here - to name but three. But it was a pair of fictional sisters that really came to mind as I watched the documentary.
The Sisters Sweet by Elizabeth Weiss is the story of singing twins, forced by their father to pretend to be conjoined in order to make their act stand out. At first all goes well, but everything changes, much like things did for the Wilking girls, when one of the sisters, Josie, runs off to become a Hollywood movie starlet. Although I’d recommend the book - and the Netflix documentary - for me both suffer from only telling one sister’s side of the story. As I said in this review of The Sisters Sweet, I really wanted to hear Josie’s side of the story, and I felt the same about Miranda as I watched Dancing for the Devil (although something tells me the Wilking Sisters’ story isn’t quite over yet).
My favorite part of The Sisters Sweet was the early section where they pretended to be conjoined, wearing complicated outfits and dancing as one. Of course there really was a famous pair of conjoined twins, the Hilton Sisters, Daisy and Violet, and they’ll be featuring here one of these days, but it was the pretense aspect in Weiss’ novel that reminded me of a pair of fascinating twin sisters who did the exact same thing, dancing as though conjoined, in the Zeigfeld Follies of 1911.1 Meet the Dolly Sisters.
These twin sisters’ lives would make a great novel. Born in Hungary, Yansci and Roszika Deutsch arrived in America in 1904, aged 12. From the humblest of beginnings they quickly became stars of stage and screen, known as Jenny and Rosie, the Dolly Sisters. Together they amassed a fortune in jewels, and dallied with David, Prince of Wales and Harry Gordon Selfridge. But with success came tragedy - a major car accident, divorces, gambling losses, and ultimately Jenny committed suicide in 1941.
Surviving sister Rosie sold the rights for their story to Twentieth Century Fox and even supplied a fourteen page biography for the scriptwriters to use as basis for a movie about their sparkling career. Jenny’s suicide was not to form part of the story, as per Rosie’s stipulation, who pronounced herself happy with the movie, saying it ‘dipped into her champagne and caviar past’ and was ‘sort of a memorial’ to her sister. Critics said it didn’t do justice to the full glamor and drama of their lives, but it was a hit in its day.
For a more recent portrayal of the sisters (with a little side eye from me, wondering why the dark-haired Dolly Sisters are blond in both these productions) look no further than Mr. Selfridge, a TV series that ran for four seasons starting in 2013. I think I maybe watched the first two seasons but it could be time to revisit… now I know the Dollies are in season 4.
My research so far has born little fruit in terms of what these sisters really thought of each other or how their relationship - personal and professional - worked (or didn’t for that matter). Gary Chapman’s book, The Delectable Dollies, is the best source I’ve found to date, but it’s left me with as many questions as answers. I was happily blown-away, however, by the book’s epilogue, where Chapman reflects on a long talk he had with novelist Angela Carter and suggests the Dolly Sisters were the inspiration behind one of my all-time favorite novels:
…Angela was charming and interesting but far more intrigued by my research about the Dolly Sisters. We talked for hours and I told her their story. Then Wise Children, her novel about the twins Nora and Dora Chance, mistaken identities and the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families was published in 1991. The Dollies had clearly been an inspiration. Interestingly, the cover and the poster for the launch of the book featured a painting of the Dolly Sisters based on a photograph of them wearing the brightly coloured costumes in which they danced the mazurka in the 1923 show Paris sans voiles at the Ambassadeurs, Paris. Although Angela Carter may already have had the idea of writing a novel about twins before I met her, I was delighted that she, like me, had succumbed to the magic of the Dolly Sisters.2
Wait what!?!? I loved that book and remember the cover very clearly. And yes - here (thank you internet) is a photograph of the Dolly Sisters and the cover art for Wise Children:
Sadly, I don’t have that copy of the book any more. I went to look for it and The Sisters Sweet as I was thinking about writing about the Dolly Sisters but it has joined Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy at the top my list of books I have loved but frustratingly somehow no longer own. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m attached to book covers as part of my reading experience. I’ve been feeling disappointed that the replacement copy of Wise Children I ordered wouldn’t been quite the same with a different cover image. But that was before I read Chapman’s epilogue. Because what else have I just now discovered? I’ve discovered that the cover I remember wasn’t the only one based on the Dolly Sisters! My sister-loving, book-loving cup is truly full! The original first edition hardback of Wise Children looked like this:
If you zoom in, you can see on the flyleaf that the cover features a photograph of Rosie and Jenny, taken circa 1925, and part of the Hulton Archive. Even better news - the copy I ordered just the other day uses the same image with some added colorization. Hurrah! Thanks to Chapman’s epilogue, I’m even more thrilled to have a second bite at Wise Children with the Dolly Sisters top of mind. I can’t wait to start reading!
The Delectable Dollies, Gary Chapman, Stroud, 2006
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Did you and your sister(s) dance? I don't have a sister - maybe that's why it's all so fascinating to me!!
Sister relationships can be easy or hard depending on the women involved. Hard to imagine what mine would be like if we had gone professional.