Harry Houdini(1874-1926)
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
The great American escape artist and magician Houdini (immortalized by
a memorable performance by
Tony Curtis in the eponymous 1953
film) was born Erich Weiss on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary,
though he often gave his birthplace as Appleton, Wisconsin, where he
was raised. One of five brothers and one daughter born to rabbi Samuel
Weiss and his wife Cecilia, the future Houdini was four years old when
his parents emigrated to the U.S., where Weiss, as "Harry Houdini",
became one of the major celebrities of the first age dominated by the
mass media.
His boyhood was spent in poverty and, when he was 17, he conjured up a
magic act with his friend Jack Hayman, in order to escape the poverty
and anonymity of manual labor which would likely have been his lot in
life. Young Erich had been fascinated with magic since he was a young
lad, when he was in the audience of a magic show put on by a traveling
magician named Dr. Lynch. Billing themselves as the "Houdini Bros." in
tribute to French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Erich Weiss
became an entertainer, though it took him some seven years to catch on.
Weiss and Hayman specialized in the Crate Escape (eventually known as
Metamorphosis or The Substitution Trunk), and Houdini's brother
Theodore replaced Hayman when he became uninterested in the act.
Eventually, Theodore -- billed as Hardeen -- was replaced by Wilhemina
Rahner (known as Bess), the woman "Harry Houdini" would eventually
marry. The marriage on June 22, 1894 caused a conflict with his Jewish
family as Bess was a Roman Catholic. They married in secret, then again
at a synagogue and in a Catholic church to please both of their
families.
While developing his act, Houdini was not above the old carny trick of
posing as a spirit medium, making the rounds of the town clerk's office
and nearby cemeteries in order to provide "messages from beyond". In
1896, while visiting a doctor friend in Nova Scotia, he saw his first
strait jacket, which gave him the idea of developing an act in which he
would escape from it.
Houdini finally hit the big-time when he was 24 years old with his
Challenge Act in 1898, while he was making the rounds of vaudeville.
Houdini's Challenge Act consisted of him escaping from a pair of
handcuffs produced by an audience member. Eventually, this evolved into
escapes from strait jackets, boxes, crates, safes, and other
instruments and devices (such as his Water Torture Cell), as well as
from jail cells. Houdini was also adept at escaping from being "buried
alive". Hand-cuffed and strait-jacketed, he could escape while being
hung upside down from a crane, or while lowered from a bridge, or even
make his escape from padlocked crates lowered into a river.
Houdini also became famous as a debunker of mediums and "experts" of
the paranormal, but this was done in hope he could find an actual
medium that could communicate with the dead so that he could
communicate with his beloved mother Cecilia after she passed away. He
became quite famous in the ragtime age of the first quarter of the last
century, even appearing in motion pictures produced by his own company.
Harry Houdini, the greatest magician ever produced by America, died in
Detroit, Michigan during a national tour. The cause of death officially
was peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. His death came nine days
after having been punched in the stomach during the Canadian leg of the
tour by J. Gordon Whitehead, a McGill University student who was
testing Houdini's famed ability to take body blows. Always the trouper,
Houdini had soldiered on despite stomach pains. (Early during the tour,
he had broken an ankle but did not let it stop him or the tour.) His
wife Bess, to whom Houdini left his half-million dollar estate,
collected a double indemnity on his life insurance policy, as the blow
was considered to have shortened the great magician's life and
contributed to his premature death at the age of 52.
The date of his death was October 31, 1926 -- Halloween, one of three
days (October 31-November 2) of Samhain, the Celtic New Year, when the
veil between the living and the dead allegedly is at its thinnest and
the living can make contact with the dead. Annually on Halloween from
1927 to 1937, Bess held a séance to try to contact her departed
husband. She did not succeed, though she helped keep the memory of her
husband alive in the American consciousness. Even today, magicians
worldwide conduct séances on Halloween in an effort to contact the late
escapologist.
a memorable performance by
Tony Curtis in the eponymous 1953
film) was born Erich Weiss on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary,
though he often gave his birthplace as Appleton, Wisconsin, where he
was raised. One of five brothers and one daughter born to rabbi Samuel
Weiss and his wife Cecilia, the future Houdini was four years old when
his parents emigrated to the U.S., where Weiss, as "Harry Houdini",
became one of the major celebrities of the first age dominated by the
mass media.
His boyhood was spent in poverty and, when he was 17, he conjured up a
magic act with his friend Jack Hayman, in order to escape the poverty
and anonymity of manual labor which would likely have been his lot in
life. Young Erich had been fascinated with magic since he was a young
lad, when he was in the audience of a magic show put on by a traveling
magician named Dr. Lynch. Billing themselves as the "Houdini Bros." in
tribute to French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Erich Weiss
became an entertainer, though it took him some seven years to catch on.
Weiss and Hayman specialized in the Crate Escape (eventually known as
Metamorphosis or The Substitution Trunk), and Houdini's brother
Theodore replaced Hayman when he became uninterested in the act.
Eventually, Theodore -- billed as Hardeen -- was replaced by Wilhemina
Rahner (known as Bess), the woman "Harry Houdini" would eventually
marry. The marriage on June 22, 1894 caused a conflict with his Jewish
family as Bess was a Roman Catholic. They married in secret, then again
at a synagogue and in a Catholic church to please both of their
families.
While developing his act, Houdini was not above the old carny trick of
posing as a spirit medium, making the rounds of the town clerk's office
and nearby cemeteries in order to provide "messages from beyond". In
1896, while visiting a doctor friend in Nova Scotia, he saw his first
strait jacket, which gave him the idea of developing an act in which he
would escape from it.
Houdini finally hit the big-time when he was 24 years old with his
Challenge Act in 1898, while he was making the rounds of vaudeville.
Houdini's Challenge Act consisted of him escaping from a pair of
handcuffs produced by an audience member. Eventually, this evolved into
escapes from strait jackets, boxes, crates, safes, and other
instruments and devices (such as his Water Torture Cell), as well as
from jail cells. Houdini was also adept at escaping from being "buried
alive". Hand-cuffed and strait-jacketed, he could escape while being
hung upside down from a crane, or while lowered from a bridge, or even
make his escape from padlocked crates lowered into a river.
Houdini also became famous as a debunker of mediums and "experts" of
the paranormal, but this was done in hope he could find an actual
medium that could communicate with the dead so that he could
communicate with his beloved mother Cecilia after she passed away. He
became quite famous in the ragtime age of the first quarter of the last
century, even appearing in motion pictures produced by his own company.
Harry Houdini, the greatest magician ever produced by America, died in
Detroit, Michigan during a national tour. The cause of death officially
was peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. His death came nine days
after having been punched in the stomach during the Canadian leg of the
tour by J. Gordon Whitehead, a McGill University student who was
testing Houdini's famed ability to take body blows. Always the trouper,
Houdini had soldiered on despite stomach pains. (Early during the tour,
he had broken an ankle but did not let it stop him or the tour.) His
wife Bess, to whom Houdini left his half-million dollar estate,
collected a double indemnity on his life insurance policy, as the blow
was considered to have shortened the great magician's life and
contributed to his premature death at the age of 52.
The date of his death was October 31, 1926 -- Halloween, one of three
days (October 31-November 2) of Samhain, the Celtic New Year, when the
veil between the living and the dead allegedly is at its thinnest and
the living can make contact with the dead. Annually on Halloween from
1927 to 1937, Bess held a séance to try to contact her departed
husband. She did not succeed, though she helped keep the memory of her
husband alive in the American consciousness. Even today, magicians
worldwide conduct séances on Halloween in an effort to contact the late
escapologist.