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It's just after midday on the 7th of May, 1907. We're in Rochester, New York, on the banks of the Erie Canal. This major transportation route is usually bustling with barges ferrying goods to New York City from the Great Lakes. Today, though, there isn't a single barge in sight. Instead, both canal banks are crammed full with thousands of excitable people, and they're all here to see one man.
Right now, that smartly dressed man, all five foot five of him, is striding confidently up the iron bridge that spans the canal some twenty-five feet above the water. Cheers and applause carry him towards the center. He reaches a policeman standing on the bridge, nods and begins stripping out of his clothes. The policeman watches seemingly unmoved as he sheds his smart suit to reveal a muscular, athletic body.
Now, with only long white underpants covering his modesty, he holds his hands out, wrists clasped together to the waiting policeman, who promptly shackles him in not one, but two pairs of handcuffs. As the man holds his clamped wrists up for the crowd to see, their own look has become more boisterous. They've been looking forward to this all week. One woman in the audience is not cheering though.
Cecilia Weiss, the man's mother, stares on anxiously, worried for her precious son's life. Surely, she thinks, no one can survive in those icy waters, with their hands shackled in heavy irons dragging them under. As the crowd cheers, the man clambers up onto the huge iron girders that make up the bridge's side. There, like a half-naked high diver, he balances on the metal edge, looking down at the sluggish waters below.
On the bridge, he takes a moment to compose himself, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. With a final, deep breath, he leaps. The crowd cries out as a huge splash hits the water and then silence. Just as he must be doing in the water, the crowd holds its breath. A gull squawks overhead as the seconds tick by. All eyes are on the still, rippling surface.
Fifteen heart-stopping seconds later, the man emerges triumphantly, his upstretched arm waving the opened handcuffs above his head. The crowd erupts in celebration. The great Harry Houdini, the Handcuff King, has done it again. The jump from Rochester Bridge is not his first success, but it's the first ever to be filmed.
And, more importantly to Houdini, it's the first time his beloved mother, Cecilia, has watched him perform one of his increasingly dangerous, death-defying stunts. In his diary that night, he'll proudly write, Mom watched me jump. Harry Houdini is undoubtedly the best-known escape artist of all time. Even now, almost 100 years after his death, his celebrity lives on.
Any feat of escape, from dogs in backyards to prisoners in maximum security, earns the escapee the handle Houdini. His incredible tricks, illusions and escapes have become the stuff of legend. Modern illusionists from Copperfield to Blaine, Daniels to Penn and Teller, all owe their fame and fortune to Harry Houdini. He was one of America's first real celebrities, a great showman, an adrenaline junkie and a devoted son.
But how did a Hungarian immigrant, born Erik Weiss, lift himself out of abject poverty to become the vastly wealthy Harry Houdini? How did he drag himself from obscurity to international fame? And why did he risk his life again and again for over 30 years? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Network, this is a short history of Harry Houdini. In the late 1800s, America is in a state of flux.
Since the end of the Civil War, things have been on the up. Electricity lights the cities, skyscrapers dominate the skylines, and the Statue of Liberty is being built. It's the land of opportunity, and thousands of hopeful European immigrants cross the Atlantic with dreams of making their fortunes.
One such immigrant is a four-year-old boy called Eric Weiss. Though he'll go on to become the great Harry Houdini, when he arrives in America in 1878 with his three older brothers and mother, that life is a million miles away. The Weiss family quickly realize, like so many others, that the American dream is in fact a nightmare. Overcrowded living quarters, far fewer jobs than expected, and cultural discrimination mean that many immigrants end up in poverty, facing starvation and disease.
Though Eric's father, Samuel, is a German-speaking rabbi who is fortunate enough to find work in Wisconsin, it doesn't last long. After four years, the congregation let Rabbi Samuel go. In search of a new flock, he offers ad hoc rabbinical services, but it's not enough to keep the family from having to beg. Young Eric, alongside his brothers, has to find work to help support the family and their beloved mother.
At the age of eight, Erik leaves school and gets work shining shoes and delivering newspapers. By nine, he has his first taste of public showmanship, performing as a contortionist and trapeze artist in a five-cent circus he and some neighborhood friends set up. He wears red stockings and calls himself Erik, Prince of the Air. But life is hard, and even with his financial contribution, the family struggles to make ends meet.
At around 12, he runs away from home, hoping to find better luck in bigger towns. It's a radical move for the son of a close-knit Jewish family, and he tries to soften the blow by writing to his mother and reassuring her that he loves her. He intends to head to Texas, but jumps aboard the wrong train and ends up in Kansas instead. Meanwhile, his father goes to New York in search of work. Having bungled his Texas trip, Eric is the first to join him in the Big Apple.
Father and son find work in a necktie-cutting factory. It's a step down for the proud rabbi. And Eric notices his father fading. They don't know it yet, but he has cancer. In 1888, Cecilia and the rest of the family join them in New York, just in time to see the great blizzard bury the city under 30-foot snowdrifts. The family find a small apartment in a tenement building. They're still struggling for money, but at least they're all together again.
When he's not working, Erik fills his time with boxing and running. It's through these hobbies that he's introduced to the world of magic. His running coach, Joseph Rinn, is a magician. And when they're not training for races, Rinn teaches young Erik magic tricks. Neither of them knows it yet, but these lessons will set Erik on the path to becoming one of the world's greatest magicians.
Around this time, Eric pays his first visit to Coney Island, a magical place over in Brooklyn dedicated to curiosity and fun. He's filled with wonder at the sideshow acts, the strongmen, and the magical illusions. Combining the tricks he's learned from Joseph Rinn with those he's studied watching the Coney Island acts, Eric decides to start a show of his own.
In 1891, he begins performing as a sideshow magician. Pulling card tricks and performing in dime show tent acts. He's not very successful. By 18, keen to broaden his reach, he teams up with a friend from the neckwear cutting job. Jacob Hyman is a tall, mustachioed youth with an equal interest in magic. Taking inspiration from the founder of modern magic, Jean-Eugène Robert Houdin, they call themselves the Brothers Houdini.
They add the "I" because someone told them that in French adding an "I" meant "like" and they certainly want to be like Houdin. Eric, or "Eri" as his family know him, westernizes his nickname to Harry and Harry Houdini is born. By 1894 Jacob Hyman has left the brothers Houdini and branched out on his own.
Harry's younger brother, Theodore, or Dash to his friends, joins the act in his place, having always shared Harry's passion for magic. Their father, Samuel, recently succumbed to his cancer, leaving Cecilia with even less support. Harry made him a deathbed promise that he and his brothers would look after their mother. He's doing everything in his power to do just that.
While the brothers Houdini continue to scrape by on the sideshow circuit, sending money back to Cecilia in New York, Dash meets a young woman called Wilhelmina Beatrice Rana, known to everyone as Bess. She's in a song and dance act called The Floral Sisters, who are also eking out a living on the sidelines, when Dash introduces her to Harry, its love at first sight. After a three-week courtship, the pair marry on June the 22nd,
Their honeymoon is, rather fittingly, on Coney Island, which Bess later describes as "cheap but glorious". But the Brothers Houdini act can't support three performers. Keen to set out on his own, Dash leaves the group, and Bess is more than happy to take his place. The husband and wife team become the Houdinis and perform a polished routine of card tricks, sleight of hand, and some small-scale illusions, along with a healthy dose of comedy and entertainment.
They complement each other well as the magician and his glamorous assistant, Harry's athletic and muscular, and the elfin-looking Bess, with her dreamy eyes and exaggerated soft voice, makes her husband seem quite matcha. Their act picks up where the brothers Houdini left off, at dime museums.
These are odd places, which offer up chambers of horror, waxworks and live human oddities, known disparagingly as "freaks", who exhibit themselves in the so-called "curio hall". Among the Houdini's fellow attractions are Count Orloff, the human windowpane, whose debilitating condition leaves him not only with thin, transparent skin, but completely bendable limbs, as though he has no bones.
Then there's Unthan, the armless wonder, who can play the violin with his toes, and Thardo, the beautiful woman who subjects herself to repeated rattlesnake bites for audience's entertainment. These human anomalies, who draw paying crowds to marvel at their strangeness, become close friends of Houdini's. He feels a kinship with them as he too considers himself an outsider, a foreigner, a Jewish boy turned sideshow curiosity.
And from each of these friends, Houdini picks up a skill. He will learn to contort himself like Orlov, develop dexterous toes like Unthan, and understand how to rise above pain and discomfort like Thado. These skills will become the cornerstones of his future success. For now, though, the Daim museums are the only bookings they can get. In January 1895, the Houdinis get a two-week spot in Huber's Palace Museum on East 14th Street.
They perform their card tricks and clever illusions up to 14 times a day, sharing their bill with performing monkeys and what's rather offensively advertised as a sprinting contest for fat ladies. Their act is well-received, but they don't attract the kind of attention, the awe, that Houdini really craves. Frustrated with the dime museums, they join the traveling circus, playing small hamlets around Pennsylvania.
As well as a shorter version of their magic act, Bess performs as a singing clown, while Harry runs the Punch and Judy act. He also does a stint as Prohea, the wild man of Mexico, who rips raw meat with his teeth and snarls at the audience. They do what they have to do to make ends meet. But this isn't what Harry dreamt of, the glamorous life of the magician presented by Houdin. That's what he wants.
So he keeps honing their magic act, working on an illusion that will leave audiences gobsmacked. And he finds just that in a clever cabinet trick he and Bess have been performing and improving since they started together: metamorphosis. It's March 1896. In a dimly lit dime show hall on Coney Island, a small crowd wanders through the open entertainment space, admiring the various curiosities on display.
On the bill today is the one-eyed giant, the two-headed sheep, the large bearded lady. And on stage in the far corner, in front of some neatly arranged benches, is a young magician called Harry Houdini. Behind him on the stage is a large wooden packing trunk on wheels. The trunk sits in front of a dark cabinet about seven foot high and twelve foot wide. A tall frame surrounds it from which hangs a heavy black curtain.
Standing beside the curtain and smiling radiantly is Bess Houdini. Harry Houdini throws his arms out wide, flamboyantly welcoming his small audience. He clears his throat and in accented English announces: "Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be amazed. Behold the incredible, the awe-inspiring Metamorphosis." With that, Houdini calls three men out of the audience. On his instruction, they check over the trunk inside and out.
wrapping and tapping on the wood and metal bands, checking for false walls or hidden doors. Next he hands them a black flannel bag, about seven foot long. They take turns to feel the fabric, test its strength and check inside. Happy that everything is as it seems, it's time for the magic trick. Houdini asks the men to tie his hands behind his back as securely as they can. Bess then places the flannel bag into the trunk and helps Houdini to climb in.
The men pull the bag up over his head and tie it tightly. Bess strikes a match and holds it to a block of sealing wax, allowing it to drip onto the knots. She closes the trunk and with a flourish snaps a padlock over the catch, sealing Houdini in. Inside the case, Harry struggles, shouting and banging. The audience leans forward expectantly as the men retake their seats. There's no way he's getting out of that in a hurry, they think.
Standing in front of the open curtain, Bess announces: "Now then, I shall clap my hands three times and at the third and last time I ask you to watch closely for the effect." She claps. One, two, three. On three, she pulls the curtain closed as she steps behind it, out of sight. Barely three seconds later, the curtain flies open again. But Bess is gone.
In her place is Harry Houdini, untied, out of the bag and most definitely out of the trunk. But where is Bess? Bowing deeply, Houdini laps up the surprised applause. He steps back to the trunk, unties the ropes and unlocks the padlock. As he lifts the lid, a figure stands up, sheathed in the black flannel bag. Houdini shows the audience that the rope securing the top of the bag is still sealed with the wax.
He now breaks that seal, unties the rope, and the bag falls away to reveal Bess with her arms tied behind her back. And that's when the crowd goes crazy. Not only has Houdini escaped the ropes, bag, and trunk in less than three seconds, but somehow Bess has taken his place, complete with bindings. It's impossible, surely, but that's what Harry Houdini excels at: making the impossible seem possible.
Having mastered the trick of metamorphosis, Houdini's career is on the rise, but there's a long way to go yet. Later in the year, the Houdinis find themselves in New Hampshire. Still trying to improve the act, Harry announces that instead of rope, he plans to be shackled in handcuffs.
The stunt goes down well, but it also prompts some doubters to accuse him of using doctored cuffs or of hiding the key around his person. So, to prove them wrong, he pays a visit to a local police station with a journalist in tow. Once there, Houdini asks the cops to use their own handcuffs on him. Making sure they've checked him for pics, he slips into another room and emerges 18 seconds later dangling six sets of opened cuffs.
The stunt is a smart move. Not only does it prove his authenticity, but the journalist gives Houdini a glowing write-up in his paper. The free publicity pulls more people in, but the audiences are still small. And so it continues, for several years. The Houdinis make enough to scrape by, performing with traveling troops and sideshows. They even dabble in the rising trend of spiritualism by holding live seances, pretending to communicate with the other side.
The money is definitely better, but Harry Houdini is no medium, and the deception sits uneasily with him. He doesn't want to take advantage of people's grief. In 1898, as he turns 24, Harry is dismayed that despite their graft, they are still barely surviving. Needing some security, the couple rejoin the Welsh Brothers Circus, where they previously doubled as a singing clown and snarling wild man.
It's the golden age of American circuses, and Welsh Brothers is one of the best, with leaping greyhounds, wire walkers, Arabian jugglers, contortionists, clowns, even an orchestra. You name it, they've got it. The reviews start flooding in, and it's the Houdinis and their metamorphosis that receives the highest praise. By the end of the summer, their act closes the show. But when the circus wraps up for the season, bookings falter again.
This time Houdini is so deflated he thinks about quitting. It's a dark time for the illusionist. Since starting in show business, he's tried his hand as actor, acrobat, clown, a wild man, a spiritualist, a puppeteer, an illusionist, even a hypnotist. All without any lasting success. He wonders despairingly what he's got to do to hit the big time. As with most breaks, it comes down to a combination of talent, hard work and good old lady luck.
Harry Houdini's golden opportunity comes in 1899 with a chance meeting in a beer hall in Minnesota. Some theater owners are touring the place when they find Houdini finishing up the last of his contracts before he plans to retire. One of the visitors is the hugely successful vaudeville tycoon Martin Beck. On seeing Houdini's act, Beck challenges him to escape from some handcuffs he will provide, when he does so with spectacular ease.
Beck offers him the chance to open the show at one of his theaters in Omaha. If he likes the act, he'll offer a longer contract and a more than decent wage. Fortunately for Houdini, Beck likes the act. Big Time Vaudeville, which is Beck's world, plays in huge theaters in the major cities. Performances are only twice daily. None of the rushed 14 shows per day of the CD dime museums.
The contract Houdini signs with Beck on April 27, 1899 is the break he's been searching for. Bess will still be his assistant, but the show will mostly be about his incredible feats of escapology. His ten-minute slot in each performance is perfect to show off his quick escapes, leaving the audiences mystified and wanting more. For the first time in his life, Houdini tastes real success. Beck's performers stay in the best hotels, and he pays them well too.
Beck promises to make Harry's name for him, and boy, does he do that. Before the year is out, Harry is performing at leading vaudeville houses across the country. Now he needs to add more exciting tricks to the old act. The first is an incredible needle-swallowing ruse. Houdini swallows upwards of 50 sewing needles and a length of cotton. After a bit of stagecraft to make the audience believe his body is hard at work,
He pulls the thread from his mouth. Somehow, all of the needles have been threaded onto the cotton inside him. The great Shobun performs to a full house that can barely see the trick, and yet they all love it. Another new routine is a straitjacket escape. Houdini often performs car tricks for children in hospital. When leaving after one such visit, he sees a man struggling and wrestling to get out of a straitjacket. The doctor assures Houdini that it's for the man's own protection.
He also says that the restraints are impossible to escape. Well, nothing is impossible for Houdini. He gets himself one of those jackets, incorporates it into his act, and it quickly becomes a trademark. And he ramps up his stunts in police stations and jails, too. More cuffs, unbreakable cells. He tackles them all, and in the full glare of the press, who are growing to love him. But success brings detractors, and Houdini is constantly challenged by others who think they can outdo him. But he laps it all up.
the praise and the criticism proving repeatedly that he is the best of the best. By 1900, after a hugely successful year with Martin Beck, Harry Houdini is earning a weekly salary of around $400, which is just short of the entire yearly budget for an average American family. He can now support his whole family and lavish gifts on his mother and Bess, his two sweethearts as he calls them.
His name is well known in vaudeville circles, and he's barely out of the papers. But to be the best in America is not enough for him. Houdini wants to be the best in the world. One of Beck's associates, the international agent Richard Pitrow, agrees to help Houdini secure bookings abroad. London first, and then a tour of mainland Europe. It sounds ideal. Pitrow is due to travel with the Houdinis. But on the day before the voyage, he tells them he's not well enough to go.
But he assures them he has secured a number of contracts in London, which will be waiting for Houdini when he gets there. It's a barefaced lie. Not only is nothing booked, but no one in England has even heard of Harry Houdini. This doesn't stump him for long though. Well practiced in the art of self-promotion, Houdini persuades some journalists to accompany him to a police station in London, where he challenges an officer to shackle him and watch him escape.
This time the officer is the infamously cynical chief of the special branch, William Melville. When Melville learns that this brash magician is used to escaping from American handcuffs, he laughs. His trusty British-made derbies are impossible to crack, or so he believes. Half an hour later, a dumbfounded Inspector Melville takes his opened shackles back.
The reporters lap it up, writing breathlessly about how he beat Scotland Yard's unbreakable cuffs in minutes. Now he needs to translate their positive reports into bookings. He has one lead. On the long crossing from New York, he performed small entertainments for fellow passengers. One of those passengers wrote him a letter of introduction to C. Dundas Slater, manager of the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square, London. It's one of the top variety theatres in the country.
When he hears of the Scotland Yard affair, Slater agrees to a private performance. If Houdini impresses, he'll give him a spot. A small audience of London's press and about 20 Scotland Yard officers is hastily gathered. Houdini runs through the basic vaudeville routine: card tricks, metamorphosis with Bess, some handcuff escapes with the copper's own irons. None of them have seen anything like it. And that's how he wins London.
When that first stint finishes, he's booked again and again. Soon the Houdini's find themselves shuttling between the continent and London and winning hearts across Europe. He's enjoying it so much that he doesn't want to go back to America. The only thing he misses is his mother. He writes often, telling her of his achievements and sending clippings of glowing reviews. And she writes back, full of pride. All he's ever wanted is to make her happy and proud.
And now, he can rest assured Cecilia never has to worry about making ends meet again. One of Houdini's favorite things, and another masterstroke of self-promotion, is to engage the public in competition. He offers huge sums of money, hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars, to anyone who can complete one of his escapes quicker than he. He also accepts dares from all quarters. It leads to one of his most famous, most debated, and still most unexplained escapes.
The mirror cuffs. On Saturday, March 12, 1904, Houdini is performing at London's celebrated Hippodrome Theatre, demonstrating his incredible skill as challenger after challenger brings their cuffs and locks to the stage. One of the challengers is a journalist from London's daily illustrated mirror newspaper, Will A. Bennett. Bennett holds a pair of handcuffs out to Houdini, but there's something very different about these ones, and Houdini's interest is piqued.
Instead of two bracelets connected by chain, as most cuffs are, these are a single, rigid unit. Two wrist holes coupled to a solid cylinder which houses a series of intricate locks. They look almost like a pair of opera glasses. Bennett explains that he secured these cuffs from Birmingham locksmith Nathaniel Hart, who spent five years perfecting a lock which no man can pick.
Bennett declares that the Mirror newspaper is challenging the Handcuff King to beat their cuffs. But Houdini has recently endured some near impossible and very painful challenges from people determined to destroy his reputation. And he's sensing a similar thing here. He hands the cuffs back, dismissing them as not regulation. As the orchestra strikes up again, Bennett demands they stop playing.
Triumphantly, he announces to Houdini's crowd that the great Handcuff King has declined the Mirror's challenge. So he offers again, saying that if Houdini refuses this time, he can no longer use the title Handcuff King. Well, that does it. Houdini has no choice but to accept the challenge. But he says that if the cuffs have taken five years to make, he won't have time in tonight's show to break them.
He suggests a special St. Patrick's Day performance in five days' time. When the performance comes around, the audience at the Hippodrome numbers around 4,000, including 100 journalists. As he takes to the stage, a spontaneous ovation erupts. For once, Houdini seems openly concerned. In a show of honesty, he says to the crowd: "I do not know whether I will be able to get out of it or not, but I can assure you I'm going to do my best."
The rapturous applause follows him into the tent he always uses for these escapes, and the curtain closes behind him. The orchestra strikes up, and the crowd watch the tent in silent anticipation, imagining his struggle. After 22 minutes, Houdini sticks his head out of the tent to a huge volley of applause, but it quickly subsides when they realize he still has the cuffs on.
He just wants to take a look at the lock in better light. He disappears back behind the curtain. And the orchestra starts up a rousing waltz. 13 minutes later, he emerges again, sweating. This time he asks for a cushion. Bennett hesitates but agrees. A cushion is brought and Houdini returns to the tent. Another 20 minutes go by. The crowd is fizzing with anticipation. But when Houdini comes out with the cuffs still in place, they groan.
Houdini asks them to remove his coat, but Bennett refuses. He's worried that it's a ruse for Houdini to see how the cuffs are opened. Having been denied, Houdini struggles to retrieve a small penknife from his top pocket. He opens it with his teeth and slashes away at the coat, slicing it off and earning huge cheers from the crowd. With that, he goes back into the tent. The clock ticks on. It's been over an hour.
But the next time he emerges, the cuffs are finally dangling from his fingers. The audience erupts. The Handcuff King has done it. To this day, nobody knows how. There are many theories, some more viable than others. Did he swap the cuffs in the days before? Did someone smuggle him the key? In truth, we will never know. After the success of the mirror cuffs, Houdini's career skyrockets.
Earning around $5,000 a week, he wants for nothing. He's even been able to buy his mother a dress designed for Queen Victoria. He pays £50 for it, more than a year's salary for the average Londoner. Why? Because he wants Cecilia to feel like a queen. In 1905, he returns to the States in search of more headlines, more adulation, and more of his mother's praise. Simple handcuff escapes are no longer enough. His act must be death-defying.
So he begins performing his escapes underwater, submerged in a sealed milk churn, jumping from bridges with his wrists and ankles shackled, or thrown into a river in a wooden crate that's nailed shut. And then, in 1908, he hits on his most death-defying stunt of all, the water torture cell. In this spellbinding illusion, Houdini first shows his audience a clock on the theatre wall and asks them to see how long they can hold their breath.
After 60 seconds, everyone in the theater has given up. The benchmark is set. Houdini is then shackled and suspended upside down in a glass-paneled, water-filled tank. There's no doubt of the danger he's in, as he struggles to free himself, while holding his breath and battling against the relentless force of gravity. The clock ticks. 60 seconds pass. A minute and a half, two minutes. And yet Houdini is still going. The crowd begs for him to be let out.
Finally, just when it seems his time is up, Houdini emerges from the tank triumphant and unscathed, the greatest showman putting on the greatest show. It's not just on stage that he is wowing crowds. In 1910, Harry Houdini adds another triumph to his list of daredevil exploits, and it's nothing to do with handcuffs. It's around 8am on March 18th, 1910. We're in Diggers Rest, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
It's a crisp, clear morning, and despite the early hour a crowd has already gathered in this dusty field. They're here to see the great Harry Houdini achieve another spectacular first. On the dusty grass stands one of the greatest technical advances of the day: a 60-horsepower Voisin biplane. Its great canvas wings look almost like a pair of box kites strapped together, as its light wooden frame wobbles gently in the breeze.
At the front, a huge, gleaming propeller glints in the sun. The name Houdini is emblazoned boldly along the wings and tail sail. The crowd cheers as Houdini strides across the field with his wife, Bess. He stops in front of the plane, waves cheerfully, pulls on his leather flying helmet, kisses Bess, and points to the sky. In these early days of aviation, when a man kisses his wife goodbye, it's a serious matter.
But Bess has long grown used to Harry risking his life for celebrity. She smiles as he clambers up into the cockpit. He pulls down his goggles and takes his place in the pilot's seat. Having bought the plane in Germany and travelled with her by boat, he's flown her a few times before, but never in Australia. In fact, no one has. Today, Houdini hopes the voisin will help him write his name in history as the first man to fly on Australian soil.
The wing flaps squeak as he tests the rudders. He adjusts his helmet once more, and then he's all set. A man steps up to the propeller and with a great heave sets it spinning. The engine sputters to life and he is off. The plane trundles forward, forcing the man who helped start her to fling himself to the ground, narrowly avoiding her wings. The engine whines and coughs as Houdini pulls back on the controls, and she is up. The crowd goes wild. He's doing it.
Harry Houdini is actually flying over Australian soil. They've never seen anything like it. It's only a two-minute flight, but it writes Houdini's name in aviation history as the first person to ever make a controlled flight in Australia. With his Australian tour over and his place in history confirmed, Houdini returns to America. Now he enters a new stage of his career. He's tired of theatres and of playing only to the wealthy.
He certainly doesn't need the money either, but he still wants the fame and the adulation. He starts performing his stunts in the open, for all to see, including a dramatic escape from a straitjacket while suspended upside down from a building in New York City. It seems there's nothing Houdini cannot do, apart from perhaps defeat Father Time. In 1913, on the eve of departing on another tour, this time to give a command performance to the King of Sweden,
Harry notices his mother, Cecilia, seems to be weakening. She rebuffs his concerns and he reluctantly heads off on tour. But as he arrives in Europe, he gets a cable from his brother: Cecilia died on the 17th of July. Houdini faints upon reading the news and when he comes to, weeps uncontrollably. He'll never recover from the grief, but the show must go on. At the time of her death, he has bookings for the next three years.
He gets through the performances, but the torment of her loss haunts the rest of his waking hours. Nothing seems to bring him joy anymore. Though he continues to perform for another decade, by 1926 he's exhausted. In the Princess Theatre in Montreal, he allows some students into the dressing room between acts. They're writing about him for their paper. While they're chatting, one of them, Jay Gordon Whitehead, asks if it's true that Houdini can withstand punches to the stomach.
Houdini casually says, yes, his stomach can endure most blows. Before he knows what's happening, the student punches him hard in the gut, and then again, and again. When Houdini keels over, Whitehead punches him up to seven times more. Houdini, the wind knocked out of him, raises his hand and quietly says, that will do. He explains that he wasn't ready for the blows. It clearly hurt him, and he performs the next day in great pain.
In the weeks that follow, it only gets worse. Finally, he's admitted to hospital, where doctors discover his appendix has ruptured. To make matters worse, he has peritonitis, a dangerous infection of the abdomen. Perhaps he already had appendicitis and mistook the pain for bruising from the recent punches. Or maybe the punches ruptured his stomach, causing the infection. Either way, he's left it too late. For a few more days, he fights on.
The papers are full of updates on his condition. No one believes he won't make it. Houdini always makes it. But finally he whispers to his brother: "I can't fight anymore." On October 31st, Halloween 1926, Harry Houdini dies, aged 52. Thousands turn out to watch his funeral procession. At his request, his head rests on a pillow of letters from his mother. He's in the casket he used for his one and only buried alive escape.
and those watching hope and expect Houdini to sit up, revealing this as his greatest trick. But he does not. This time there will be no escape. After Houdini's death, Bess conducts a séance every year for ten years, as she promises him she would. Houdini spent much of his life debunking spiritualism and was determined not to be tricked after death.
He and Bess created a number of secret messages to make sure she knows that anyone claiming contact was genuine. One of them is the mirror cuffs, which he locked before his death. If it's genuinely him reaching out from the other side, he'll unlock the cuffs to prove it. After ten years and no contact, Bess turns out the shrine light. Good night, Houdini. Nearly 100 years after his death, Houdini is still celebrated and revered.
He was a proud, insanely talented man, aggressively defensive of his act, of his reputation and of his family. At 5'5" he is the giant upon whose shoulders most other magicians have stood. And yet he never felt like he achieved enough. He chased headlines and crowds and adulation. But he often said that he knew they only came to watch him die. In that belief, he is wrong. They came to watch him not die.
What people loved was being able to see with their own eyes the impossible made possible. In doing that, Houdini made himself seem superhuman. Many would say magic.