“We earned very well and never threw our money out the window.”
Show dancers, actresses and musicians: Alice and Ellen Kessler have had a long career that not only took them to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959, but also to “Playboy” in 1975. They met all the greats of their time, whether Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Harry Belafonte oder John Wayne. They appeared in numerous films and recorded several records.
Their life began rather unspectacularly in tranquil Nerchau near Grimma in Saxony until they fled the GDR west to Düsseldorf in 1952. There they received their first engagement as dancers in the revue theater “Palladium”. The twins learned ballet when they were just six years old and later went to school Children’s Ballet of the Leipzig Opera and passed the entrance exam for the local opera dance school in 1950. The foundation of her career was thus laid.
Today is Alice and Ellen 87 years old and look back on their turbulent life – and on a not insignificant fortune, because: “We earned very well, never wasted our money and invested it well”revealed Ellen Kessler in an interview with BILD.
The two of them had already written their will some time ago, but have now revised it again. Because it became clear to the sisters: “We want to divide our inheritance a little more fairly, not throw everything into one pot,” they explain.
Your assets for a good cause: “There are so many who need donations”
Alice and Ellen Kessler were throughout their long lives never married, have no children. They have been living in a shared house near Munich since 1986 and are committed to charitable causes. It’s actually not surprising that they also want to do good with their inheritance.
So the two of them decided to use their assets to support several aid organizations. “My sister and I discussed last fall that not just one person should have something, but several people.” Originally the money was intended solely for the aid organization “Doctors Without Borders” benefit.
But now it will be divided up and will also go to the Christoffel Blindenmission, the children’s aid organization Unicef, the Paul Klinger Artists’ Social Organization and the German Foundation for Patient Protection.
And they recorded something else in their will: They want to be buried in the urn of their mother Elsa and their poodle Yello: “United in death. That’s how we would like it. And that’s how we decreed it in our will,” confirms Ellen Kessler.