Alice and Ellen Kessler, the pop singing sisters who were famous in Europe in the 1960s, especially in Italy where they were credited for bringing glamour to the country’s TV network, have died aged 89.
The identical twins had chosen to have a joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald, close to Munich, on Monday, said Wega Wetzel, a spokesperson for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS), a Berlin-based assisted dying association.
In Germany, active euthanasia is banned but according to the constitution every person has the right to a self-determined death, a principle that encompasses the freedom to take one’s own life and use assistance provided voluntarily by third parties.
The sisters administered the life-ending drugs in the presence of a physician and lawyer, who then called the police. “The police come to check the situation and the circumstances, and if it’s all OK then it’s OK,” Wetzel said, adding that their decision had been made “over a long period of time and was well thought through. There were no mental health issues.”
In an interview last year with Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the sisters said their wish was “to leave together, on the same day … The idea that one of the two will go first is very difficult to bear”.
They told the German newspaper Bild that they wanted their ashes to be placed into the same urn one day and for it to be buried alongside their mother and dog, Yello.
Born in 1936 in Nerchau, the sisters began as child ballet dancers with the Leipzig Opera, with their singing and dancing career taking off from the age of 16 after their family fled East Germany for Düsseldorf. They represented West Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959, finishing in eighth place.
They performed at The Lido in Paris in the late 1950s, where they met Elvis Presley in 1959, and Don Lurio, a US-born Italian choreographer who brought them to Italy in 1961.
In Italy, where they were called “the legs of the nation” by a male-dominated press, their career thrived. They made their debut in the country on Rai’s hugely popular musical variety shows Giardino d’inverno and Studio Uno.
The sisters became icons of talent, elegance and female independence, whose success in Italy came during an era of rigid conservative morals. But with their popularity came controversy, with the women’s bare legs breaching Rai’s strict dress-code rules. They were made to wear thick black stockings during their performances.
The Kesslers said in the interview with Corriere: “We were scantily clad on TV, but we think we were always elegant, never vulgar. There were criticisms, but that was a plus for us.”
During their later career in Italy, they performed in films and in theatre productions.
The sisters also enjoyed success in the US, where they performed with artists including Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire. They lived together in the Trastevere neighbourhood of Rome until 1986, when they moved back to Germany and settled in Grünwald.
They both had romances – Ellen was with the Italian actor Umberto Orsini for 20 years, while Alice had relationships with the French actor Marcel Amont and Italian actor Enrico Maria Salerno. But they made a pact to never get married. In several interviews, they said this decision was influenced by their mother’s unhappy marriage due to domestic violence.
They told Corriere that their work gave them a clear sense of independence. “We had a clear idea right from the start, ever since we were girls: we had to be independent. We didn’t want to depend on a man in any way.
“We were feminists, but without thinking about it: from the age of 15, we started earning our own living. We’ve always been independent. Perhaps, in the end, we became a little dependent on each other.”
