Posted on 12/23/2003 9:13:36 PM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Illusionist Roy Horn, half of the famed "Siegfried and Roy" entertainment duo, was recovering at his Las Vegas home, two months after being mauled by a tiger, his spokesman said.
The German-born entertainer, famous for his daring shows starring wild animals, was bitten in the throat by a rare white Bengal tiger during the duo's 13-year-old show at Las Vegas's MGM Mirage Hotel on October 3.
Spokesman Dave Kirvin said Horn, 59, returned Monday to his sumptuous estate in the desert gambling hub from a Los Angeles hospital, where he was transferred shortly after the attack.
"He is getting better and is going to continue his rehabilitation at home with a team of doctors and therapists from Las Vegas and Los Angeles," he told AFP.
"He's in recovery and everyone is very optimistic," he said of the entertainer's recovery from the tiger bite that took place before a packed audience, triggering a stroke and almost killing him.
Kirvin declined to discuss specifics of the veteran showman's condition or mobility "at the family's request," but news reports said he was communicating by writing notes.
Horn was in critical condition in a Las Vegas hospital and later the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center following the dramatic incident that close down's the duo's long-running show.
His partner of more than four decades, Siegfried Fischbacher, has been at Horn's side almost constantly since the incident, which audience members said took place when Horn tapped the tiger's nose with his microphone.
Fischbacher however later said the tiger did not mean to attack Horn, but tried to "help" him as he fell on stage.
Surgeons said at the time that it was miraculous that the showman had survived the attack, which left him bleeding heavily in addition to prompting a stroke.
The mauling was the first in the pair's decades-long career in which they nightly co-starred with a host of wild animals and live with a menagerie of beasts at their Las Vegas estate.
Siegfried and Roy -- both of whom were born in Germany -- became fixtures of the Las Vegas scene and are known across the world for their extravagant costumes and daring stunts with wild animals.
Until the show's cancellation following the mauling, the famous illusionists performed eight shows a week in a 1,504-seat theatre that bears their name at the Mirage, which holds a lifetime contract with them.
It really doesn't sound good.
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