TOGETHER FOREVER

Celebrity Twins Die on the Same Day Aged 89

The Kessler Twins shared the stage with Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire.

Famed twin sister entertainers Alice and Ellen Kessler died by joint assisted suicide at 89 on Monday at their home in Germany. A spokesperson for the German Society for Humane Dying (DGHS) told CNN that the Kessler Twins—as they were professionally known—had chosen “to die together on a specific date.” Last year, the duo told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that “the idea of one of us going first is very hard to bear.” “Their desire to die was well-considered, long-standing, and free from any psychiatric crisis,” DGHS spokesperson Wega Wetzel said. Medically-assisted dying, under certain circumstances, is legal in Germany as of 2020. Born in Nazi Germany in 1936, the Kessler Twins fled to West Germany at the age of 16, where they began their careers in professional entertainment. Throughout the 1960s, the duo toured worldwide—collaborating with the likes of Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra—and scored an especially passionate following in postwar Germany and Italy. During the height of their popularity, the twins appeared on American television programs like The Dean Martin Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.