An inseparable set of twins that rose to fame as dancers and singers in the ’50s recently has died the same way they rose to fame — together.
Alice and Ellen Kessler, German twin sisters whose talents made them popular throughout Europe, died by joint assisted suicide on Monday, according to the German Society for Humane Dying.
The Kessler twins died in Grünwald, a Munich suburb, at the age of 89.
“The decisive factor is likely to have been the desire to die together on a specific date,” DGHS spokesperson Wega Wetzel told CNN. “Their desire to die was well-considered, long-standing, and free from any psychiatric crisis.”
Assisted dying was legalized in Germany after a 2020 court ruling.
Ellen Kessler revealed to a German tabloid last year that the pair would be cremated to have their ashes in the same urn as their mother, Elsa, and dog, Yello.
“Our life has been characterized by discipline,” Ellen Kessler told the tabloid. “Now we are approaching the end. We won’t live much longer. So we must approach the end with discipline.”
The twins — who performed with major acts like Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte — were born in Nazi Germany in 1936. Their family fled from East Germany to West Germany in the early ‘50s and that’s where the pair began working in entertainment.
The Kessler sisters graced the cover of Life Magazine in 1963 after making their American television debut in the CBS variety show “The Red Skelton Hour.” They also appeared on CBS for the “Ed Sullivan Show.”
The duo moved to Italy in the 1960s where they went on to act in various films and feature in the Italian edition of Playboy Magazine.
They moved back to Germany in the 1980s, where they settled and never married.
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