Feature: Roy Horn ready for his closeup

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Maria Shriver, who is the host for an upcoming NBC special on illusionists Siegfried & Roy, says she was taken aback by Roy Horn's optimism that he would recover from the onstage tiger attack that nearly took his life almost one year ago.

Shriver, who first interviewed Horn and Siegfried Fischbacher when she was a reporter for CBS News in 1984, spent hours with them this spring and summer in preparation for "Siegfried & Roy: The Miracle," a one-hour special scheduled to be broadcast Sept. 15.

"It took me aback how incredibly optimistic Roy was, given everything that he's been through," said Shriver in a conference call. "The depth of that relationship between Siegfried and Roy, the strength of it, also really awed me."

The interview marks the first time that Horn will have spoken publicly about the attack last Oct. 3, when he was bitten by a 380-pound tiger during a performance at The Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Horn, 59, suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and forced the partners to close their show.

Shriver said the tiger will be shown in her special, including footage of Horn with the tiger. The show will not include video of the attack -- footage that producers of the Siegfried & Roy show have refused to turn over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA subpoenaed the Vienna, Va.-based Feld Entertainment in April, demanding that it receive the footage as part of an investigation into possible violations of animal-welfare law. Feld resisted, saying Fischbacher and Horn didn't want the images "accessible to children and families all around the world."

According to recent reports, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was trying to mediate an agreement between the USDA and Feld, whereby investigators would be able to view the footage without taking possession of it.

The NBC special will feature interviews with witnesses to the attack -- including stagehands and audience members.

"There seems to be quite a consensus from the audience," said Shriver. "Everybody said it was eerily calm, there was no kind of great attack. Most of the people we talked to, they felt it was kind of part of the act. They weren't quite clear -- until Siegfried came running out to say, 'The show's over, I'm sorry, goodbye' -- that they felt something was wrong."

The special is a production of the network's entertainment division, not the news division where the Peabody and Emmy-award winning Shriver worked before taking a leave of absence when her husband, action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, won a gubernatorial recall election in California.

"I wanted to try to resume some semblance of my career," she said. "One of (my) goals when the news division suggested that I go on a leave was, I'm going to find my way back on the air. I felt that I still had a lot to give as a journalist ... and I wanted to prove that I can still do it."

Shriver said she pursued the assignment, along with other journalists, and Fischbacher and Horn eventually chose her.

"They had every option in the country, and they had a comfort zone with me," she said. "They felt that I would understand that this was a tragedy for them but also the beginning of a new life."

A reporter asked if Fischbacher and Horn also felt that Shriver -- through her marriage to Schwarzenegger -- would also be familiar with their accents.

"They didn't say that," she said, "but I'm sure that helped. They knew that I would handle it sensitively and intelligently and fairly, and that I wasn't going to exploit them ... which I didn't, because I think it's a very inspirational story."

Shriver said she does not identify primarily as a journalist, first lady or any of the other roles she has taken on. Rather, she said she thinks of herself as "a working girl" who writes books, has a broadcast career and does her best to be all of those things as well as a wife and mother.

"I don't see myself as traditional first lady, whatever that is," she said. "I see myself as a work in progress."

Shriver said Horn's immediate focus is on being able to walk and to be self-sufficient again. She said Siegfried & Roy are intent on returning to the stage, but they aren't sure what form a comeback would take.

"The show they had came out of their imagination, so I think that whatever comes next will also come from their imagination," said Shriver. "It will have to come from their imagination, because there are no other entertainers like these two men."

Shriver collected so much resource material for the special, and she said the story of Siegfried & Roy is so rich, that NBC could easily have turned it into several hours of programming.

"This story is far from over," she said. "It's a story that one would have to continue to update."

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