Las Vegas Weekly

January 15, 2009 · 8:29 AM

Morning Call: Details of Siegfried & Roy’s one-night-only performance to be revealed next week

By Robin Leach

Siegfried & Roy at Oktoberfest.

Photo: Kirvin Doak Communications

Within the next seven days, we’ll finally get to know all the details about the fantastic one-night-only reunion performance by Magicians of the Century Siegfried & Roy. Their “Moment of Magic” is set to take place Feb. 28 at the Bellagio for the annual “Keep Memory Alive” Alzheimer’s dinner and auction that I will emcee.

It’s all to benefit the Lou Ruvo Brain Center designed by architect Frank Gehry and nearing construction completion downtown. I am sworn to secrecy about all the details, but I can tell you that next week’s revelations will be an incredible boost to Las Vegas on many levels.

Their manager Bernie Yuman has pulled off an amazing coup. Although some 2,000 privileged donors will be physical eyewitnesses to the most amazing showbiz reunion in history, Bernie has worked his own magic to ensure that the world gets to enjoy the extraordinary excitement, too!

This all began in fall 2007 when I asked Bernie to arrange a luncheon for me with the two magicians to see if I could persuade them to team up again for one more live performance. “Now that would be magic if you could achieve that,” he told me at the time.

Remember that after the 2003 tiger incident on stage at The Mirage, Roy sustained massive blood loss and injuries and shocked doctors with his will to live after “dying on the operating table three times.” Bernie always told me, “He has the will of a thousand men. He will not quit. He won’t give up.”

Siegfried and I met at mutual friend Wolfgang Puck’s Sago restaurant at Caesars Palace. He listened very politely, asked lots of questions about the “Keep Memory Alive” charity that I support, but said he couldn’t give a “yes” or a “no” answer until he’d talked with his longtime partner Roy -- and told me not to get expectations up because he thought it highly unlikely.

To my surprise, I received a call from Bernie several weeks later to say that both magicians were actively looking at going ahead! Then at a magic show, Siegfried told me the idea had won Roy’s blessing and that he had received a new lease on life to start thinking about what illusions they could perform again for just one more time. At last year’s “Keep Memory Alive” gala, I gently ambushed them and Siegfried climbed on a chair and made the promise to KMA founder Larry Ruvo that they would perform their ‘”Moment of Magic” in one year’s time.

Siegfried & Roy told me since then that they’d pulled out their old stored illusions and sets in their warehouse and that they were at work on the idea. Now the calendar has turned, and the clock has ticked -- and the Feb. 28 show gets closer. Invitations have been mailed, and dinner tables are being reserved. It promises to be one of the most exciting nights in showbiz history!

Out of respect to the entertainers and the charity, I won’t be the first to spill the secrets of the extraordinary night this time. That belongs to a far wider initial audience, but we’ll have the full story here at Vegas DeLuxe after the official announcement. All I will say is that it’s set to be the most glittering gala ever experienced in Vegas!

When the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute opens this spring, it will be a national center for the prevention, early detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and memory disorders. Lou Ruvo was the longtime owner of the Venetian, a popular now-closed Italian restaurant on Sahara that introduced pizza to Las Vegas, his son Larry Ruvo says. Larry is the senior managing director for Southern Wines & Spirits, which has generously supported numerous charities here in Vegas and underwritten the annual UNLVino Sip for a Scholarship program.

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