Three sisters from West Texas saved their family from the Great Depression when a chance encounter with acrobatic neighbors sparked an unexpected career as singing contortionists.

The Ross Sisters quickly traded in their childhoods for roadhouses and rodeo shows. Soon they were on Broadway and in the movies. At the urging of their mother Veda--who trained them relentlessly--the girls lied up their ages.

Just after WWII ended, the Ross Sisters sailed on the Queen Mary to London to perform in a hit stage show. Free of their mother for the first time, they each met a fellow performer and married: Betsy Ross to a schizophrenic and charismatic dancer from America, Vicki Ross to a lovable French ventriloquist and baby Dixie to an English actor and comedian.

Dixie would die on her 15th wedding anniversary, and her sisters would be left to pick up the pieces.

The Ross Sisters fame was short-lived, but bubbled up in the '90s when their act was featured in the film That's Entertainment III, and again in a new century when their contortions made them Youtube sensations.

The Contortionists is a story of the American Dream in an age where men were firmly in charge (or thought they were).

​