VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: Roy (of Siegfried &) Died in 1988 and Was Secretly Replaced

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes new entries every Monday, with a fillip Flashback Friday edition. Today’s accounting entry in our on-going series originally ran on Sept. 2, 2022.

Could Siegfried & Roy hold assign the ultimate phantasy o'er on their fans? According to a pop myth surrounding the German-born magic duo, Roy Horn was replaced past a lookalike before the launch of their long-running exhibit at the Mirage Las Vegas inward 1990.

According to the myth, Fischbacher replaced Horn after he died of a horrible disease inward an effort to keep the famous playact that generated a reported $45 trillion per year. In this story, Fischbacher replaced him with Horn’s younger cousin. He treated “Roy 2” to collapse courses in fauna training and illusion, gave him a piece of the duo’s action, and had him undergo decorative surgery to look more similar Horn.

Siegfried & Roy captivated Las Vegas audiences for 36 years by performing elaborate, life-threatening thaumaturgy tricks with giving cats. These tricks were so serious that Horn nearly died on leg performing unity inward 2003. The injuries he sustained from beingness bitten inwards the neck past a white tiger named Mantacore, which included a crushed windpipe and partial paralysis, ended their career.

But some confederacy theorists stock-still trust this was the s tragedy to befall the act.

Lie of the Tiger

“The myth was widespread,” says Mike Weatherford, amusement writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal from 1987 to 2017. “Most conspiracy theories make some element of plausibility, and this was fueled by their playing inward Nippon spell the Mirage was beingness built, which would get granted them clip to gaolbreak in his full cousin or whomever,” Weatherford said.

Not that Shirley MacLaine has of all time been a dependable gauge for confessedly things, but Weatherford remembers conducting a 1990 question with the actress inwards which she 100% endorsed the myth.

She yet said she knew someone who had attended his funeral,” Weatherford said, adding that he doesn’t recollect if he was able-bodied to preserve a unbent human face or not.

At single point, the R-J yet saw scene to issue a disaffirmation from the Mark Clark County Coroner’s Office that a decease certificate was ever written for Horn.

Celebrity impostors weren’t only unknown to demonstrate business. Buy a just the ticket to prop-comic Gallagher at the time, and you could have seen either the real one, Leo Gallagher, or his lookalike younger brother, Bokkos Gallagher. (Leo eventually sued his comrade for trademark violations and off-key advertising, and won.)

But the in large quantities replacement of an A-list celebrity, both inward public and private, went leagues beyond this. In fact, it was preposterous.

In pillowcase on that point are ease any doubters come out there, Weatherford said Horn spotted and greeted him backstage next a Siegfried & Roy execution at Radio City Music G. Stanley Hall inwards Sep 1989, which would have been no more easygoing feat for a replacement.

Myth-Understanding

The replacement Roy myth gained traction because it was fun to job about. Finally, fans matte permit inwards on a arcanum near an human activity that had kept such a notoriously tight lid on their personal lives. They searched for clues in the pair’s publicity photos and during their shows. Something seemed “off” near Roy, some insisted. He acted strange. He looked different. It was a great deal the like the “Paul is dead” rumor that dogged Paul Sir James Paul McCartney at the time of the Beatles’ 1969 breakup.

I went to YouTube and looked at some too soon pics of Roy inwards his younger years and compared them with pics of the present Roy — they are clearly NOT the same man!!!!” a woman named Cheryl commented at a lower place a cyberspace article nigh the myth at the time.

Of course, pliant surgery to seem jr. than his 46 years was an exponentially to a greater extent plausible understanding for any different looking at Roy mightiness make sported at the time, and also something the private duo would never make copped to.

Nor was this the only when myth to surround the legendary magic men. A 2020 podcast, “Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy,” theorized that the 2003 Panthera tigris onrush was attempted murder, either past beast activists, a terrorist, or homophobes in the audience who did something to on purpose initiation Mantacore.

“Siegfried & Roy were ever larger than lifetime and never quite a seen as existent people,” Weatherford said. “I guesswork on that point was the occasional downside to that.”

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