Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini (March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was the stage name of Ehrich Weiss (born Weisz Erik in the native Hungarian), one of the most famous magicians, escapologists, and stunt performers of all time as well as an investigator of spiritualists.

Career

In 1891, Ehrich became a professional magician, and began calling himself Harry Houdini as a tribute to the French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (he would make Houdini his legal name in 1913). Initially, his magical career met with little success, though he met fellow performer Wilhelmina Beatrice (Bess) Rahner in 1893, and married her three weeks later. For the rest of his performing career, Bess would work as his stage assistant.

Related Topics:
1891 - Magician - Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin - 1913 - 1893

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Houdini initially focused on cards and other traditional card acts.

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At one point he billed himself as the King of Cards. One of his most notable non-escape stage illusions was performed in London's hippodrome: he vanished a full-grown elephant (with its trainer) from a stage, beneath which was a swimming pool.

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He soon began experimenting with escape acts, however. Harry Houdini's "big break" came in 1899, when he met the showman Martin Beck. Impressed by Houdini's handcuffs act, Beck advised him to concentrate on escape acts and booked him on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Within months, he was performing at the top vaudeville houses in the country. In 1900, Houdini travelled to Europe to perform. By the time he returned in 1904, he had become a sensation.

Related Topics:
Escape acts - 1899 - Handcuffs - Vaudeville - 1900 - Europe - 1904

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From 1904 and throughout the 1910s, Houdini usually performed with great success in the United States. He would free himself from handcuffs, chains, ropes and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope or suspended in water, sometimes in plain sight of the audience. In 1913, he introduced perhaps his most famous act, the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he was suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet full to overflowing with water.

Related Topics:
1904 - 1910s - 1913 - Chinese Water Torture

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He explained some of his tricks in books written in the 1920s.

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Many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. Other times, he carried concealed lockpicks or keys, being able to regurgitate small keys at will. He was able to escape from a milk can which had its top fastened to its collar because the collar could be separated from the rest of the can from the inside. When tied down in ropes or straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, and moving his arms slightly away from his body, and then dislocating his shoulders. His straitjacket escape was originally performed behind curtains, with him popping out free at the end. However, Houdini discovered that audiences were more impressed and entertained when the curtains were eliminated, so that they could watch him struggle to get out. He performed his straitjacket escape dangling upside-down from the roof of a building for increased dramatic effect on more than one occasion.

Related Topics:
Lockpick - Regurgitate - Straitjacket

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Difficult though it was, Houdini's entire act, including escapes,

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was also performed on a coordinated but separate tour schedule by his brother, Theo Weiss ("Dash" to the Weiss family), under the name "Hardeen". The major difference between the two was in the straitjacket escape; Houdini dislocated both his shoulders to get out, but Hardeen could dislocate only one.

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In 1910, while on a tour of Australia, Houdini brought with him a primitive bi-plane with which he made the first controlled powered aeroplane flight in Australia.http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/houdini_bio.html History records that there were several competitors for the record-making flight, but they narrowly missed out.

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