Incredible life of adored Kessler twins, 89, who died on the same day in ‘joint suicide’: Sisters performed with Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire and posed nude for Playboy but… all the Hollywood glitz hid tragic childhood pain

Alice and Ellen Kessler were once considered the most beautiful women in the world, with the German identical twins sharing the stage with the likes of Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte.

Their incredible international careers, spanning an impressive seven decades after launching in the 1950s, saw them produce much loved records and films, star on the cover of LIFE magazine and pose nude for Playboy at the age of 40.

They were the first women to show their legs on Italian television – and even caught the attention of Elvis Presley before turning down an offer to work with him for fear of being typecast.

But the glitz and glamour of their life hid a tragic childhood – and, forced as children to cling to one another for protection against their alcoholic father’s brutality, they shared a closeness like no other.

Such was their bond that the sisters decided to end their lives on the same day, on November 17th, aged 89. 

They reportedly had an ‘euthanasia pact’ and told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera last year that they wanted ‘to go away together on the same day’. ‘The idea that one of us might get it first is very hard to bear,’ they added.

Their death in Grünwald, a prosperous suburb of Munich where they shared connecting homes, was reported on Monday. Munich police confirmed on Tuesday that it was a ‘joint suicide’, which is legal under certain conditions in Germany.

The twins laid the foundations for their entertainment career at just six years old as part of the Leipzig Opera’s children’s ballet company.

Aged 16 and shortly before the Berlin Wall was built, the twins and their parents Paul and Elsa fled Nerchau, Saxony, an Eastern state, where Alice and Ellen were born in 1936, for West Germany.

There, they were hired at the Palladium revue theater in Düsseldorf in 1952 before being discovered by Pierre-Louis Guérin, the director of the famous Lido cabaret theater in Paris in 1955.

He hired the then 18-year-old twins for the variety show on the Champs-Élysées, marking the start of their incredible internationational careers.

In 1959, they represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest and in the 1960s, the singing, dancing and acting Kessler twins toured worldwide, including in London, New York, Sydney and Monte Carlo.

The sisters soon became popular in the US after appearances on high-profile variety shows, including several performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show and The Red Skelton Hour.   

They performed with the likes of Astaire, Sinatra, Belafonte and Sammy Davis Jr and appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1960.

But the sisters turned down an offer to appear with Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas in 1964 for fear of becoming defined by musical films in America. The singer reportedly saw them perform at Le Lido in Paris when he was stationed in West Germany after being drafted into the Army in 1958.

Instead of working with Elvis, the sisters stayed in Rome, where they’d relocated in 1962 after discovering resounding success in Italy.

The pair became huge stars in the country during the early golden age of TV, and one of their famous dance routines ‘Da-Da-Un-Pa’ even earned them the nickname ‘legs of the nation’.

They were the first women to show their enviable pins on screen, albeit in black tights due to the strict conservative values of the time.

Their films include Four Girls from Wachau (1957), The Count of Luxembourg (1957), and The Corpse of Beverly Hills (1964). 

Aged 40, the twins posed naked for the Italian edition of Playboy in 1976, which sold out in just three hours, according to Eurovision’s website. It remains the fastest-selling Italian Playboy to date.

Their cover moment came after a journalist for the publication quipped that ‘The Kesslers are no longer the youngest and no longer the most beautiful’.

Ellen reportedly convinced her sister Alice, who was more shy than her sibling, to prove the writer wrong by posing for the magazine, reported SWI swissinfo.

Proving just how popular they were in Italy, the state broadcaster RAI shared a detailed plan on Tuesday of the ways in which it planned to pay tribute to the twins following their death, including showing reruns of their old TV shows. 

Even at 80, the sisters appeared on stage in a musical. Alice said shortly before their 80th birthday that they probably wouldn’t have managed to perform for so long alone.

Being a twosome ‘only has advantages,’ she said. ‘Together you’re stronger.’

Asked about the secret of their success, she remarked: ‘Discipline, every day. Gratitude, time and again. Humility, not cockiness. And togetherness. Until death.’ 

In 1986, Alice and Ellen moved back to West Germany, settling in Grünwald, where they lived in ‘two mirrored, connecting apartments’ and would meet at midday every day for lunch, reported CNN.

The pair never married, had no children and apart from a few weeks, were always together. The twins dated throughout their careers but ‘never made ourselves dependent on men’.

Alice explained in an interview: ‘There was something that was much more important to us than beauty: independence!’

‘We lived our lives to the full,’ she once said. ‘We never wanted to be mothers… We never made ourselves dependent on men.’ 

This was likely the case because of their painful childhood. Their father was a violent alcoholic who beat their mother – and the twins were determined that history wasn’t going to repeat itself. 

‘Domestic violence was a daily occurrence. And we swore to each other that it would never happen to us,’ Alice said, according to Italian newspaper Il Giornale.

‘As children, we witnessed all this with great fear,’ Ellen told German magazine Bunte in an interview on the eve of their 88th birthday.

The twins suffered further tragedy in their childhood after the death of both their older brothers; one died of jaundice as a boy, and the other returned from war at the age of 17 with typhus and died shortly after.

Not only did their deaths leave the sisters unprotected against their father’s violence, they were also forced into work at a young age, performing in small cabarets in Düsseldorf as teenagers.

The twins described to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero how they didn’t know the ‘light-heartedness of their peers who went out to dance or have fun’.

‘But for us it was normal: working, earning money, being independent, building our own freedom,’ they added.

Their painful childhood resulted in a bond like no other, with the sisters telling publication Repubblica: ‘Our mutual attachment had deeper roots than the usual closeness that characterises twins: for us it was a survival instinct. 

‘Our fear of [our father’s] blind rage and the feeling of not being able to rely on anyone else cemented us forever.’

Forever, indeed. The sisters decided to end their lives on exactly the same day in a ‘joint suicide’ on November 17th. 

According to German publication Bild, the sisters ‘no longer wanted to live’ and ‘had chosen to end their lives together.’ 

The twins told the tabloid in 2024 that they wanted their ashes to be placed together in an urn after their death, along with the remains of their mother, Elsa, and their dog, Yello. ‘That’s what we stipulated in our will,’ Ellen said, via Parade.

In Germany, assisted suicide is legal under certain conditions, such as the person being able to act responsibly and of their own free will. 

Alice and Ellen, who after a stroke ‘was no longer in good health’, a friend told Swiss German-language daily newspaper Blick, contacted the German Society for Humane Dying (DGHS) a year ago to become members, CNN reported. The advocacy organisation provides access to lawyers and doctors. 

DGHS spokesperson Wega Wetzel told the website: ‘The decisive factor is likely to have been the desire to die together on a specific date.

‘Their desire to die was well-considered, longstanding and free from any psychiatric crisis.’

One of the twins’ last public appearances was in July 2025 when they were awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit, which is given for contributions to Bavaria. They also attended a premiere in Munich on October 24, 2025.

Following their death, Alice and Ellen’s undisclosed fortune – thought to include their property, complete with a pool, according to The Mirror – has reportedly been left to charities including Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF children’s aid organisation Paul Klinger Artists’ Social Welfare Fund and the German Foundation for Patient Protection.

Before her passing, Ellen said: ‘We earned very well, never threw our money away, and invested it wisely.

‘… We wanted to divide our inheritance more fairly, not throw everything into one pot. There are so many people who need donations.’ 

She poignantly added: ‘Our lives have been characterised by discipline. Now we are approaching the end. We won’t live much longer. Therefore, we must also approach the end with discipline.’