SADLY, MAGIC ENDS
Tiger king Roy of Siegfried & Roy dies
Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn, half of the dazzling Las Vegas tiger-taming team Siegfried & Roy, has died from complications stemming from COVID-19. He was 75.
“Today, the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend,” Siegfried Fishbacher, Horn’s collaborator, said in a statement provided to Page Six.
“From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried.”
The German-born Horn met Siegfried on a cruise ship and bonded over Roy’s pet cheetah, Chico, which he had smuggled on board inside a laundry bag.
The duo’s act, which blended big-cat-taming with David Copperfieldesque spectacle, began in Vegas in 1967.
But it was their $30-million, 14-year-run at the city’s Mirage theater, beginning in 1989, that turned them into global stars at the height of the era’s glitzy excesses.
The duo, who were domestic as well as performance partners, had settled into a comfortable routine as part of the Vegas scenery when, in 2003, a 400pound, 7-year-old white tiger named Mantacore attacked Roy during their act, biting him in the neck and carrying him offstage.
The attack — which happened on his 59th birthday — critically injured Horn’s spine, causing partial paralysis to his left side and leaving him permanently affected.
The pair later insisted Mantacore sensed Roy was having a mini-stroke and was attempting to drag him to safety. (It was determined that Horn had, in fact, suffered a stroke at some point.)
However, former trainer Chris Lawrence suggested Horn had given the wrong command during the performance, creating a state of “confusion and rebellion” in the tiger. Mantacore died in 2014. Horn announced that he’d tested positive for the coronavirus in late April.
According to his partner’s statement, Horn is survived by “his brother Werner Horn, his animal family, and, of course, Siegfried.”