Alice & Ellen Kessler: Germany’s Twin Icons Leave the Stage Together
The news came out of Bavaria with the kind of quiet heaviness that follows the end of an era: Alice and Ellen Kessler, Germany’s most legendary twins, died together at the age of 89 in their home in Grünwald, near Munich. According to early German reports, the police found no indication of foul play, and several media outlets — including Bild — suggest the two sisters may have opted for assisted death, which is legal in Germany under specific circumstances. Their passing, serene and intentional, closes a chapter written a paso doble, in perfect synchrony since the day they were born on 20 August 1936.
It’s difficult to overstate what the Kessler Twins represented for European entertainment. For Germany, they were a symbol of glamour emerging from the rubble of the post-war years. For Italy, they were “le gambe della nazione”, the legs that shook up prime-time respectability on RAI. And for Eurovision fans, they were part of the festival’s early mythology.
The sisters grew up in Saxony, in a childhood far from idyllic: illness, poverty and an abusive father marked their early years, and surviving it all welded them together more fiercely than any genetic bond could. At six they were already dancing; by eleven, part of Leipzig’s children’s ballet; and at fourteen, admitted into the prestigious dance school of the city’s opera house. Discipline wasn’t a choice. It was survival.
In 1952, they escaped East Germany using a visitor’s visa and reunited with their father in Düsseldorf. From there, everything they touched turned to sequins: first the Palladium cabaret, then a meteoric jump to Paris’s iconic Lido, where their elegance and synchronised precision caught the attention of photographers, producers and gossip columnists alike. Their film career blossomed across Germany, France and Italy, with musicals, revue numbers and comic roles that capitalised on their charm and the irresistible effect of seeing two perfectly mirrored performers.
But for the Eurovision community — yes, the same fandom currently arguing on Twitter about key changes and LED screens — the Kessler Twins will forever belong to 1959, when Germany internally selected them to represent the country in Cannes with “Heute Abend wollen wir tanzen geh’n”. Their performance was one of the first attempts at what we would now call “staging”: choreography, symmetry, a theatrical wink long before LED floors existed. The juries of the time, stiff as cathedral pews, rewarded them with a modest eighth place out of eleven. No matter. Their entry went on to achieve cult status, and they became the first duo in Eurovision history.
A few years later, they would shake Italian television with “Da-Da-Um-Pa”, the Studio Uno anthem that cemented their star status south of the Alps. It wasn’t just a song. It was a cultural event, the exact moment Italy realised prime time could also have legs.
Their lives were a long tour: Paris, Munich, Rome, New York, Hollywood offers they turned down (sorry, Elvis), magazine covers, Playboy records, jazz concerts in later years, and a nostalgia circuit where they remained adored without ever lapsing into caricature. They lived together, worked together, fought only occasionally and loved fiercely. They never married, partly because of the trauma of their childhood, partly because they simply didn’t want men messing with their bathrooms.
In 2024, they confirmed their final wish: a single urn, shared, resting next to their mother Elsa and their dog Yello. They prepared everything with the precision of a final choreography.
Yesterday, the curtain fell. Not with drama. With decision.
The Kessler Twins didn’t just belong to an era; they were the era.
Source: Bild
