Illusionist Dirk Arthur considers himself a regular, friendly guy who loves magic and animals equally. Having started out at L.A.’s famed Magic Castle as a teenager, Arthur integrated big cats into an act that had a six-year run at the Tropicana. Las Vegas Magazine’s Matt Kelemen talked with Arthur about his return to the Strip in Wild Illusions at the Riviera with the cats, a drill he’ll escape from, a car he’ll levitate and a helicopter he’ll make appear.
How did you go from starting out at the Magic Castle to working with big cats?
I always loved animals, and I worked with the typical doves and rabbits. Siegfried & Roy were becoming popular, and I eventually decided to expand my show and gradually make it bigger and bigger. Because I was in L.A., there were a lot of professional animal trainers at the time that did work for television and movies, and I was able to become mentored by various animal trainers. I learned about training and studied that for years and years, and worked as an apprentice. Eventually that led to me getting my first cats, and then we just kept expanding and expanding. I just realized I had an incredible love working with the big cats.
Have you made adaptations to your show for the intimate space within the Starlite Theater at the Riviera?
It’s a beautiful stage. I always wanted to have a big show. My thing was I just wanted to have a big, spectacular show wherever we played. We figured out ways to have things collapse when they’re backstage, and have certain ways of storing things. Everything has to have its own special place or you can’t fit all the illusions. And then, of course, it’s also really complicated because everything has to run really fast, one trick after the other. It’s taken decades of experimentation to come up with an hour and 15 minutes of tricks in a fast-paced show.
I saw a clip of you on David Letterman. He seemed genuinely impressed with what you had done, although he hammed it up like he had been off-set while you were doing your act with the tigers.
Yeah, he was cool. We reshot the ending section because one of the cats was super nervous with the cameras, and she was snarling. Letterman freaked out, so there was this whole thing he did with a five-minute monologue where he poured himself a shot of whiskey. It was hilarious.
How many cats do you have?
We have 14 cats, seven in the show. We have all different types of tigers. We’ve got Bengal and Siberian tigers, snow tigers, white tigers. Then we have a black panther and two very rare snow leopards. We have a beautiful, natural outdoor habitat for the cats. Everything is strictly regulated.
