Siegfried Fischbacher of ‘Siegfried & Roy’ dies in Las Vegas

BERLIN (AP)

The German news agency dpa reports that the illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher, the surviving member of the duo Siegfried & Roy, died in Las Vegas at the age of 81.

The news agency announced on Thursday that Fischbacher’s sister, a nun living in Munich, had confirmed his death from cancer.

“He was at home in Las Vegas,” said sister Dolore dpa. She said she spoke to her brother on the phone before he died and they prayed together.

“I could pray with him and tell him that I will always be with him in my heart,” she said.

After the call, he lay down and fell asleep, she added.

Fischbacher’s long-time show business partner, Roy Horn, died last year of complications from COVID-19 in a Las Vegas hospital. He was 75 years old.

The duo surprised millions with their extraordinary magic tricks until Horn was seriously injured by one of the act’s famous white tigers in 2003.

In a statement announcing Horn’s death in May, Fischbacher said, “From the moment we met, I knew that Roy and I would change the world together. Without Roy there could be no Siegfried, and without Siegfried there could be no Roy. “

He later told the German weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag that his best friend would always be by his side.

“I’ll still have the table set for him for dinner. as has always been the case. I’m not alone, ”dpa Fischbacher quoted to the newspaper.

Siegfried & Roy was an institution in Las Vegas for years, where Fischbacher and Horns magic and art were repeatedly sold out. The couple played six shows a week, 44 weeks a year.

Horn and Fischbacher, both from Germany, merged in 1957 and made their debut in Las Vegas a decade later. Siegfried & Roy appeared in the Mirage in 1990.

The pair gained international recognition for helping save rare white tigers and white lions from extinction. Dozens of rare animals have lived on their $ 10 million compound over the years. The white lions and white tigers were the result of a conservation program that began in the 1980s.

The Siegfried & Roy Show included animal antics and magic tricks with 20 white tigers and lions, the number varying depending on the night. The show also had other exotic animals, including an elephant.

Fischbacher was born on June 13, 1939 in Rosenheim, Bavaria, and learned his first magic tricks as a young boy, reported dpa.

Horn and Fischbacher met on a cruise ship in 1957. Fischbacher performed the magic tricks while Horn became his assistant and eventually suggested using the cheetah in the red.

In the mid-1960s they refined their animal magic show in small clubs in Germany and Switzerland. Her break came at a Monte Carlo casino when an agent in the audience invited her to Las Vegas. The couple made their debut at the Tropicana Hotel-Casino in the late 1960s.

The illusionists became popular in the 1970s and received their first star bill in 1978 as the headliner of Stardust’s “Lido de Paris”. Her show “Beyond Belief” opened on the Frontier in 1981 and played in front of thousands for over seven years.

By the time they signed a lifetime deal with the Mirage in 2001, they’d staged an estimated 5,000 shows at the casino to 10 million fans since 1990 and grossed more than $ 1 billion.

“In Las Vegas ‘history, no artist has contributed to the development of Las Vegas’ global reputation as the entertainment capital of the world than Siegfried and Roy,” said Terry Lanni, chairman of MGM Mirage, the parent company of the 2003 attack the horn was injured.