Overview
- Alice and Ellen Kessler died on 17 November 2025 in Grünwald near Munich by assisted dying, aged 89, according to reports by The Guardian and The Observer.
- The twins had previously said they wished to "leave together on the same day," a vow they repeated in a 2024 interview.
- Trained at the Leipzig Opera children’s ballet, they fled East Germany as teenagers, were discovered at Paris’s Lido, joined the Bluebell Girls, and later performed with Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte.
- Their breakthrough came on Italian television’s Studio Uno in the early 1960s, where their precision, style and stagecraft helped reset norms for female performers and shaped mainstream TV variety culture.
- They represented West Germany at Eurovision in 1959 and later told tabloids they hoped to be buried together in an urn beside their mother and a beloved dog.