The Dolly Sisters, the Hungarian twins who conquered the variety scene of the 1920s

Hollywood is full of Hungarian talents and colourful personalities who have engraved their names in stone as far as the show business is concerned. It is not just Zsazsa Gábor who had the whole world lying at her feet, but the Dolly Sisters too, who performed in front of royalties and millionaires. Újságmúzeum tells the story of the Hungarian twin sisters who rose from poverty to worldwide fame.

The twins had a rough childhood, characterised by severe poverty. They were born in 1892 in Balassagyarmat, from where their monger father had the family move to Budapest when the girls were three years old. The father’s motive behind this was to save the family from starving and to provide the twins with a good education. However, he could not make ends meet, so the family moved to New York when Janka and Rózsi were thirteen.

Their story is like a true fairy-tale: two little girls arriving in the USA, famished, exhausted and afraid of the new world, eventually growing up to become the most famous dancers of the time.

People desperately trying to make a living usually take up all sorts of jobs that they have the slightest knowledge about or affinity to. Dancing was quite an important part of little girls’ education in those decades, so Janka and Rózsi took dance classes back in Budapest. Making use of their skills, the girls started performing at cafés, clubs to support their family.

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What started off as making a decent living, became a story of riches and fame, as the girls became more and more popular thanks to their astonishing performance. At the age of eighteen, they were already performing in Broadway productions and silent films.

Not much later, Harry Fox, the father of foxtrot fell in love with Janka, married her, and became the duo’s manager. It was at that time when they started using the ‘Dolly Sisters’ stage name.