(March 24, 1874 - October 31, 1926)
Harry Houdini was a popular magician, escapologist, stunt performer, film producer, actor, amateur aviator, and an investigator of spiritualists. Born Ehrich Weisz to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he immigrated to the United States with his parents and six siblings in July 1878. Growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin and New York City, young Ehrich trained as a cross country runner. He made his first appearance as a trapeze artist at the age of ten, aptly named "Ehrich, the Prince of the Air." 1
In 1893, Weiss appeared as one half of the "Brothers Houdini" at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Now a professional magician, Weiss was known as "Harry Houdini." Houdini alluded to the French conjurer Eugene Robert-Houdin and Harry came from a modulation of Ehrich's nickname "Ehrie." 2 At the beginning of his career, Houdini found little success performing in sideshows mostly. Performing on Coney Island, Houdini met his future wife, Bess, who replaced his friend Jack Hayman in the act. For the rest of Houdini's career, Bess would serve as his stage assistant.
In 1899, Houdini met theatrical manager Martin Beck, who advised him to focus on escape acts and quickly booked him on the Orpheum circuit. By the following year, Houdini was touring Europe with his act, where he became known as "The Handcuff King" and "World's Greatest Mystifier." 3 While in Europe Houdini challenged local policemen to restrain him and lock them in their jail cells. In Cologne, Houdini sued a police officer who claimed that Houdini made his escapes by bribing the local officials. After winning that suit, the magician returned to the United States and purchased a house in Harlem for $25,000. 4
From 1906 through the 1910s, Houdini toured the United States (including a stop at Toledo's Valentine Theatre in 1906) with great success escaping from numerous different restraints and locked cells. In 1908, the escapist began to free himself from water-filled milk cans and other contraptions that were either filled with water or lowered into water. Houdini even once escaped from the belly of a whale. A keen businessman, Houdini would tie in his acts with local merchants and would escape from devices filled with beer and other advertised liquids.
In 1912, Houdini introduced his most famous act, the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he would be lowered head-first with his ankles camped in wooden stocks and the top secured by a metal grille. Houdini would perform this particular escape for the rest of his career. 5 Other notable escapes include "The Mirror Challenge" and "The Suspended Straightjacket Escape."
In 1909, Houdini became interested in aviation and purchased a French biplane for nearly five thousand dollars. He made his first successful flight in November of that year in Hamburg, Germany and brought the plane with him on his tour of Australia in 1910. Houdini made the first controlled powered flight over Australia, but never flew thereafter. Houdini, already a popular entertainment, made his debut in film with Merveilleux Exploits du Celebre Houdini a Paris by Pathe in 1901. Nearly fifteen years later, Houdini returned to film as a special effects consultant for The Mysteries of Myra. In 1918, Houdini signed a contract with B.A. Rolfe to star in a fifteen part serial called The Master Mystery which led to leading roles in 1919's The Grim Game and 1920's Terror Island. Houdini returned to New York and started his own film production company, "Houdini Picture Corporation," and produced/starred in two films, 1921's The Man from Beyond and 1923's Haldane of the Secret Service. Although his acting career never quite panned out, Houdini was given a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
After the death of his mother in the 1920s, Houdini focused on exposing fraudulent spiritualists and psychics and reported his adventures in his book A Magician Among the Spirits. Some believed that Houdini himself was a mystic and owed his escapist performances to the mysteries of the spirit world. Among those believers was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who ended their friendship once the magician began his crusades against mediums, conjurers, and others who practiced the black arts.
Houdini died of a ruptured appendix in Detroit, Michigan, on Halloween 1926. Suffering from acute appendicitis, which was aggravated by McGill University student J. Gordon Whitehead's punches to Houdini's abdomen on October 22, Houdini performed one last time at the Garrick Theatre on October 24 and then was rushed to the hospital, where he passed away at the age of fifty-two. There are many who believe that Houdini died of poisoning at the hands of the spiritualists who he tried to expose. There was an attempt to have the magician's body exhumed based on an oddity on his death certificate (his appendix was listed on his left rather than right side), but Houdini remains interred at the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens to this day.
1. Silverman 6
2. Silverman 9
3. Silverman 49
4. Silverman 81-4
5. Brandon 161
Resources
Brandon, Ruth. The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini. New York: Random House, 1993.
Brandon's biography provides basic facts of Houdini's life and his emergence as America's foremost illusionist. The strength of this book lies in its many photographs and the author's discussion of Houdini's near-death experiences.
"Harry Houdinia." Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini 28 September 2007.
This online research database provides basic chronologies, anecdotes, and a useful place from which to begin research. However, at times, the "facts" are questionable.
"Harry Houdini." IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0396378 28 September 2007.
This online database provides complete filmographies, mini-biographies, and trivia for all persons who have made motion pictures.
"Harry Houdini." IBDB. http://ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=87647 29 September 2007.
This online database provides complete stage credits, biographical facts, and awards for all persons who have appeared on Broadway.
Silverman, Kenneth. Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Silverman's biography of Houdini is the most useful resource I found. His chronologies, anecdotes, and first person accounts of Houdini's life and career are invaluable. The photographs included are also effective in providing a small glimpse into Houdini's private and public selves.
Messer-Kruse, Timothy. "The Valentine Theatre." Toledo's Attic. 4 October 2007 http://www.toledosattic.org/details.asp?did=63.
This online article gives a performance history of the Valentine Theatre in Toledo, Ohio and is the only mention I could find of Houdini's performance there.