Alice and Ellen Kessler, 1936 – 2025

Identical twin singers, dancers, and actresses Alice and Ellen Kessler, 89, died by assisted suicide in Grünwald, Germany, on Nov. 17. Born in East Germany, the two were talented singers and dancers, fleeing to the West at 18 and appearing in clubs and revues all over Europe in the 1950s and ’60s (including a five-year run at Paris’s Lido). They also toured in the US, and appeared on the variety shows of Dean Martin, Danny Kaye, and Ed Sullivan. They acted—mostly as singers and dancers—in such (mostly German) films as The Beggar Student, Love and the French Woman, Erik the Conqueror, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Dead Woman from Beverly Hills. The two never married (though Ellen reportedly had a fling with Burt Lancaster); they retired in 1986 and lived in side-by-side apartments.

Alice and Ellen on the Ed Sullivan Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcbq62P48K4&list=RDlcbq62P48K4&start_radio=1