The Making of a Las Vegas Legend

After establishing themselves in the European entertainment landscape, the duo—now professionally known as “Siegfried & Roy”—arrived in Las Vegas in 1967, as a replacement for trapezist Susan Saren in the Tropicana Hotel & Casino’s production of Follies Bergere. During this period, the duo added a second cheetah to their act, Simba, accompanying Chico on stage who, by this point, was himself a seasoned performer. After a brief Las Vegas hiatus in the late 1960s, during which Siegfried & Roy performed in France and Puerto Rico, the duo returned to the city to join the ensemble of the Stardust Hotel & Casino’s Lido de Paris, alongside a cast of over 100 performers more than “a dozen nations.” It was at the Lido de Paris that the duo first experimented with what would become one of their signature illusions, in which a wild animal is vanished and seemingly transformed into a human man, and vice-versa. After their stint at the Lido de Paris, Siegfried & Roy briefly performed at the MGM Grand Hotel’s Hallelujah Hollywood beginning in April 1974, which they would later cite as their “most stressful situation as a team” and the closest the duo ever came to breaking up. This stress was likely driven by MGM executives reportedly wanting to separate the duo to maximize profit; Siegfried would perform in Las Vegas and Roy would perform in Reno, simultaneously. After Hallelujah Hollywood, Siegfried & Roy returned to the Lido de Paris in 1978, this time as stars, in a revamped production that saw the duo earn, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “the largest salary ever paid for a variety act in the state of Nevada.” This multimillion-dollar deal was accompanied by a larger production – more costumes, bigger illusions, a larger cast, and an expanded ensemble of wild animals. This period also saw them connect with some of their longtime collaborators, including manager Bernie Yuman, executives Irvin and Kenneth Feld, and performers Lynette Chappell and Toney Mitchell.

The duo’s star continued to rise and the beginning of a new decade found them eventually settling on the Frontier Hotel & Casino as their headquarters in 1981, where their newest show, Beyond Belief, premiered to rave reviews. With a production budget of $3 million, Beyond Belief saw Siegfried & Roy reinvent themselves again, this time experimenting with the concept of a “family friendly” show, which seemed to critics and executives to be at odds with the essence and economy of Las Vegas. Siegfried & Roy successfully lobbied executives to designate a Friday evening timeslot of Beyond Belief for families and young audiences, which the duo themselves described as “the single biggest thing [they] did to break out of the mold of Las Vegas.”

Near the end of their run at the Frontier Hotel & Casino in June 1988, Siegfried & Roy were believed to have fully sold nearly 3,400 shows. This conclusion to their legendary run was spurred by an announcement from entrepreneur Steve Wynn the year prior, who announced that he was developing a new property (which would later be revealed as the Mirage Hotel & Casino) on the Las Vegas Strip and was signing the duo to a lucrative—and unprecedented—contract, valued at about $57 million.