Restless after four years of retirement, illusionists Siegfried and Roy are hinting they still have something up their sleeves.

Asked about their rumored return to show business, Roy coyly responded: "A good magician never lets the cat out of the bag. Act surprised when you hear about it."

Added Siegfried: "It's all in the experimental stage, conceptual," he said Friday in a rare interview. [...]

"[Roy's recovery] cheers me up," Siegfried said. "All the doctors say what he's doing now is impossible. I've always said, 'I am the magician and Roy is the magic.' And Roy shows me every day the magic — the magic of life."

A moment to bask in the glitter-dusted romantic alchemy of one of showbiz's most enduring pairings, before launching into conjecture over what exactly the "conceptual" new show will entail: We imagine the fingerprints of Cirque de Soleil dreamweaver Franco Dragone will be all over it, in perhaps an autobiographical production tracing the magicians' life story from Siegfried's first "disastrous magic show for a goat farmers club" in 1953, to their chance meeting on a German cruise ship, to their eventual conquering of the desert showbiz world, and set entirely to the music of David Hasselhoff.

• NORM: Siegfried & Roy may yet reappear [lvrj.com]

[UPDATE: Via FBLA, Richmond discuss the pulling of the online versions of his piece here. OK, we know this is now getting unwieldy, but UPDATE 2: The piece has been restored on both Richmond's blog and the THR site. ]

Merv Griffin was gay.

There. Is that plain enough for ya? No gossip, no scandal, no snickering behind the back. Just reality.

We'll allow you a moment to come to grips with the fact that a man with business instincts so sharp, he managed to successfully sell average Americans vowels for decades, could have been that way. Okay, that should be enough time. Onto the Next! Not Particularly Shocking! Outing!:

Las Vegas magicians Siegfried & Roy are coming out of the closet in a highly anticipated autobiography soon to be released. [...]

According to details from the upcoming book leaked to the National Enquirer, Siegfried & Roy"sie was once very much in love but have since transformed their relationship into a working partnership and a deep friendship.

Further details are available in this German article, headlined: "Ja, wir sind schwul!" (Funny—besides the sequined jumpsuits and feathered hair, they didn't particularly seem schwul.) Still, we couldn't be happier for the flamboyant illusionists, who perhaps are now one step closer towards sitting down with their albino menagerie for a man-to-man-to-tiger talk about what it really means to have two daddies.

• [Past Deadline]
• Siegfried & Roy: Yes, We're Gay [bgay.com]