Harry Houdini

Magician

  • Born: March 24, 1874
  • Birthplace: Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Hungary)
  • Died: October 31, 1926
  • Place of death: Detroit, Michigan

Hungarian-born American entertainer

Houdini, whose name has become synonymous with daring escapes and other impossible feats, was the first “superhero” magician and stunt performer. He was the first to uncover the enormous paying potential for public risk-taking, and he was a pioneer in exposing fraudulent mediums, debunking the claims of psychics, clairvoyants, and other “communicators” with the dead.

Area of achievement Theater and entertainment

Early Life

Harry Houdini (hoo-DEE-nee) was born Ehrich Weiss into a Jewish family in Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire. At age four his family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in the United States. His father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, initially worked as rabbi of the Zion Reform Congregation, but he always had trouble holding a job. The Weiss family moved five times between 1883 and 1887. One story of the family’s early days relates that Houdini’s father, after realizing his own failures, asked his twelve-year-old son to promise to take care of his mother, Cecilia (née Steiner), for the rest of her life. In 1892, Houdini’s father died and left his son to fulfill that promise. Houdini succeeded in splendid fashion, both financially and emotionally, as he had a long and loving relationship with his mother until her death, which greatly affected him.

88801705-109008.jpg

Houdini changed his name in 1891 after reading a book on the great French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. The magician’s story enthralled him so much that Houdini (Weiss) later changed his name in honor of the Frenchman. Until this time, the family’s destitute situation had forced Houdini to work, but soon after reading the biography of Robert-Houdin, he decided to become a professional magician, one who would captivate audiences around the world.

Life’s Work

Houdini’s life as a magician was constantly changing because he was both a serious student of the art of illusions and aware of the importance of his relationship with his audience. During the apex of his career, he was the most highly paid performer in American vaudeville, but in the early days he was limited to doing card tricks and escaping from trunks while working at the lowest end of show business at the time: dime museums, circuses, and carnivals. At times, Houdini had to sit in for show regulars, including the so-called Wild Man of Mexico. When he failed to show up for his performance, Houdini would have to step in, rumple his hair, smear black makeup on his face, and pretend to savagely tear at raw meat in a cage.

In the spring of 1893, Houdini met performer Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner, and they married three weeks later on June 22. For the next six years they performed together, sometimes up to fourteen shows per day.

Houdini’s big break came in 1899, the year he began escaping from handcuffs before an audience. To encourage spectator participation he challenged people to bring their own handcuffs, sealing his reputation as an “authentic” escape artist. With the support of showman Martin Beck he was performing at the top vaudeville houses in the country. By 1900 his shows in a European tour were sold out. Never one to remain stagnant, especially considering the imitators who formed in the wake of his success, Houdini even challenged police departments to lock him in their cells. He remained mostly in Europe for the next five years.

By 1907, Houdini was escaping from coffins, straitjackets, water-filled milk cans, and many other objects. He also began his series of bridge jumps, performed while manacled. In 1912 he began performing what is probably his most famous act: escape from the Chinese water torture cell. Placed in a locked glass-and-steel container, a “cell,” filled with water, Houdini held his breath for many minutes before somehow escaping from the container. His ability to hold his breath for minutes at a time proved critical in allowing him to perform another famous stunt: jumping bound and shackled into winter rivers.

Not all of Houdini’s ventures were as successful as his escape acts, however. What was then the new medium of film drew his interest as well. His films included a 1901 French film that demonstrated several of his famous escapes. Other films included The Master Mystery (1920), The Grim Game (1919), and Terror Island (1920). He then produced and starred in two films, The Man from Beyond (1922) and Haldane of the Secret Service (1923). None of these films were successful commercially, and Houdini quit the film business in 1923.

The early part of the twentieth century saw the popularity of spiritualism, a religious movement that believed that certain persons (mediums) could communicate with the dead, at its peak in both the United States and Europe. With this popularity came a flourishing industry in psychic frauds and fakes. Houdini had been an agnostic spiritualist his entire life. (He had left his wife a secret code that he hoped to use after his death, to communicate with the still-living.)

Houdini spent a great deal of time and energy in the latter part of his life uncovering fake mediums. His most successful debunking involved Boston medium Mina Crandon, known as Margery. Houdini would post large cash awards and challenge any medium to prove to a panel of observers that he or she truly possessed the ability to speak to the dead. Houdini did not consider these challenges to be attacks on spiritualism itself. Rather, he sought to debunk the fakes and frauds that plagued the industry.

Many of Houdini’s methods and magic remain mysteries. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an ardent spiritualist and the creator of the Sherlock Holmes mystery detective series, believed that Houdini did indeed possess supernatural powers that enabled him to perform many of his escapes.

No greater mystery surrounding Houdini’s life was as great as that of his death. Officially listed as a ruptured appendix, the cause of his death had been, for years, attributed to blows he received to the stomach after a lecture to students at McGill University in Montreal in October, 1926. Houdini was in superior athletic condition and had claimed to be able to withstand any number of punches to his abdomen. However, he was unprepared for the blows that a student delivered that day after the student asked to punch him in a challenge of sorts to Houdini’s strength an injury to his abdomen that left Houdini in great pain, but he kept performing. Within a week he was dead. Medical professionals concluded that his appendicitis was exacerbated by the blows and that they were not the cause of his death.

The authors of the 2006 book The Secret Life of Houdini provide some controversial evidence of implied threats and dire predictions about Houdini’s death, and in 2007, Houdini’s grandnephew asked the courts for permission to exhume Houdini’s body to look for evidence that he was poisoned. The request was denied.

Significance

The lasting significance of any entertainer can be measured in part by the endurance of public interest that the person commands. In Houdini’s case, that two new biographies about him appeared eighty years after his death speaks to some degree of his lasting legacy.

Houdini was a pathfinder in at least two areas. One, he was the first to uncover the paying potential for public risk-taking. The excitement of wondering whether a terrible event is soon to happen was first tapped, and exploited by, Houdini, who laid the groundwork for daring-doers from stunt-motorcyclists Evel and Robbie Knievel to drivers of the enormously successful professional motor racing circuit. Second, Houdini’s work exposed fraudulent mediums.

Bibliography

Brandon, Ruth. The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini. New York: Random House, 1993. A full-length scholarly biography by a seasoned author. Lists almost one hundred books in the bibliography. Excellent source for further reading.

Cobb, Vicki. Harry Houdini: A Photographic Story of a Life. London: DK, 2005. A short book written in slightly dramatic fashion. Rich in color reproductions of Houdini memorabilia and photographs.

Fleischman, Sid. Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. A former professional magician, Fleischman knew Houdini’s widow as a teenager. She provided Fleischman with rare photos for this work. Written for general readers, including youth.

Gibson, Walter, and Morris Young, eds. Houdini on Magic. New York: Dover, 1953. In Houdini’s own words, he describes how many, but not all, of his performances were accomplished. Houdini wrote many books in his life, as well as unpublished work. This work claims to be a sampling from both.

Kalush, William, and Larry Sloman. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. A comprehensive, updated biography. The authors claimed to have electronically searched more than two hundred million articles in researching this book, and in doing so have uncovered many new facts surrounding this famous figure.

Kent, Zachary. Harry Houdini: Escape Artist and Master Magician. Berkley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2002. Although written for young readers, this book is still a good read for adults with a casual interest in the subject (about one hundred pages).

1901-1940: August 1902: A Trip to the Moon Introduces Special Effects; October 22, 1907: Ringling Bros. Buys Barnum and Bailey Circus; June 26, 1925: Chaplin Produces His Masterpiece The Gold Rush; December 1926: Keaton’s The General Is Released; August 29, 1935-June 30, 1939: Federal Theatre Project Promotes Live Theater.