Every Sunday night Gianni Russo would hold large dinner parties at his Las Vegas home, where there were always celebrities. Siegfried and Roy attended many times. One time, they brought a tiger for the kids to play with. It wasn’t fully-grown, but it weighed at least 100 pounds.
Russo said: “The tiger immediately took a liking to one of the women. At first, it was a little aggressive and pulled at the leash Siegfried was holding. But then suddenly it broke free of his grip. It went charging across two rooms to get at the women. I was lucky to be where I was standing and able to punch the tiger in the side of the head as it passed me.
“It dropped to the ground unconscious. Roy thought I had killed it and started screaming at me. Everyone else was screaming, thinking the tiger would wake up and start attacking again. Ten minutes later, it was still out cold as Siegfried carried it to the car, followed by Roy. They never came to another dinner.
“A few years later, it got around Vegas that the cat that attacked Roy on stage was the same cat that I’d KO’d and was suffering PTSD, had a flashback, and reached out for the nearest human, who happened to be Roy.”
I guess if Carlo can stand up to a mad-as-hell woman with a knife (in the Godfather), he'd have no fear of a charging tiger.
Russo could not remember the woman that the tiger was attracted to. My guess: Angie Dickinson.
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One time I saw a guy with a 100 pound bear cub on his lap in a bar. Even at that age, the bear had long claws for tree climbing and was very strong… Hugging the guy. Scared me when I saw it. Can we really trust a wild animal to behave in a crowd of people they don't know?
Ron