The three Winter Sisters from Hollis, New York were an acrobatic and tumbling act performing in vaudeville shows in the 1930s and 1940s. They performed with Jimmy Durante, the Ink Spots, Edith Piaf at her premiere US appearance at the Rialto Theatre in New York City, and other theatrical acts.
The sisters were Effie, Mae, and Dorothy. Their father, Everett H. Winter, a physician, originally from Maine, died of cancer when the girls were very young and they went into performing to earn money. They traveled extensively all over the United States, Europe and South America performing with some of the greatest entertainers of the era. They entertained US armed forces troops while traveling with Bob Hope's USO tour.
They were also trained to be trick pony riders and performed in Billy Rose's Broadway production of Jumbo.
They performed at the Boulevard Room in the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois in the late 1940s. They received a note backstage asking them to meet a man after their performance. Mae eventually married him, had three children, and lived in the Chicago suburbs for over 40 years. Effie lived outside of New York City and Dorothy lives in Florida where she taught dance classes for many years.
Famous quotes containing the words winter and/or sisters:
“Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.”
—W.E. (William Ewart)
“The quickness with which all the “stuff” from childhood can reduce adult siblings to kids again underscores the strong and complex connections between brothers and sisters.... It doesn’t seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we’ve traveled. Our brothers and sisters bring us face to face with our former selves and remind us how intricately bound up we are in each other’s lives.”
—Jane Mersky Leder (20th century)