Due to corona virus: magician Roy Horn dies at 75

Tigers, tricks and tragedy: the magician Roy Horn died of Covid’s disease 19

His doctors called it “a miracle” that Roy Horn survived serious injuries after the attack by his white tiger Mantecore. The tamer and wizard, born in Nordenham, near Bremen, celebrated his 59th birthday at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas on October 3, 2003. A few hours later, the dark-haired wizard was seriously injured onstage at the show nightly “Siegfried & Roy”. After severe blood loss, strokes, and brain surgery, she never fully recovered. His former partner, Siegfried Fischbacher, who was born in Rosenheim, became a supervisor.

Now Covid-19 lung disease has cost him his life. Horn died in Las Vegas on Friday (local time) of a coronavirus infection, spokesman Dave Kirvin told the German Press Agency. He was 75 years old. “Today the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend,” Fischbacher (80) said in a message.

The tragic tiger accident had forced the award-winning “masters of the impossible” into early retirement; The tricks had excited millions of fans for decades. Roy Horn was paralyzed on one side after the accident.

The artist slowly learned to walk again, albeit slowly and leaning on a stick. In rare public appearances, he was also seen in a wheelchair. In May of last year, the duo visited Siegfried’s home in Munich and Lake Tegernsee. Horn did autologous blood stem cell therapy there. “We hope the therapy will allow him to move better again,” Fischbacher told the Bild newspaper at the time.

But outside of his Las Vegas foster home, Horn has seen less and less in recent years. Exceptions were the traditional barrel sweeping for the Oktoberfest at the Hofbräuhaus in the casino town or a visit to exotic big cats in the Mirage Casino “Secret Garden” compound, which has long since become an attraction tour.

Horn occasionally posted photos for his fans on Facebook of his “Little Bavaria” retirement home outside Las Vegas, a large property with numerous cats and other animals.

Uwe Ludwig Horn, born on October 3, 1944, discovered his love for exotic animals from the beginning. In the post-war years, he fled to a world of animal dreams. A cheetah named “Boy” at the Bremen Zoo became his best friend. After dropping out of school, he hired him as an administrator on a cruise ship, where he met Fischbacher.

Together, they played magic tricks and animals through smaller theaters until they made their international breakthrough in Monaco in the 1960s. They came to Las Vegas for the first time in 1967, since 1970 they were there for three years at Stardust. In 1988 they negotiated the largest deal in the history of the casino city with the Mirage Hotel. With an explosive mix of magical and exotic animals, including rare white tigers, the duo kept millions of fans on hold from 1989 to 2003.

Roy’s love for wildcats continued, even after Mantecore’s attack. He did not blame the white tiger, on the contrary. After the cat’s death in 2014, the trainer wrote on Facebook that his “dear 17-year-old white tiger, friend and brother” had died. “It was he who took me to safety after I got dizzy on stage due to low blood pressure. He pulled me out of there so emergency doctors could help me. Mantecore just wanted to come to his aid and take him away, he said in interviews.

With one last magic trick, the duo finally took their leave of business in March 2009. The magic show at a charity event at the Bellagio Hotel-Casino lasted just ten minutes.

With slow steps, Horn took the stage in a black cape and mask. The white-clad Fischbacher entered one of the two hanging empty glass cages. When Horn removed the towels, the Tiger Mantecore was in place in the container, Fischbacher was in the other cage. In the end, Siegfried and Roy took off their masks, greeted the audience, and kissed their hands. There were no big parting words. (sda / dpa)