Who Were the Kessler Twins? Inside Their Careers Before Their Deaths

German entertainers Alice and Ellen Kessler died at age 89 on the same day in November 2025.

The duo — who were known professionally as The Kessler Twins — reportedly made the decision to have an assisted suicide in consultation with the German Society for Human Dying (DGHS), according to NBC’s Today.

“People who choose this option in Germany must be absolutely clear-headed, meaning free and responsible,” an English-language statement from the DGHS read. “The decision must be thoughtful and consistent, meaning made over a long period of time and not impulsive.”

The Kessler Twins hinted at wanting to die together a year earlier by telling the Italian media that they didn’t want to deal with the trauma of one going before the other

During their 70-plus year careers, The Kessler Twins performed on some of the world’s grandest stages, from the Lido in Paris to the bright lights of the The Ed Sullivan Show in New York City. The siblings made history by appearing on the cover of Life Magazine in the U.S. and later posed for the Italian edition of Playboy when they turned 40.

Keep scrolling for more information on the incredible lives of The Kessler Twins.

The Kessler Twins Escaped From Behind the Iron Curtain as Children

Alice and Ellen Kessler were born in Nerchau, Germany, in August 1936, during the rise of the Nazi Party. Their childhood was torn apart by the encroachment of World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. Following the war, their hometown became part of East Germany and the twins grew up under the control of Soviet occupation.

Despite their harsh upbringing, Alice and Ellen excelled at dance from an early age and even performed with the Leipzig Opera. When the twins were 16 years old, their parents were able to secure a visitor’s visa that allowed the family to escape East Germany.

The Kessler Twins Became Huge Stars in Europe as Teenagers

The Kessler Twins first made a name for themselves by performing in Düsseldorf once they arrived in West Germany. It wasn’t long before The Kessler Twins made their debut on the Paris stage at the famed Lido theater — where the likes of Siegfried and Roy, Elton John and Marlene Dietrich also performed over the years.

In 1959, The Kessler Twins finished in eighth place as the West German representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest in Cannes, France, with their single “Heute Abend wollen wir tanzen geh’n” (“Tonight We Want to Go Dancing”). (The 1959 Eurovision Song Contest was won by the Netherlands representative Teddy Scholten with her submission “’n Beetje,” or “A Little Bit.”)

“We didn’t really want to do it because it was the debut of our signing but our record company in Germany felt we had to do it because we were already known in France for [performing] at The Lido in Paris,” Ellen explained in one interview. “They thought if we go [to Eurovision] and sing a song, we may make it. But we didn’t make it!”

While the song competition launched the careers of ABBA and Celine Dion, the Kessler Twins felt that performing at Eurovision was a mistake.

“We didn’t make it because we didn’t think that song was too good and we didn’t think that we were too good,” Ellen joked.

Alice admitted that she’d never watched their Eurovision performance “completely” in all the years since the 1959 competition because the experience didn’t help their careers.

“We’re not really record stars,” Ellen noted. “We’ve always been visual because we moved all the time. Success was always visual. Everybody wanted to see us, not only singing like the record star would do, but also dancing. So, it was always visual.”

The Kessler Twins Had Success in Hollywood

The Kessler Twins were discovered by U.S.-born choreographer Don Lurio in 1961 and brought to Italy, where they became early TV stars in the country.

Their success in Europe paved the way for The Kessler Twins to make their American television debut on CBS’s The Red Skelton Show in 1963. The sisters became regulars on pioneering CBS variety show The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s and early ‘70s, where they performed alongside The Jackson 5 and other major American entertainers.

“We didn’t feel any competition [with American acts] because we were twins,” Ellen said in an interview. “We were something special, not just one thing. … We were something out of the normality.”

Alice added: “We really were lucky to work with all the big stars in the U.S.A.”

The twins frequently shared stages with the Rat Pack, and they singled out Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin as two of their favorite colleagues. While Alice and Ellen said they got along well with Rat Pack leader Frank Sinatra, they recognized that Sinatra had a darker side too.

“Frank Sinatra, he was interesting because he was very humorous,” Ellen said. “You never knew, was he in a good [mood] or in a bad [mood]?”

Her sister admitted, “We used to call him Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Aside from their stage work in the U.S., The Kessler Twins appeared as dancers in the 1962 biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah, and had bit roles in many other European films in the 1960s.

The Kessler Twins were given the prestigious Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Bavarian Order of Merit in their home country in honor of their legendary careers.

The Kessler Twins Never Married

Alice and Ellen had numerous high-profile relationships throughout their lives, though neither ever married or had children.

Ellen was involved in a 20-year romance with ​​Italian actor Umberto Orsini, best known to American audiences for appearing in the erotic Emmanuelle film series in the 1970s.

Alice was linked to French singer Marcel Amont and actor Enrico Maria Salerno, the latter of whom dubbed Clint Eastwood’s voice into Italian for the iconic Spaghetti Western movies A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

“We had a clear idea right from the start, ever since we were girls: we had to be independent,” they told Italian newspaper Corriere in 2024. “We didn’t want to depend on a man in any way. We were feminists, but without thinking about it: from the age of 15, we started earning our own living. We’ve always been independent. Perhaps, in the end, we became a little dependent on each other.”

The Kessler Twins Died by Assisted Suicide on the Same Day in 2025

In the final years of their lives, The Kessler Twins lived in interconnected apartments in Munich, Germany. In a 2024 interview, the twins said their hope was to “go away together on the same day” in order to avoid living in assisted care.

“The idea of one of us going first is very hard to bear,” they were quoted as saying.

In November 2025, a spokesperson for the German Society for Human Dying (DGHS) confirmed to Today that the twins chose to die together at age 89.

“They had been considering this option for some time. They had been members of the organization for over a year. A lawyer and a doctor conducted preliminary discussions with them,” a statement read. “People who choose this option in Germany must be absolutely clear-headed, meaning free and responsible. The decision must be thoughtful and consistent, meaning made over a long period of time and not impulsive.”

DGHS spokesperson Wega Wetzel subsequently told CNN that Alice and Ellen contacted the group a year earlier and became members. (Wetzel did not personally know The Kessler Twins.)

“The decisive factor is likely to have been the desire to die together on a specific date,” Wetzel explained. “Their desire to die was well-considered, long-standing and free from any psychiatric crisis.”

Assisted dying is unregulated in Germany due to a 2020 court ruling that determined that every individual has a right to a self-determined death, which can be assisted by a third party under certain conditions.