--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Hey there, it's Duarte Giraldino. Today, we're dropping the first episode of a new show called Wild Things. It's from Apple, and it's all about 80s cultural icons and magicians Siegfried and Roy. If you like what you hear, be sure to search for the show in the Podcasts app. We hope you enjoy.
--:-- Host: It was just another night. That's all it was. I think we had to be there at 7 and this show started at 7.30 I'm in the male dressing room which is a mix of dancers and acrobats but we're wearing these body suits that make us look like we're super muscular and took like 10 minutes to squeeze into them every day I was still getting used to the fact that I was dancing alongside giant wild animals I was on the electric crew
--:-- Host: You're just assuming everything's going to go exactly the same as it does every night. We'd have to be backstage, you know, 10 minutes before the show started. And so we all had our own little areas to stretch. And Roy would come in and say, hello, hello, my loves. It kind of had a rallying kind of effect. Everything was normal, man. I mean, the show went on time. But these are live shows. if we screw up, the audience is going to see it.
--:-- Host: On October 3rd, 2003, Siegfried and Roy, one of the world's most successful magic acts, step out on stage before a sold-out crowd of 1,500 people at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Ladies and gentlemen, the superstars of magic, Siegfried and Roy! It's an elaborate production, on stage and off. There's like hundreds of people, multiple dance numbers, costume changes.
--:-- Host: Myself and there's one other guy grab the curtains on the side of this box and this, you know, massive cat jumps out of the box and runs loose across the stage. And then I lift the lid on this box and out jumps Roy and the curtain drops right in front of me. And now Roy is in front of the curtain. And at that point, one of the trainers brings Monochore out to Roy.
--:-- Host: Halfway through the show, this famously flashy production pauses for a quiet routine spotlighting Roy and one of his favorite tigers. This is Monochore, and tonight is his first appearance at Farmer of the Night. By this night in 2003, Siegfried and Roy have been performing alongside exotic animals for 44 years. During the last decade, they've been in this very theater where thousands of performances of this exact show have always followed the script.
--:-- Host: Roy had a monologue, and I had this ritual. As we walked backstage, we would mimic it every day, reciting his monologue along with him. But that night, there was a long pause. The audio still plays in the dressing rooms, so we could hear what was happening in the show. And there was a pause. And we didn't know what was happening, but we kind of just, like, dismissed it at first.
--:-- Host: You're backstage. It's black. But whatever was going on was clearly not supposed to be occurring. And then they cut the audio to our dressing rooms. And at that point, we heard one of the stagehands yell, Cat loose. I can't see what's going on. I just happened to hear on a headset, he's got Roy.
--:-- Host: And that was, for us, was absolutely terrifying. Somebody came in and told us that they were locking us in the dressing room. One of us even said, everybody get your shoes on in case we have to run. And then I remember thinking, like, there's no way I'm running from a cat. And that's when I decided to run down stage.
--:-- Host: And by the time I got down there, that's when I saw Monochore dragging Roy across the stage. I think at that point it was shocked, just shocked, terrified, but puzzled. How could this even be possible, especially with Monochore? These are big, big animals.
--:-- Host: The sane thing to do that night was to run. There was so much, so much blood. I'm thinking to myself, he's gone. He's not going to make it, man. This was hell. This was fucking hell on earth.
--:-- Host: Ladies and gentlemen, the superstars of magic. The mystifying. The most outstanding act in show business. Siegfried and Roy. Siegfried and Roy. Siegfried and Roy. It was the show of the century. It was really the great American dream story. The highest paid entertainers in Las Vegas history.
--:-- Host: The wild animal is always a wild animal. Of course, there's always the danger. Don't ever forget that. You take your eyes off the ball for a second, and somebody's life is ruined. This is Wild Things. Siegfried and Roy. It's a lot bigger than I thought.
--:-- Host: Do you want me to take one of both of you? I'm just going to take it from here because of the sun. Take a look and let me know. Yeah, thank you.
--:-- Host: So why are you doing this? So I'm making a podcast about those guys, the statue back there. Okay. Do you know who that is?
--:-- Host: I could not tell you for one second. I'm Stephen Leckart. I've been a journalist for 20 years, and today I'm standing on Las Vegas Boulevard, right outside the Mirage Hotel, looking up at a nearly 20-foot bronze statue. The massive monument depicts a majestic tiger, sandwiched between two men with mullet hairstyles.
--:-- Host: Siegfried and Roy, the iconic German magicians and entertainers, have always captivated me. For nearly half a century, they performed 30,000 shows for 50 million people, generating well over $1 billion in ticket sales. Siegfried and Roy's show was so extravagant that the Guinness Book of World Records crowned them the world's most expensive magic act.
--:-- Host: But despite just how mega-famous they are, people never really knew, and still to this day, don't actually know who they truly are. Aren't they brothers? Are they brothers? No.
--:-- Host: They get attacked by their tiger. Yeah, I've been hearing comedians talk about that. I think one got a tag and got facial surgery and shit. A decade after the tiger attack, I was sent by a magazine to Hollywood's Magic Castle, a private club where magicians from all over the world go to train, learn, and drink late-night cocktails.
--:-- Host: Whenever Siegfried and Roy came up in conversation, I was surprised by the vitriol. Listening to some of their peers lambast them as old and washed up, I couldn't help but wonder how Siegfried and Roy would respond.
--:-- Host: For two guys who have been lauded and adored by millions of fans, they've also been lampooned by the media for their eccentricities and denounced by animal rights activists who protested their private collection of pet tigers.
--:-- Host: No animals should be used for entertainment. I think the animal rights have their rights, but I also think that Siegfried and Roy did so many great things with animals. So just the bond that they had with animals. Those white tigers are like their babies.
--:-- Host: You know, when one of them got attacked by the tiger, he was screaming, Please, please don't harm him. What the fuck do you expect when you whip a tiger around on a stage for 50 years?
--:-- Host: I've always wondered what really happened on stage that night in October 2003. But the more I've read about this famous duo, the more I've discovered that unpredictable and wild things have always surrounded them.
--:-- Host: Which is why it's so tough to figure out what is fact versus fiction. So my team and I are chatting with the people who know them best, but haven't always spoken freely.
--:-- Host: Folks like Annette Tappert saw what really went on behind the curtain. I'm embarrassed to say that I was probably one of the few people who had never heard of Siegfried and Roy, nor had ever seen the Saturday Night Live parodies on them.
--:-- Host: Everyone looks magical. Tonight is called Night of a Thousand Tigers. because that is our fantasy.
--:-- Host: I find it striking to hear Annette admit that, because she would soon become one of the premier experts on Siegfried and Roy. Their biography was commissioned by the publisher William Morrow, and William Morrow needed a writer to be a collaborator.
--:-- Host: And I remember very vividly flying out there in the fall of 1990, oh my God, that was 30 years ago, to meet them and, you know, just to say, here, I'm a possible writer. I was quite young. I was still in my 30s.
--:-- Host: And for me, it was a very lucrative project. But beyond that, what intrigued me was the fact that it was so exotic. Unlike anything I'd ever heard of, this was outside the box.
--:-- Host: Annette wants this job, but she still needs to win them over. After arriving in Vegas, she is whisked away to meet them face to face. The first time I met Siegfried and Roy was at the Mirage. They had this fantastic apartment suite.
--:-- Host: It had fabulous plush sofas and a bar and a kitchen, and it had glass areas. And you could see these fantastic cats At that time the cats they would be transported back and forth to their house the Jungle Palace every day
--:-- Host: They had pictures of celebrities all over the walls It was almost like an audition to see if they liked the cut of my jib. I remember it vividly, actually, because Siegfried had very piercing eyes.
--:-- Host: And, you know, he's sort of the armchair psychiatrist. Siegfried kept looking at me and saying, are you of German descent? I see, I think there's a little German in you. That is your background.
--:-- Host: And I said, well, actually, my father was half Danish, half German. Ah, I knew. I can tell by the eyes. Then we all decided we liked one another.
--:-- Host: And I started going out there, I guess, in January of 91. For nearly two years, Annette travels back and forth from New York to Las Vegas to work with Siegfried and Roy on their autobiography.
--:-- Host: I've never been treated so well during a celebrity collaboration. I had a beautiful room at the Mirage. It was always filled with either balloons, fruit baskets, perfume from Cartier, jewelry.
--:-- Host: I probably saw the show 50 times, but I never got tired of the show. I never felt bored with it. They didn't just come out and, you know, wave a little wand and the tigers would appear and all of that.
--:-- Host: They were running around on the stage. They were dancing. They were singing. And the athleticism was extraordinary, and particularly from Roy's perspective. Your stage is your life and your life is the stage.
--:-- Host: So reality and your fantasy, it overcomes one. She begins spending countless hours with Siegfried and Roy. Many of their interviews are conducted inside the duo's palatial estate, which is suitably called the Jungle Palace.
--:-- Host: Perhaps the ultimate Las Vegas mansion is the Jungle Palace, the $10 million estate where master illusionist Siegfried and Roy live. The Jungle Palace from the outside looks like a Moorish villa.
--:-- Host: It looks like something you might see in the Mediterranean and, you know, down in Spain, all white stucco, almost lunar looking. Then when you walk inside, the house was decorated rather lavishly.
--:-- Host: You know, terracotta floors and oriental rugs. And I wouldn't say it was beautiful taste, but it wasn't the worst taste I've ever seen either. You know, it was their taste and they loved it.
--:-- Host: The decor is anything but modest. Ornate gold mirrors, thick velvet curtains, and Christian Dior china complete with a tiger pattern. The whole house had a touch of the exotic.
--:-- Host: You know, they had traveled through Asia, and so there were lots of statues of Buddha and Hindu gods and goddesses and little shrines in the alcoves that paid homage to something or other.
--:-- Host: Roy designs part of the property to resemble the snow-covered Himalayas. It's the far-flung region that, according to him, is the white tiger's natural habitat.
--:-- Host: It is the home of the snow-white tigers. It is the home of emotions. It is the home of ideas. Where everything is born, it is our heaven. This is really our sanctuary.
--:-- Host: So not many people are here. We live with our partners in crime, the animals together, right? We share everything. We live together. We're having fun.
--:-- Host: And what do you do about the hot weather when it comes? It doesn't bother the animals? We go into the swimming pool. Roy swims with the animals and they cool up. It's the only way to beat the Las Vegas heat.
--:-- Host: Spending so much time at the Jungle Palace, Annette gets first-hand experience with the animals. Once, I remember it was like January, and they just had this snow leopard that they were training.
--:-- Host: Well, I don't like to use the word training, because that's a word that Roy never used either, that they were working with who would eventually go into the show. And I remember standing outside, I was sort of cold and I was shivering,
--:-- Host: And he said, oh, go over to Anetian, go over to Anetian. And this baby was only like a couple of months. And that baby snow leopard started crawling around near my ankle.
--:-- Host: And I will tell you, I could feel just the little, the paw kind of grabbed me a little bit. And the strength of a baby snow leopard shocked the daylights out of me.
--:-- Host: And I have to tell you, I was a little nervous. Roy, while I never, ever asked him, are you ever scared they're going to attack you? I'm pretty sure the answer would have been no.
--:-- Host: Because Roy really had this respect. He understood how to work with these animals. And his work with them was so innate. I mean, it's extraordinary.
--:-- Host: What always struck me is there this kind of sense of a childlike wonder about both of them. And they really, Siegfried and Roy, really viewed their own life as a magical journey in the same way that they're doing magic on the stage.
--:-- Host: They created a magical life for themselves, performing magic, as it were. Siegfried and Roy tell Annette about 1957, the year when they first meet as teenagers in a very unexpected place.
--:-- Host: With a roar of freedom from a mighty voice, the giant liner stirs into life. Roy left home at 13 to be a bellboy on the Bremen, the S.S. Bremen, a luxurious German ocean liner.
--:-- Host: My idea was not to become a magician. My idea was just to basically run away from home. Roy escapes a turbulent home life with an abusive stepfather.
--:-- Host: Growing up with a violent, domineering patriarch is something he has in common with Siegfried. And Siegfried, who was four years older, he had a job maybe as a steward or doing things in the day.
--:-- Host: But at night he had gotten this little gig to perform things with, you know, pulling rabbits out of hats and that sort of thing. After dinner, the varied program of evening fun gets underway.
--:-- Host: Siegfried's act on the Bremen, the ship named after the city in Germany, is so popular that he is asked to expand to two shows a night, one for first class and another for tourist class.
--:-- Host: But Roy doesn't understand the hype. Roy didn't think very much of Siegfried's act. He thought, ah, you know, he's a few rabbits here and there. What's the big deal?
--:-- Host: And I guess they met. And Siegfried said, well, what did you think of my act? And Roy said, it was OK. You know, I wasn't that impressed.
--:-- Host: Do you think you could make a cheetah disappear? Back in Germany, Roy gets special access to the Bremen Zoo through family friends who sit on the board.
--:-- Host: Visiting the zoo frequently, Roy bonds with a cheetah named Chico. Eventually, Roy arranges to take the cat with him on his journey.
--:-- Host: And of course, you know, Siegfried thought this young kid was out of his mind. And then Roy took him downstairs down below decks and showed Siegfried that he had smuggled this cheetah on board.
--:-- Host: So, you know, Siegfried was, I mean, can you imagine? So Siegfried began building an apparatus to figure out how to make the cheetah disappear.
--:-- Host: And then Roy became his sort of assistant in the magic act. And you can imagine the first time they did it, all these passengers show up for the nightly entertainment.
--:-- Host: Instead of some rabbits, a cheetah comes out of the box. And they almost got fired. But then the captain realized that the guests were so entranced and charmed by this, and it was a big hit.
--:-- Host: He let them stay. And that's how they started. Soon, the duo spend hours in one of their cabins, creating illusions together.
--:-- Host: As they later tell Annette, Siegfried would come up with an idea, and Roy would add another surprising element. This magical dynamic will endure for decades.
--:-- Host: We promised you to perform the impossible. Roy, you're ready? Ready, go! How did you meet Siegfried and Roy? They were aware of me and what I did.
--:-- Host: And I saw the show and then went backstage and met them. And they used to hold court backstage. Jim Steinmeier is a historian of magic and a designer of illusions for famous performers like David Copperfield and Doug Henning.
--:-- Host: He begins consulting for Siegfried and Roy in the 1980s. So, and they've had a great show and you're back there. What is the conversation about?
--:-- Host: You know, if I was there, they might be talking about something new that they were planning or something new they were thinking about. They might quiz me a little about ideas for something that they're working on.
--:-- Host: They might ask about other performers who are working. What is that person doing? How does the audience react to it, et cetera? And Roy would laugh and say something dismissive and say, oh, now I know you magicians. You want to talk about magic.
--:-- Host: I've always said that one of the most unique things is to listen to two magicians talk at a restaurant about how they're going to cut a person up into different pieces. And if somebody's just listening in on it, it would be the most morbid, strange conversation to listen to.
--:-- Host: Rick Thomas is an illusionist who starts performing with tigers on the island of Guam. In 1997, he graduates to the Tropicana, just down the street from Siegfried and Roy's show.
--:-- Host: I'm telling you, I came into Vegas scared to death that I was going to be beat up by Siegfried and Roy The moment that I saw him I can guarantee you the first words literally out of my mouth is I apologize Just know that I have tigers in my show but I not trying to compete with you.
--:-- Host: What was your take on them as magicians, their show, and how did it influence you or not? Here I am in Guam and I had been trying to pursue to be in Vegas, but I knew I wasn't good enough yet.
--:-- Host: I just could feel it. I went and saw Zieg Frieden Roy's show at that time, sat there by myself. I said, I cannot believe that they're doing this. Even by the early 80s, there were acts that were being influenced by Siegfried and Roy.
--:-- Host: The formula they put together instantly blazed a new trail on Las Vegas. Siegfried and Roy are the kings. But I will tell you, though, that magicians in the early 1900s had used animals in their shows.
--:-- Host: Often, it was part of the genre. Late 1800s, early 1900s, there's an appreciation of magic being bigger. You know, Houdini made an elephant disappear, they hit the drum in 1918.
--:-- Host: But, you know, a lot of the taste for those illusions, the use of exotic animals in magic, it had gone away. And it was something that magicians had a knowledge of, had a history of, but it wasn't something that was available in the 1960s.
--:-- Host: It wasn't something that magicians were doing. As the scale of Magic shrank, so did opportunities to perform. You know, in the 50s and 60s, Magic was sort of at a low point.
--:-- Host: You know, those cruise ship bookings, those were not especially prestigious shows. But, you know, that was something that you did because that was a nice, solid job.
--:-- Host: But Siegfried and Roy were instantly tempted by the next level. And I don't think it was about money. I don't think it was about, you know, fame necessarily.
--:-- Host: They wanted to sell more trinkets. They were genuinely, genuinely challenged by what they did. And then the 70s, you had all of a sudden magicians showing up with Grand Illusions again.
--:-- Host: You had the David Copperfields, magicians that all of a sudden started doing big magic again. You started to see magicians back on television. It's all about Las Vegas.
--:-- Host: You know, I think Siegfried and Roy were always the great Las Vegas magicians. And they were never intimidated at a large stage. When Siegfried and Roy hire Jim as a consultant, he helps them engineer some of their more technical illusions.
--:-- Host: With the Sarmadi Box Act, dancers Roy and even tigers appear and disappear inside a small cube. Siegfried actually saw an early version of this for a performer in Europe.
--:-- Host: And Siegfried loved the illusion. He wanted to push it further. And so he worked on different ideas for it. And Siegfried wanted me to solve the magic part.
--:-- Host: And when we came close and started to give them what they wanted, they very quietly kind of took it on themselves and kept working with it. And then it became theirs.
--:-- Host: They had the whole thing rebuilt up in Las Vegas after experiments and experiments and experiments. I mean, I saw it performed and it was amazing, but they certainly mystified me with elements of it.
--:-- Host: Maybe we saw him an illusion, which we did years ago. What do you think of it? Good idea. I love it. Because finally, this audience is going to see what I have to go through to make him look good. Thank you very much.
--:-- Host: They were constantly challenged and driven to achieve the next show, to achieve the next illusion, to achieve the next production. And I think that manifested itself with a kind of happy, challenging attitude with Roy, who always seemed to rise to the occasion.
--:-- Host: And I think it manifested itself with a kind of dark worry with Siegfried, who tended to worry about, you know, had the show become so big that he had lost an opportunity to now reach those people.
--:-- Host: Because all of that is a danger for a performer. Roy by himself would be too much, and I by myself, maybe not enough. His dreams are very big, and I have to take him down, and he lifts me up.
--:-- Host: But once we agree on something, we know we can depend on each other. What they did with those animals and how they were utilized in the production, in my humbled opinion still to this day, is phenomenal.
--:-- Host: Roy was the true performer with the animals. Siegfried was always there with Roy performing with the animals, but Roy definitely was the one who loved these animals.
--:-- Host: There we go, yeah, and I love you too. Give me a nice smile. Give me a nice smile. That's what it was all about. That's why people went to see the performance, because Siegfried and Roy were not only illusionists, but they had the ability to tame the wild beast, or at least they appeared to be able to do so.
--:-- Host: I'm part of them and they're part of me, but of course there's always the danger. I mean, a wild animal is always a wild animal. Don't ever forget that. You can hear a tiger roar a mile away.
--:-- Host: So when a tiger roars and you're standing one foot away from them, it vibrates your entire soul. It is life-shattering. These are exotic wild animals, and Siegfried and Roy were exceptional illusionists at hiding the dangers that they faced with those tigers.
--:-- Host: We have a saying that they're trained but never tamed. They're going to push your buttons. They're going to test you and see how far they can go. That's what they do because they are dominant in nature.
--:-- Host: I had a little incident once with my Siberian tiger, Sarah. And we was playing in the grass. She jumped me and I fell down and she pinned me down to the ground.
--:-- Host: So what can you do when a 600-pound tiger lays on you and saw a bit in the nose? So she jumped up, she was in shock, and she never tried anything else.
--:-- Host: But that's what I mean when you talk about instinct. I know that there were a couple other times in their profession where Siegfried was hurt. All of a sudden, one day, Siegfried and Roy took a vacation. And I mean, it's just, it's hush-hush, right?
--:-- Host: And I'm down at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, walking around, and Siegfried and Roy show up. And Siegfried has his arm in a sling. And I walk up to Roy and I saying, is this why you're on vacation?
--:-- Host: And he says, yeah, Siegfried was hurt. In 1996, Diane Sawyer actually confronts Siegfried and Roy about this incident. You had a chunk of your arm taken out by a lion, right? 33 stitches?
--:-- Host: Well, we had at this time an illusion, but Roy changed into a lion. and I opened up the cage and to make it look very ferocious, so I had a little wrestling with the lion.
--:-- Host: I just got to carry it away. Anybody who has worked with these animals, if they are to tell you that they've never been hurt in some way or form, I can tell you in all honesty, they're lying to you.
--:-- Host: So where were you the evening in October 3rd, 2003, and how did you find out about what happened at Sigfried and Roy's show? I was at my theater that night.
--:-- Host: I had been cleaning up, and I heard other performers that night saying backstage, oh my goodness, something's happened to Roy. They're at the hospital.
--:-- Host: That's all I needed to hear. I knew something happened with a tiger. And I remember when we first met, his words saying, be careful. Be careful.
--:-- Host: And there was like that little wink in the eye that he and I both knew what he was talking about and to take it seriously. The night of the attack, I was actually taking in a performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in a little strip mall, a little community theater.
--:-- Host: I defiled this thing from a Vegas show. In 2003, Steve Freese is a freelance journalist based in Las Vegas. When we walked out of the performance, everybody turned their cell phones on.
--:-- Host: It was just sort of surreal. I happened to be standing with people who run the local ambulance company, and they said they're sending all these ambulances to the strip.
--:-- Host: There's been an incident at the Siegfried and Roy show. We didn't know how serious the attack was. I just knew it was a thing I needed to be there for.
--:-- Host: Steve hadn't planned on working that night. He doesn't have a tape recorder or even a notebook, but he jumps in his car and heads to the Mirage. We were like 20 miles northwest of the Strip and it was good to know the city at that point.
--:-- Host: That there was this back road that ran along the Strip. And so I drove up near the hotel and there was a lot of police, there was a lot of commotion.
--:-- Host: And I was there interviewing people from the audience. And you know, you started to see like, you know, certain people who were being bunched around by reporters so you knew those were the people who knew something.
--:-- Host: And in my interviews, they all thought the same thing. Roy started to bang his microphone on the top of the head of the tiger making a loud noise come from over the PA system And then the tiger bit his neck shoulder area and dragged him off stage
--:-- Host: And then everything kind of moved off stage and out of view. I mean, there was information coming in, but it was sort of obvious that I needed to move on to the hospital. Hundreds showed up for a candlelight vigil outside the hospital where Horn has been since the white tiger attacked without warning, grabbing his neck.
--:-- Host: We were all in the parking lot. And, I mean, a lot of people crying. We just kind of held each other. Brad Barnes, a former dancer in Siegfried and Roy's show, learns about the attack and heads right to the hospital.
--:-- Host: You see how Mr. Roy was with the cats. You just couldn't believe that that would even be real. There was a stillness and just a sadness, a hopefulness, but it didn't sound good.
--:-- Host: After hearing the news, Rick Thomas also rushes to the hospital. there were already a congregation of people outside the hospital looking up at probably I think it's the third floor of the emergency room and you could see Siegfried at the window and at some given point he stood at the window and waved down to everybody and communicated with them we love you thank you so much for your support of Roy
--:-- Host: The spokesperson for MGM Mirage was there, Alan Feldman. He seemed very upset by this. He seemed shaken by it. It wasn't an act. He knew these guys. He knew Sabrina Roy. It was visibly distressing to him.
--:-- Host: You know what? I'm only human. It would have been remarkable if I had not been emotional. That's Alan Feldman, spokesperson for the Mirage. You know, his injuries were incredibly severe. and no one knew how it was going to resolve for a few days.
--:-- Host: I think it's important to remember that at that moment, no one knew what happened. And so this is just sort of part of the PR handbook. When investigations are coming, you don't start talking about any of this, especially if no one knows.
--:-- Host: What are you seeing outside of the hospital and how much of a circus is it? Satellite trucks across the street, half a dozen at least. There's a parking lot directly across the street that was filled with just groups of people.
--:-- Host: Some of them show people, dancers, techies in various groups, huddled together, crying, praying. Some just standing kind of lost, not knowing what to do. Perhaps you can see the folks that have gathered here, they all want to know his latest condition.
--:-- Host: We knew there was blood loss. We knew that there was a loss of consciousness. We knew that it was life-threatening. I think that's about what we got that night.
--:-- Host: As the hours pass, Roy's condition sounds bleak. It seemed like a very horrible event. And that night, that was essentially how it was presented.
--:-- Host: I mean, it didn't occur to me that anybody was going to lie about anything. It didn't dawn on me that there was going to be a stem. The morning after the attack, the duo's manager, Bernie Heumann, makes his first public statement.
--:-- Host: Roy is an incredibly charismatic entertainer. And I've been the manager of Six Feet Noir for 28 years, and he's had an enormous effect on my life.
--:-- Host: And I think actually that he's had an enormous effect on most of the people that have witnessed him on stage. I would say that most of us are traumatized.
--:-- Host: I think it's had a tragic effect on all of us emotionally anyway. Bernie declined to be interviewed for this podcast, but I've spoken with him on the phone a number of times.
--:-- Host: He's both a character and a PR master, which shows in this conversation with Lester Holt. Is it clear what went wrong? I'm not really focused on that at this time.
--:-- Host: Roy has had a rapport with exotic animals for 44 years, and at the end of the day, I'm really focused on his recovery and his medical condition.
--:-- Host: That morning, millions of people, and even me, are watching the Today Show, hoping to hear anything more about Roy's condition, but still nothing. As Roy lies in a hospital bed, police are on the scene at the Mirage.
--:-- Host: We went into that investigation not even knowing what we were looking for. Generally, there's a gunshot, there's a stab wound, there's blood, there's the typical physical evidence that we're looking for.
--:-- Host: And in this case, we didn't even know where to begin. Randy McLaughlin is overseeing crime scene investigations for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
--:-- Host: My lieutenant called me into the office to discuss how we were going to handle this because we wanted to make sure, for one, we had our top people on it, and for two, that we kept it as low-key as possible.
--:-- Host: We'd have to have security meet us and take us to where the crime scene was. Just because the hotels are small cities within themselves, you know, you could get lost in there.
--:-- Host: Was there chaos ensuing or was there anything abnormal to you? You know, we were there very early on, and we dressed in street clothes.
--:-- Host: We tried to minimize the equipment we took in. I didn't want people panicking like the police are here. So what did you see when you arrived at the showroom?
--:-- Host: When we first entered the showroom, it looked like any other showroom that had just had a show. There was drinks on the table. The tables were clearly had been occupied recently.
--:-- Host: The only other thing that was out of the ordinary was there was some blood on the stage. We always assume that there's a possibility of a crime.
--:-- Host: Considering who the victim was, you have to make sure that we get it right. Because obviously the news was on this. Something went terribly wrong.
--:-- Host: Roy was mauled and dragged off stage where it took four men and a fire extinguisher to pull the tiger off of him. The police wonder if the tiger may have been provoked by someone in the audience.
--:-- Host: Someone with a vendetta against Siegfried and Roy. There was some discussion about, you know, could animal rights activists been involved in some kind of crime?
--:-- Host: Or we were looking at some kind of crime perpetrated by somebody in the crowd, somebody in the staff. We discussed the possibility of being trace evidence.
--:-- Host: I'm sure you've seen the CSI television show where they turn off the lights and turn on a black light and certain substances show up differently under different wavelengths of light.
--:-- Host: So we grabbed an alternate light source to take out there with us. We were just looking for anything that could have prompted this tiger to do what he did.
--:-- Host: No official announcement about a change in the condition of Roy Horn, who has been listed as critical but stable all along. But his managers say that no news is good news.
--:-- Host: Here's Bernie Eumann again, talking to Larry King. Think about north of 30,000 live shows. Think about 44 years. Think about 48 million people live.
--:-- Host: And never, ever an incident of any kind whatsoever. In all the years, no one had ever been hurt, right? No, of course. Little scratches, maybe, right?
--:-- Host: It was not even scratched. You know, what happens, this is... Back then, like everybody, I trusted Siegfried's claim that there had been no other incidents.
--:-- Host: I had no reason not to believe him. Until I started making this podcast. Because over the last year of investigating the duo, I've uncovered what is the truth.
--:-- Host: And what's merely an illusion. Next time on Wild Things, Siegfried and Roy. Las Vegas, here is a breathtaking city built in the middle of deserted, arid nowhere.
--:-- Host: It was Roy who was just itching to get to Las Vegas. He thought this was the greatest idea that he had ever heard of. and I worked very hard on a magic brick.
--:-- Host: I showed it to my father and the first time my father talked to me, he said, how did you do that? This guy was in the active process of dying and I've got about five minutes.
--:-- Host: Wild Things Siegfried & Roy is an Apple original podcast produced by Atwell Media. Our producer is Alexander Zaslow Story editors are Matt Hickey and Mandy Gorenstein
--:-- Host: Our editor is Rachel Leitner with help from Andrew Holt
