AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySiegfried Fischbacher, Magician of Siegfried & Roy, Dies at 81Mr. Fischbacher’s death came months after that of Roy Horn, his partner in one of the most spectacular shows in Las Vegas history.The illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher in 2008. Together, he and Roy Horn captivated Las Vegas audiences for decades.Credit…Mark Sullivan/Getty Images for CineVegasRichard Sandomir and Jan. 14, 2021Updated 6:30 p.m. ETSiegfried Fischbacher, the German-born magician who was half of Siegfried & Roy, the team that captivated Las Vegas audiences with performances alongside big cats, elephants and other exotic animals, died on Wednesday night at his home in Las Vegas. He was 81.The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his publicist, Dave Kirvin. Mr. Fischbacher’s longtime partner in the production, Roy Horn, died of complications of Covid-19 in May at 75.For a time, the team’s name was all but synonymous with Las Vegas show business, with spectacular performances that combined smoke machines and white tigers, lasers and elephants, sequined costumes, snakes and illusions of metamorphosis.Their long-running production at MGM’s Mirage hotel and casino was one of the most lavish and successful in Las Vegas history.Mr. Fischbacher, left, and Roy Horn with Mantecore, the tiger that mauled Mr. Horn in 2003.Credit…Peter Bischoff, via Getty ImagesThe pair’s show ended in October 2003, after Mr. Horn was mauled by a 400-pound white tiger named Mantecore, which dragged him offstage before a stunned capacity crowd of 1,500 at the Mirage.The attack left Mr. Horn with lasting damage to his body. After he spent years recovering, the team made one final appearance, with Mantecore, at a benefit performance for the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas in February 2009. They retired from show business in 2010.Mr. Horn, left, and Mr. Fischbacher in New York in 1987 with the rare white tigers Neva, left, a female, and Vegas, a male.Credit…Scott Mckiernan/Associated PressMr. Fischbacher and Mr. Horn, who were domestic as well as professional partners, kept dozens of exotic cats and other animals in the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, a glass-enclosed, tropically forested habitat at the Mirage; at Jungle Paradise, an 88-acre estate outside town; and at Jungle Palace, their $10 million Spanish-style home in Las Vegas.“From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world,” Mr. Fischbacher said in a statement after Mr. Horn’s death. “There could be no Siegfried without Roy and no Roy without Siegfried.”The two performers amazed Las Vegas audiences over four decades with stage extravaganzas that blended Mr. Fischbacher’s mastery of illusion and Mr. Horn’s preternatural ability to train and communicate with white tigers, lions and other animals.In their lavish shows, an elephant would vanish, a white tiger would turn into a beautiful woman, a tiger would appear to levitate over the audience and Mr. Horn would become a snake.The success of Siegfried & Roy’s show paved the way for more spectacular ones in Las Vegas.“Cirque du Soleil came in, you know, and Steve Wynn started that concept of Cirque in Las Vegas,” Mr. Fischbacher told Las Vegas Weekly in 2013. “The same thing that we inspired, Cirque du Soleil, inspired him.”Mr. Fischbacher was born on June 13, 1939, in Rosenheim, Germany, to Martin and Maria Fischbacher. At age 8, he became fascinated with magic when he saw a book on the subject in the window of a local store. It cost only five marks, but his mother would not give him the money; he claimed to have a found a five-mark note on a street and bought the book.When he performed a trick in which a coin vanished in a glass of water, his father praised him. “For me, having been brought up in a strict Bavarian way, it was the first time my father ever acknowledged me,” he is quoted as saying in his online biography.He was inspired by a German magician named Kalanag, whose show, Mr. Fischbacher said, was “one of the most exciting events in my life.”He left home at 17, working first as a dishwasher and bartender at a small hotel in Lago di Garda, Italy, then as a steward on the Bremen, a German cruise liner. The captain of the Bremen saw him perform magic for the crew and suggested that he perform for the passengers.He met Mr. Horn on the Bremen in 1957. Mr. Horn was a cabin boy with a love of animals who had smuggled his pet cheetah, Chico, onto the ship. They struck up a friendship, and Mr. Fischbacher asked Mr. Horn to help out with his magic act.“I did the usual thing: rabbit out of the hat and birds and so on,” Mr. Fischbacher said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 2003, five days after Mr. Roy’s accident. “Afterwards, I said, ‘What do you think?’ And he said, ‘Can you do what you did with a rabbit with a cheetah?’”“I didn’t know he had a pet cheetah at the time,” he added, “and I said, ‘Anything is possible.’”In 1964, five years after they started working together, they were playing nightclubs in Germany and Switzerland. When they performed at a charity benefit in Monte Carlo in 1966, Princess Grace of Monaco raved about them, giving their career a boost.As their act became more extravagant with the addition of more illusions and animals, Siegfried & Roy were booked into nightclubs throughout Europe. They made their debut in Las Vegas at the Tropicana in 1967, then moved on to headliner status at the Stardust in 1978 and the Frontier, where the marquee billed them as “Superstars of Magic.”Steve Wynn, who built the Mirage, signed them to a five-year, $57.5 million contract in 1987, three years before the hotel and casino opened. The deal included building a theater to Siegfried & Roy’s specifications. Mr. Wynn quickly cashed in on his expensive bet when they began to sell out immediately. They grossed an estimated $30 million in 1990 (about $60 million in today’s dollars).They were “the single most successful entertainment attraction in Las Vegas history,” Mr. Wynn was quoted as saying on the ABC News program “Nightline” in 2019.“Thirty years, 48 weeks a year, capacity business,” he added.Their act ended abruptly on Oct. 3, 2003 with the mauling of Mr. Horn after 5,750 performances at the Mirage. During their performance, he stumbled onstage — both he and Mr. Fischbacher said he had probably had a stroke — leading Mantecore to grab him by the neck and drag him offstage, causing an extreme loss of blood.Mr. Horn believed the tiger, sensing he was ill, was trying to protect him. Immediately after, Mr. Horn is said to have asked that no harm come to Mantecore. (The tiger was unharmed, and died 11 years later.)Mr. Fischbacher is survived by his brother, Marinus, and his sister, Margot, a Franciscan nun who goes by Sister Dolore.Speaking to Larry King in 2003, Mr. Fischbacher talked about the connection that he and Mr. Horn had with their audience, some of whom came hundreds of times.“I’m OK,” he said. “I’m good. I love my audience. I love the audience like Roy loves the animals, and this combination together, it worked, you know.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
