Las Vegas Weekly

June 17, 2008 · 6 AM

Photos of Horn show a poignant moment with white tigers

By Robin Leach

In exclusive Luxe Life photos, Roy Horn is shown feeding one of Siegfried & Roy's famed white tigers.

Photo: TVT

These exclusive photos of a very special moment at Siegfried & Roy’s Jungle Palace home are priceless- and poignant They say a photo is worth a thousand words and the sequence of Roy feeding his fully grown tigers speak volumes. This very private collection is simultaneously joyful and heart-tugging and shows the extraordinary love the injured illusionist has for his animals.

It happened shortly after a small, privileged, handpicked group of media members had watched Siegfried & Roy introduce their five new baby tiger cubs that went on show this weekend at their Secret Garden attraction at the Mirage. I was invited to stay on and chat with the magicians after everybody else left. Roy moved over to the glass wall with its safety-gaps on the enclosed sun-lounge in their garden -– and I grabbed my camera as the tigers nuzzled up to him. It was amazing. You not only could see the love they had for each other but you could sense it and feel it. He stood there for 10 minutes, talking gently to them and feeding them. It was stunning and one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Photo: TVT

Mirage President Scott Sibella also privately gifted Siegfried & Roy with a framed photo of them with the new tiger cubs. He told me: “I wanted them to have a keep-sake of them at just a month old. They grow so quickly so this will serve as a memory of when they were tiny. This is an incredible addition to our Secret garden at the resort. Its already a very successful exhibit with thousands of visitors every week -- this adds a new and exciting addition to the attraction. We are proud to have Siegfried & Roy still with us at The Mirage. Roy often comes down to the Garden as part of his recovery rehabilitation to be with the animals and meet the fans there. Its awesome to watch them all interacting.”

There was a double reason to celebrate! Siegfried was celebrating his 69th birthday – and Roy had just returned three weeks earlier from a successful knee operation in Austria to enable him to walk easier and in less pain! Siegfried explained: “ He wants to be with the animals more because they help him. He’s now in the healing process and wont have that pain in his knees so much.”

As Roy played with the baby cubs, Siegfried brought one over and talked to me about progress and promises: “You couldn’t ask for a better birthday present. Look at the smile on Roy’s face as he plays with them. This is the best rehab for him and more than I can ask for. It gives him a positive reason to get up every morning. He feeds them a bottle and gets them comfortable for the day. They get a bottle and some meat every three hours. Four are females -- two are the rare white tigers and two are striped white tigers and the male, who is golden, has become the leader already. Roy has named him ‘Svengali' since he’s a womanizer and has got the four girls around him to hold court! “

Photo: TVT

Roy already has one favorite. He told me he’d named the tiger cub that spent the most time with him “Shacrat” -- which is the translation of “center core” – which he said explained the state of his strength, his will, his determination and well being. “It comes right from the center of my being,” he said, and even wrote the name down to ensure I got the spelling correct! Even he admitted, “It is the best rehab.” Siegfried added: “You can describe her as a precious princess because its definitely Daddy’s little girl.” They said the five cubs had tripled in size in the three weeks they’d been caring for them at Jungle Palace to their current 15 lbs. Local Clark County School District students will participate in a contest later to name the others.

It was back on Oct. 3, 2003, that Roy was severely injured when the big tiger Montecore dragged him offstage. He ordered his rescuers not to harm Montecore before losing consciousness. Doctors reported that he “died ” three times during the life-saving surgery. Roy baffled them with his recovery and on-going progress. Siegfried explained to me: “It is an amazing thing. After the accident happened Roy always wanted to go to the Secret Garden and be with the animals. When we went there you could see with his body language, with his face that he was in a different world. You could see the healing process. The first thing was the most amazing. Tara, our snow-white tiger 25 years ago, she was close to saying goodbye. We took her over to Roy who at that point hadn’t yet stood after the operations. But when Tara came to him he did stand up. We told him. “No you can’t stand,” but he said he had to. They stood up for us for 25 years and he said he now had to stand up for them.

“When Roy was first in the hospital we obviously couldn’t get tigers and lions in there, but we did get dogs in. There’s a company that brings animals in the hospitals to help patients recover. It’s the same thing that just happened in Austria. One day after the operation he went to see the Lippanzer horses and it just so happened there was a newborn there that couldn’t even stand on his legs. But a miracle because the young one managed to walk up right to Roy. -- that was more amazing. The new tigers have also changed him tremendously in the last six weeks.”

Now he and Siegfried have promised my friends at our annual Keep Memory Alive benefit for the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute being built downtown that they will make a comeback with “a moment of magic” once again early next year.

Siegfried told me: “When we make a promise we keep it. Everybody said we couldn’t do it but we will –- and we are getting ready for it. I can’t tell you how excited we both are planning this. It’s a wonderful new target for Roy to achieve and he is really up for it now. He’s had the knee surgery, so he will be able to complete the full 5K walk for the Opportunity Village Santa Claus project in early December. Meantime we will be going to the warehouse to go through the illusions to see what we will do next February for the gala. We are going to appear -- whatever it takes -- and this event today creates a lot more awareness for it in advance. We are very happy to perform again because it is for a good cause. We are creating awareness for Alzheimers and Parkinson’s. I think when we are connected with it they will do even better, that is our life and we are in a position in our life where we can give something back to the community.

“These tigers are the perfect species. We picked the ones that suit to our bloodline so we are not inbreeding. They fit perfectly into our family of tigers. I don’t want to say if they will join us for that appearance but we will do what the time will tell us.”

Javon Walker hit Tryst prior to being found unconscious just off the Strip

JAVON UPDATE: MYSTERY OF BEING FOUND INJURED AND UNCONSCIOUS:

Shortly after Luxe Life filed the story about Javon Walker's weekend battle of the bubbly over the weekend at Tryst at Wynn Las Vegas, our local FOX 5 affiliate reported that 48 hours afterwards the NFL player was found unconscious 100 yards east of the Strip behind the Bally's and Billy's Gamblin' Hall intersection. Walker left Body english at 3:30 a.m. late Sunday/early Monday morning. Between then and 6:30, he was robbed and beaten. Metro police said the Oakland Raiders star was taken to Sunrise Medical Center’s trauma unit Monday morning, suffering from an orbital fracture. Late Monday afternoon he was listed in fair condition but neither hospital officials nor police officers could say how the sports star received the fracture. They are currently focusing on what Walker did during the three hours between the time he left the club and was found unconscious missing a large amount of cash and jewelry.

Photo: R&R

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf are ditching plans for a resort in Idaho.

HOME-TOWN HEROES SERVE UP WINNING HANDS FOR CHARITY:

Hearty applause for two other hometown heroes who are selfless in their giving back to our community. Out of towners who constantly deride Vegas for being a soulless Mecca of sin, adultery, gambling and hedonism don’t realize that we have so many generous folks in Vegas who keep on giving to benefit others less fortunate. Maybe more so here than in many other communities.

Andre Agassi is not just a Grand Slam winner on the courts, but also off. He even admits that the charity work he does now -- for his Preparatory School for youngsters who might never have had a shot at education but for him and his work -- is more important than his tennis trophy wins. He’s forever creating new ambitious and unique fundraising activities to expand the work- and next year he will smile in satisfaction at the very first high-school graduates. His most recent efforts involved the Longines watch company who created 888 special timepieces that he sold to an exclusive group of nationwide watch retails who bid up at an auction for them to get the marketing rights of the limited edition.

Phil Ivey.

Poker prince Phil Ivey wanted his goodwill wok kept secret but it leaked out when he took time away from the 2008 World Series of Poker at the Rio. He visited the Las Vegas Salvation Army HQ’s to witness firsthand the staggering effects of the current housing crisis. Nearly 200 homeless citizens waited outside the facility after Sunday services for food and shelter. Phil instantly made a donation through his Budding Ivey Foundation and promised to add the We Care program to help with additional meals, toiletries and clothing to the Vegas needy. He even helped personally handout 150 food packages. The Salvation Army noted that the current economy had hurt their work restricting the feeding to only 150 families. Now with Phil’s generosity they can increase it by over 300 percent -- and this weekend they hit 500 meals.

You can help support Phil’s generous charitable contributions by taking part in his no-limit hold ’em poker tournament on July 1 at the Golden Nugget. He’s earmarking the $1,000 donation fee to participate for his charity giveaways!

STRIP SCRIBBLES:

-- Wicked Whispers & Racy Rumors: Cher is the one superstar who stays out of the public limelight and avoids the paparazzi at all costs. She much prefers her “hermit” lifestyle but the Caesars Palace headliner made a rare nightclub visit on a trip back to Hollywood. She joined friends for a party at the Foxtail but when fotogs learned she was there she made a hasty split with her face covered -- keeping to her self-imposed rule that nobody ever sees her without full makeup which some grungy gossips say can take as much as six hours of preparation! What kind of hiccup has Tera Patrick run into at the Hard Rock Hotel? I’ve heard that plans for her to dance at her new Helles Belles pleasure gaming pit complete with stripper poles have been changed as the stage turned out to be too small for the porn star and her five-girl dance team. So she’s had to relocate with a new dance striptease schedule to the Body English nightclub there instead. Also plans for her husband Evan Seinfeld’s new rock band to open Carey Hart’s new “Wasted Spaces” rock lounge and tattoo parlor on July 1 and play again at the official July 16 gala opening have also allegedly been changed for now.

Steve Wynn and Takashi Murakami address the crowd just before a viewing of Planting the Seeds at Lake of Dreams.

OUR DAILY CINEVEGAS UPDATE:

Day 5: Monday night’s one-night only screening of the rarely seen animation gem Planting the Seeds by renowned international artist Takashi Murakami was held at Wynn Las Vegas and the film was projected onto the back water wall of the Lake of Dreams’ there. Before the film, Takashi unveiled his new collaboration with the Louis Vuitton leather luggage and handbag house. Titled Monogramouflage, it’s now on sale at the Louis Vuitton store in the Wynn.

Day 6 highlights: Film festival chairman Dennis Hopper is featured in Chelsea on the Rocks with Ethan Hawke and Grace Jones which screens at 1pm today It’s the documentary of the famed artist and rockers Chelsea Hotel in New York. Dennis also turns up in the Jeff Bridges narrated The Cool School at 2.30 p.m., providing insight in the legendary West Coast Ferus Gallery. The crazy comedy of two Easter Bunnies comes to light in ‘ Hank & Mike’ when the company that employs them fires them in a downsizing. The laughter starts at 5pm this evening. TAO nightclub at the Venetian throws tonight’s “In Film We Trust” CineVegas party but it’s the midnight bash hosted by Sapphire’s topless adult club dancers that’s raising eyebrows. CineVegas is the only film festival in the world having a XXX-rated stripper spot as a sponsor –- but as festival artistic director Trevor Groth explains: “In Vegas you just have to embrace all aspects of the city life-scape.”

CineVegas Film Festival patrons Robin and Danny Greenspun got to pose for legendary photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders after the world premiere of his new ‘ Black List’ movie. Yesterday Luxe Life was the first to exclusively show you the portraits of Bill gates, Warren Buffet and Steve Wynn that Timothy shot earlier. My pal, Scott Richman, who is executive producer of The Black List started their new production company, Freemind Ventures, with Timothy and Elvis Mitchell. He told me, “Black List was the first project under the umbrella brand ‘One Million Stories.’ He said: “Vegas is an important component of our plans moving forward as we celebrate diversity. Vegas will be a great source of subject matter while serving as the promotional and marketing platform for our various projects.” You can check out their site here.

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