He was billed as the Lord of the Rings for his almost mystical way with lions, tigers and leopards. But Gunther Gebel-Williams may have been even more than that. "He was the greatest show on earth," says his longtime friend Pete Cimini, a veterinary technician at the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus, where Gebel-Williams starred from 1969 to 1990. Indeed, only his feats of animal training seemed more dazzling than his sense of stagecraft and his spangled, torso-baring outfits.

Officially retired for 10 years, Gebel-Williams continued to train his big cats until the diagnosis of the brain cancer that caused his death at age 66 on July 19. "He was such a perfectionist," says Sigrid, 57, his wife of 33 years who held him in her arms at their house in Venice, Fla., as he died. (He and Sigrid had a son, Mark, 30, who is now the top animal trainer with Ringling Bros., and he adopted her daughter Tina, 39, from a first marriage.)

Gunther Gebel, born in Schweidnitz, Germany, got his first taste of circus life at age 12, when his mother took a job with the famed Circus Williams in his native land. He later married one of the Williams daughters as his first wife and added the family name to his own as a measure of respect. Gebel-Williams quickly became a star, and when he came to the U.S. in 1968, he brought his distinctive style. Until then most trainers here had used whips and chairs, but he relied solely on words and gestures. It was a method born of his lifelong fascination with animals. "It was the special connection he had, the deep love for them," says Sigrid. "He first became a friend of theirs."