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Undated recording of Siegfried and Roy: Duo with a great career
Photo: imago images / Everett Collection
Five marks separated the boy from his dream.
Five marks for a book with magic tricks that he had discovered in the window of a bookstore in Rosenheim.
For a small child, one might think, there should be nothing more superfluous in the misery after the Second World War.
For Siegfried Fischbacher, born in 1939, it was the most important thing in the world.
And unattainable as an absurd luxury - until he found a five-mark piece on the sidewalk across from the bookstore.
At least that is how Fischbacher liked to tell the story of how he came up with magic.
Just like the story of Siegfried and Roy just seems to be waiting to be turned into a breathtaking multi-part on Netflix soon.
When the boy's father finally returned home from Soviet captivity - alcoholic, broken - magic was the means of attracting his attention: "How did you do that?" The father is said to have said in view of a sleight of hand his son had learned from the book .
The child never felt accepted in the Bavarian provinces: “Magic,” he said later, “could never be more than an amusing hobby there.
As a job it would even have been blasphemous «.
Even as a teenager, Fischbacher settled on Lake Garda, where he worked as a waiter and continued to work on his magic.
A cheetah on board
The train into the distance brought him on board the cruise ship "Bremen" in 1960, where he worked as a steward.
At the captain's instigation, he was soon to entertain the passengers and parts of the crew with his tricks.
On the "Bremen" he met Roy Horn, who worked there as a waiter - and Siegfried asked whether he would like to conjure up larger animals than "just" pigeons.
Roy, born as Uwe Ludwig Horn, also came from a war-disabled family.
What Siegfried found in sorcery, Roy found in animals.
So he let his good contacts on his mother's side play, and smuggled a live cheetah on board in a laundry bag.
The effect of suddenly seeing an even more unusual predator in this unusual setting must have been overwhelming for the audience.
An overwhelming victory on which Siegfried and Roy basically built their entire four-decade career.
Soon they were completely responsible for the entertainment program.
They went into business for themselves and trundled through European capitals.
Their success in Monte Carlo, where they inspired the princess in the late 1960s, earned them a reputation at the epicenter of the entertainment industry.
Las Vegas was an infamous place back then.
Frank Sinatra, the dazzling pianist Liberace, ruled, prostitution and the mafia ruled.
An American babel in which hardly any show could do without sexual lewdness and, as one casino owner said, there was no place for magic either.
Magic, wild animals and humor - a perfect combination
Siegfried and Roy proved the opposite, even if it was twelve years before the final breakthrough.
Their events were as "over the top" and "larger than life" as the city was - and at the same time they completely dispensed with the usual personalities.
There was magic and wild animals and humor, a perfect combination.
Not only was Las Vegas the height of all dreams for the two strange Germans.
The duo became more and more important to Las Vegas.
They did what no night club or casino could do.
Their enchanting concept of magic, exotic and musical attracted fewer gamblers, more ordinary couples and entire families - and thus also to the city.
Siegfried and Roy helped transform Babylon into an alternative Disney Land.
It was they who paved the way for spectacles like "Cirque du Solei", a David Copperfield or dubious characters like "Joe Exotic".
The nimbus of the illustrious entertainers also attracted other celebrities, from Elizabeth Taylor to Michael Jackson, who wrote the official anthem ("Mind Is The Magic") for their appearances.
In a theater specially designed for their shows, they drew 1,500 guests evening after evening, both performances were always sold out.
They danced with tigers, played with snakes and made elephants disappear.
Siegfried and Roy made billions - and got fabulously rich themselves.
Sexuality didn't fit into the concept
Part of the “clean” image was that Fischbacher and Horn never discussed their love affair.
Whoever wanted could imagine that.
Sexuality, whatever orientation, just didn't fit into the concept.
The couple settled on a property called "Little Bavaria" outside the city, a private zoo as if from the imagination of young Roy Horn.
They remained connected as friends and business partners after the relationship broke up in the late 1990s: "I am the magician," said Fischbacher once about his partner, "but he is the magic".
The fairy tale ended in 2003 when Roy Horn was attacked by a tiger named Montecore during the performance.
The magicians agreed on the version that Roy had previously suffered a stroke on stage and the animal had only wanted to bring him to safety.
How both of them came to an out-of-court settlement with employees who accused them of sexual harassment.
Business always came first.
After his partner's accident, Fischbacher went through a "wild time," as he put it.
The depression of earlier years returned, which he apparently successfully fought with backpacking trips through Europe and a stay in an Orthodox monastery.
Until the end, when Horn died of an infection with Covid-19 in May 2020, Fischbacher remained at his side as a friend and carer: "Without Siegfried there is no Roy, and without Roy there is no Siegfried," he said after his death.
Siegfried Roy has now followed just eight months apart.
On January 13th, he died in Las Vegas of complications from cancer.
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