TV Italian Style
The ‘TV Italian Style’ podcast is an A-Z of the golden age of Italian television of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s from the perspective of the ever popular varietà and the famous faces who would host and guest star on these shows. It’s a bilingual podcast, in English and Italian, with conversations with experts on Italian TV and culture alongside clips from all the best shows and performances. Visit the accompanying website https://tvitalianstyle.wordpress.com/ to download translated transcriptions for each episode to support your listening.
TV Italian Style
K: Kessler twins, ‘two pairs of legs with one head’
In January 1961, the cover of television and radio listings Radiocorriere featured two stars who would during the decade become important figures for variety television in Italy, coming to represent the golden age of television from the 1960s. The cover is described thus:
In Francia le chiamano ormai, semplicemente, le "gemelle di Parigi". Sono Alice ed Ellen Kessler, giovani ma già notissime “vedettes” del Lido. Figlie di un ingegnere di Lipsia, iniziarono fin da bambine lo studio della danza classica e moderna. Dopo la guerra, la famiglia si trasferì nella Germania Occidentale, a Düsseldorf: e qui le due gemelle, appena quindicenni, debuttarono al Palladium, uno dei più grandi music-halls tedeschi. Nel 1954, l’inizio della loro fortuna: scritturate al Lido, ne divennero ben presto la più applaudita attrazione. Ora, i telespettatori italiani possono apprezzare ogni sabato sera, in “Giardino d’inverno”, le loro doti di cantani, ballerine e fantasiste.
(Radiocorriere, 38:4, 22-28 January 1961, p.2)
Join me, Rachel Haworth, and Nicolò Salmaso as we explore exactly what it is that makes the Kessler twins so important and why it is that Alice and Ellen Kessler have become symbols of the varietà. And remember: we're talking about two stars here, so the episode is a little longer than usual!
Thank you to Nicolò for returning to the podcast and apologies for some of the sound quality - the challenges of recording online!