Siegfried & Roy: Remembering the Illusionists' Lives and Careers in Photos

By 1983 the pair moved to the Mirage on the Las Vegas Strip, beginning with a five-year, $57.5 million contract. In a 1993 PEOPLE profile, Roy called his animals "the love affair of my life," sharing that he traveled to and from the Mirage with them daily, caring for them with the help of a full-time veterinarian, a select handful of staffers and Siegfried. ''An unhappy animal could not be onstage doing the things we do," he added.

Though they had innumerable fans, they also had detractors, with PETA at one time telling PEOPLE, "No matter how much Siegfried and Roy say they love these animals, they have confined them continents away from their natural home. A Las Vegas stage is not a natural home for an exotic animal."

The men, who've always called themselves "best friends," at one point shared an 88-acre estate outside of Sin City, though lived in separate wings of the house (Roy's mother, Johanna, lived on the property, too). In their 1993 book, Mastering the Impossible, the pair wrote of relationships with women, though neither ever married.