Houdini: A Life Worth Reading Read online

  The first hint of fame: A savvy manager named Martin Beck gave Houdini some good advice and his first big break.

  Around 1891, when Ehrich was seventeen years old, he quit his main job at the clothing factory to dedicate himself full-time to his career in magic. Ehrich joined with his friend Jacob Hyman to form a duo of magicians they called “The Brothers Houdini.” The name Houdini came from an alteration of Ehrich’s hero, the French magician Robert-Houdin. Ehrich, whose nickname was “Ehrie,” morphed his first name into Harry. Harry Houdini was born.

  Some biographers speculate that Ehrich invented the persona of Harry Houdini as an alter ego that had the power to escape from the terrible poverty and anti-Jewish rhetoric that had filled his childhood. They believe that he was driven to develop an omnipotent character that couldn’t be contained by any force because of this deep urge to escape the powerlessness he experienced as a child. Whatever the real reasons, Ehrich, now Harry Houdini, began practicing his magic tricks several hours a day. He bought and read every book about magic that he could find. He learned that all handcuffs could be opened with a small number of keys and started practicing escaping from ropes with the help of a knowledgeable friend.

  The actual members of the Brothers Houdini fluctuated. Jacob Hyman, discouraged by the lack of success of the show, quit the duo. Jacob’s brother Joe Hyman replaced him for a while, but eventually quit as well. Houdini recruited his own younger brother Theodore, whom everyone called Dash. Dash looked like a huskier version of Houdini. Houdini was decidedly the boss of the duo. Their show consisted of card tricks and sleight of hand, but the major act was a trick Houdini called “Metamorphosis.” This trick had become possible when Houdini purchased equipment from a retiring magician, after borrowing the needed money from Dash. The equipment included a trunk with a hidden escape hatch.

  Performers normally used the trunk to lock themselves in, and then appear at another part of the theater. Houdini combined this trick idea with his developing ability to perform escapes. With his hands bound behind his back, Houdini was tied in a sack and put in the trunk. His assistant, Dash, drew some curtains around the trunk and announced a miracle on the count of three. Upon reaching the number three, the curtains were parted and Houdini stood outside of the trunk, untied. Inside the trunk, which Houdini now opened, was a tied sack containing Dash, whose hands were now tied behind his back.

  Despite the success that other performers enjoyed with the trunk trick, the Brothers Houdini failed to draw big crowds. They usually performed as opening acts for other artists in dime museums and beer halls, making only the money that people threw into a hat. At the suggestion of a friend, Houdini tried polishing up his speech, changing the street slang he normally used to more formal, grammatically correct English. Despite not having gone to school full time as a child, Houdini had grown up with a very educated father from whom he had inherited a love of books and education. But still, the Brothers Houdini failed to have any real success.

  In 1894, right around the time that his father died, Houdini met a petite, dark-haired girl named Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner. Raised in a family of German Catholic immigrants, Wilhelmina was born in Brooklyn and went by the nickname Bess. Bess was a performer who sang and danced in a group called the Floral Sisters. Dash reportedly met her first during a performance and introduced her to Houdini. Houdini and Bess married after only two or three weeks of courtship and went to Coney Island for their honeymoon. Houdini was twenty and Bess was eighteen. Bess’s mother objected to the marriage because Houdini was Jewish while Bess’s family was Catholic, and Bess and her mother became estranged. Houdini and Bess took some time to get used to each other. Houdini was horrified to learn that Bess believed in many superstitions which he regarded as nonsense, and Bess had to cope with her husband’s odd habits and intense work ethic, which allowed him to only sleep five hours a night.

  Houdini quickly ejected Dash from the magic act and made Bess his partner; he and Bess became “The Houdinis.” Bess’s small size and pretty, expressive features enhanced the act, and Metamorphosis began to attract some attention. The Houdinis continued to perform in dime museums, doing up to fourteen acts a day. Houdini also tried to earn some money by selling short publications explaining various magic tricks. The Houdinis traveled around to various circuses and shows, and Houdini formed long-term friendships with other performers, individuals with physical oddities who made their living as “freaks.”

  Houdini later claimed that Bess changed his luck. But the early career of the Houdinis was grueling and low paying; Houdini and Bess worked contract to contract with various performing shows, often traveling with few amenities and sleeping on cots in bunks shared with other performers. The two tried several versions of their act, including a comedy show billed under Bess’s maiden name, “The Rahners.” Houdini and Bess sometimes doubled as other actors as needed, including stints as the Wild Man and a singing clown, respectively.

  Police Escape Publicity Stunts

  Houdini bought a share in a burlesque show known as “the Gaiety Girls,” and Bess and Houdini traveled with the show through New York, Pennsylvania, and New England. Trying to create publicity for the shows, Houdini began showing up at local police stations and challenging police officials to find handcuffs from which he could not escape. After first attracting great attention with this performance while in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Houdini repeated it at police stations all over New England. Police would secure him with up to six pairs of handcuffs at once, and Houdini would duck into a private room and emerge with the handcuffs open in under a minute.

  The burlesque company eventually went bankrupt, but Houdini continued his escape stunts to promote whatever shows with which he was performing. In New Brunswick, Canada, police cuffed Houdini with sophisticated leather cuffs used to restrain patients in insane asylums. Houdini escaped within a few minutes. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the sheriff clamped him in iron cuffs. Houdini was able to get out of them to great fanfare. In Chicago, he met challenges that he was hiding impressions of the jail’s locks by offering to strip naked for his escape. The police accepted this challenge, locking Houdini’s clothes in another cell. Houdini appeared mere moments later, fully dressed. Houdini’s name made the papers that night, and this trick became known as the Nude Cell Escape. Houdini did experience a defeat shortly afterwards in Chicago, as the handcuffs put on him had been tampered with so that they would not open. Some biographers point out that Houdini’s willingness to bare his body and the public’s fascination with this trick might point to an element of eroticism in Houdini’s appeal.

  While touring with a medicine show in Kansas, Houdini tried a new moneymaking tactic, that of “speaking to the spirits.” Spiritualism was a growing trend, with crowds paying conjurers to speak with their dead. Houdini, recognizing the simple tricks used to deceive naïve crowds into thinking that their deceased loved ones were reaching out from beyond the grave, made money with these performances, but soon abandoned them. He felt it was wrong to take advantage of vulnerable people who were mourning the loss of family and friends.

  While Houdini enjoyed periodic flashes of fame due to his escapes from police stations, and the Houdini’s performance of “Metamorphosis” was often a show-closer, he and Bess remained poor and relatively unknown. In 1898, the Houdinis returned to New York, exhausted from life on the road. While staying with his mother, Houdini, desperate to make a living that didn’t involve the beer hall circuit, created a catalog for a magic school, in which he offered to teach pupils his escape tricks. Seriously considering getting out of the magic performance business, the Houdinis went to the Chicago area in December of 1898 to fulfill some previously agreed-to contracts. While performing in a beer hall in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Houdini was discovered by Martin Beck, a powerful manager who ran a circuit of vaudeville theaters.

  Houdini’s First Year of Fame

  Martin Beck was a big name in the vaudeville circuit, booking for a group of major theaters kno
wn as the Orpheum Circuit. Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment for middle-class American families of the time, consisting of shows performed in nice theaters, for which tickets were somewhat costly. A show usually consisted of eight to ten novelty acts, including acrobats, comedy routines, and a variety of talent and magic demonstrations. Vaudeville was considered a classier form of entertainment than that found in beer halls and dime museums, and a tour with a vaudeville show involved staying for one to two weeks at the same theater, performing only twice a day. For Houdini and Bess, who were accustomed to constant travel and performing up to fourteen times a day, performing in vaudeville was a luxurious life.

  Houdini’s brother Dash later credited Martin Beck as being the manager who made Houdini famous. Originally a German actor, Beck had become the owner of several vaudeville theaters. He excelled at recognizing not only talent but also at knowing how to present it to audiences. Beck also was able to manage Houdini’s mercurial moods and frequently unreasonable demands. As he told Houdini from the beginning, he was determined to make Houdini a big name. He recommended that Houdini ditch his card tricks and smaller illusions and focus on performing his escapes. Houdini rearranged his act to include a needle-swallowing trick, Metamorphosis, and various innovative escape tricks, including escapes from thumb-cuffs, leg irons, and double-springed handcuffs. He continued to challenge police in stations around the country to try to restrain him inside their cells and in their best cuffs, agreeing to be stripped naked, searched, and to have his mouth taped shut in order to prove that he wasn’t hiding any tools. In San Francisco he challenged local officials to place him in a straitjacket, the formidable reverse coat used to restrain criminally insane individuals. He escaped in less than ten minutes. Often Houdini’s body was left bloody and bruised from the contortions and exertions of these escapes, but Houdini’s trademark determination prevailed over these small injuries.

  Beck made good on his promise to take care of Houdini. Beck steadily increased Houdini’s salary and made careful plans for the development of his fame around the country and the world. Houdini, who had been making next to nothing on the beer hall circuit, began under Beck at sixty dollars a week, advancing to almost four hundred dollars a week by the end of his first year under Beck’s management. At that time, that amount of money made Houdini a very rich man. He bought Bess extravagant gifts and sent money home to his mother, to whom he was devoted.

  Houdini continued the rigorous daily practice of his tricks and hunted for new innovations. His ego also grew. He began to have serious disagreements with Martin Beck, scoffing at the percentage of profits that Beck took and complaining about lower-paying gigs that Beck had booked before Houdini achieved great fame. Beck managed Houdini’s ego well. He did not back down in the face of Houdini’s ungrateful demands. Beck planned a European tour for Houdini, followed by a return to the States, where he wanted Houdini finally to become recognized in New York City.

  While in Europe, Houdini filled out a passport application, reporting that he had been born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Many biographers say that this fiction was symbolic of Harry Houdini’s goal of erasing his poverty-stricken childhood as the child of a disadvantaged immigrant family.

  Know More About: Vaudeville

  Vaudeville began in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It grew out of other types of variety shows such as medicine shows, burlesque acts, and minstrel shows, among others. It was short-lived, lasting only into the early part of the twentieth century.

  Vaudeville was characterized by its diversity. Each “show” held a variety of acts. It had dialogues (short, often comical, plays), juggling, pantomime, singing, jokes, dancing, contortion acts, and many other performances.

  Houdini’s magic act, especially in its early stages, fit in as well as anything in the hodgepodge environment of vaudeville. His later tricks, which required more time to complete and strange settings (such as a bridge or boiler) would not have fit in. Neither would Houdini’s ego have worked well in vaudeville had it survived as a popular form of entertainment. As he grew more famous, he became more interested in being the star of the show. But, for a start, vaudeville allowed him to hone his talents and become familiar with performing for an audience. It also allowed him access to professional performers.

  III. Houdini, the King of Handcuffs

  Read It and Know It

  After reading this chapter, you will know more about

  The Nude Cell Escape: Part magic, part scandalous nudity, this trick performed in police stations helped Houdini drum up publicity.

  Early lawsuits: When Houdini sued a newspaper for slander, a lucky break might have ensured his victory.

  Houdini’s disdain for imitators: Not satisfied with being the best, Houdini often humiliated magicians who claimed his prowess with handcuffs for themselves.

  The international view of Houdini: Germany loved him, Paris was ambivalent, and Russia allowed him despite strong anti-Semitic sentiments.

  Houdini arrived in London believing that bookings were waiting for him. He was enraged to find out that the international agent that Beck referred him to had failed to have anything ready. Houdini set out to drum up publicity by challenging the Scotland Yard police to confine him. He managed to get himself booked at the famous London theatre the Alhambra. London audiences loved his act, and Houdini quickly became famous there. However, he had to work harder to spread his fame into the English countryside, as the managers of theaters at various villages felt that his magic act did not fit what the family audiences of the time wanted. Houdini doggedly performed auditions for managers, until word of his unique tricks spread and he became a headliner in the country villages as well. He also advertised himself by performing the Nude Cell Escape at police stations in the small villages of the countryside. In one particularly famous performance in Sheffield, Houdini escaped from the high security unit where one of London’s most famous murderers, Charles Pace, had been imprisoned.

  For Houdini’s onstage performances, he wore the formal dress of the time: a stiff, high collar, a white dickey, and a black dress coat. Bess frequently assisted him, wearing black knickerbockers. Houdini’s brother Dash sometimes assisted as well or instead. Frequently there was a physician contracted to be backstage or onstage in case of emergency. Houdini performed his handcuff escapes behind a curtain, over which the audience could sometimes see his head, or else in a “cabinet” or “ghost house,” a construction made to conceal Houdini’s techniques from the audience.

  Houdini’s stage manner was something he studied and practiced almost as much as his magic. He worked hard to engage the audience and win them over to his side, presenting tricks with careful showmanship. He frequently made jokes that seemed self-deprecating, while also carefully building the tension in his audience members to keep them spellbound. He involved the audience in every way possible, an original tactic at the time.

  In 1901 Houdini arranged with Beck to be let out of his contract. He became his own manager. In 1902, he introduced a new trick: the Packing Case Escape. A packing case was essentially a large crate that merchants of the time used for shipping. This act was a twist on the Metamorphosis trick. Houdini would arrange for a local store to provide the crate, and then would have assistants nail him into the crate onstage. Inspectors selected from the audience would verify its complete closing. The secret to Houdini’s escape involved his ability to noiselessly disassemble the crate from the inside; Bess or another ally would direct the nailing shut of the crate such that one wall of the crate was less enforced. Many nails would be hammered into the top of the crate, creating the impression that it was sealed very tight all around. But, since Houdini did not come out of the top of the crate, this did not affect his ability to escape. Audiences loved this trick, and in one particular performance in Glasgow, Scotland at the Zoo-Hippodrome theatre, the crowd filled the theater and the streets outside to see it.

  As part of his publicity campaign, Houdini frequently offered a rew
ard to the public to anyone who could cuff him so that he could not escape. He did specify that he would only be cuffed by regulation, unaltered equipment. One experience that haunted him occurred in the working-class city of Blackburn, England. There, a young body-builder by the name of Hodgson challenged him to escape from powerful cuffs with which he had tampered. Goaded by the young man’s scorn, Houdini accepted the challenge despite the tampering. Hodgson, who was knowledgeable about anatomy, cuffed Houdini in a torturous way that cut off his circulation and caused great pain. After fifteen minutes of working on the cuffs, Houdini explained that his circulation had been cut off and asked Hodgson to allow him a break from the cuffs for it to return. Hodgson refused. Houdini returned to the torturous struggle, and after almost two hours, emerged free from restraints, his body bloody and torn.

  Hodgson, however, scorned Houdini’s efforts in a public interview shortly after the performance, saying that he had evidence that Houdini had cut himself out of the cuffs with the help of Bess and his brother Dash, who were onstage with him. Enraged, Houdini changed his plans so that he could return to Blackburn to rebut these charges. Even though he returned to Blackburn on later tours, he always faced Hodgson-supporters who booed him while onstage and challengers who tried to defeat him using damaged cuffs.