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The Kessler twins Alice and Ellen, who became internationally known as singers, actresses and entertainers, are dead. The two women died together at the age of 89. A spokesman for the Munich police confirmed a police operation in Grünwald near Munich, without giving further details.
Alice and Ellen Kessler were born on August 20, 1936 in Nerchau, Saxony. For a long time, the two blondes were considered men’s dreams come true and the most successful German show exports. They first danced in the GDR, then in Düsseldorf after the family fled to the West.
They learned to dance as little girls and were drilled by their father. They soon belonged to the children’s ballet of the Leipzig Opera and were accepted into the opera dance school. In 1952, at the age of 16, they fled to the West and came to Düsseldorf.
They canceled Elvis
In order to be self-sufficient and financially independent, they danced in a revue theater. When they were just 18, they got an engagement at the world-famous Lido in Paris – and eventually toured around the world.
In the prudish post-war years, the Kesslers were among the first to show a lot of leg in serious shows. When her contract in Paris ended in 1960, the “double German Fräuleinwunder” went on a world tour. The Kesslers danced in New York, Caracas, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Sydney, were guests on international television shows and appeared several times in films.
They even had an offer to appear with Elvis Presley in the film “Viva Las Vegas”. But they canceled that – for fear of being restricted to films with music and dance performances in America too. “Our manager, he could have beaten us,” said Ellen in 2013 on the occasion of her 75th birthday. The two of them weren’t particularly impressed by the “King” anyway. “We didn’t melt away. We were cool and he couldn’t handle that. He was very inhibited.”
Presley wasn’t the only big name in the twins’ circle of acquaintances – the Kesslers knew them all: Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr. and Fred Astaire.
They stuck together even as children
Both twins were never married. “We have never made ourselves dependent on men,” Alice Kessler said on her 88th birthday of the “Bunten” in August 2024.
The fact that their independence is so important to them was founded in their childhood. “Because our father was also a drunk who often beat and humiliated our mother,” said Ellen Kessler. “Domestic violence was a daily issue. It wouldn’t happen to us later, we swore that.”