Houdini: A Life Worth Reading Read online

  In Houdini’s other stunt, the Manacled Bridge Jump (also known as the Underwater Handcuff Release), Houdini himself admitted that he was doing something dangerous. This trick involved a handcuffed Houdini leaping from high bridges into rivers below and emerging from the water unshackled. He debuted this trick on film in Rochester, New York and repeated it in the Mississippi River in New Orleans, the Detroit River, the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, and the Charles River in Boston, from the Harvard Bridge. At least one imitator died doing this trick.

  Houdini also continued his nude cell escapes, his most famous of this era being from the high-security prison in Washington that had been designed specifically to hold President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau. Houdini not only escaped Guiteau’s cell, but also let the other eight prisoners in the other cells of the jail out, convinced them to swap cells, locked them back in, retrieved his clothes, and arrived in the main foyer of the prison.

  Houdini arranged for his brother Dash, now the magician Hardeen, to follow him to America and again be his closest rival. It is unclear how much of the rivalry, which was played out in boasts each made to the press, was staged and how much was real.

  While performing in the States, Houdini opened up his biggest challenge to the public yet: essentially, that he could escape from anything, at anytime. The public rose to meet this challenge. A Pennsylvania tool company challenged Houdini to escape from their strong vises, a Chicago envelope company designed a huge envelope for him to escape from, and the United States Postal Services provided him with mailbags from which to escape. The list goes on and on. In an escape from automobile chains made by the Weed Tire Chain Grip Company, Houdini took nearly twenty minutes to get out and emerged exhausted and speechless.

  In 1906 Houdini orchestrated three escapes in the city of Boston that had the city’s residents spellbound. In the first of the escapes, he was triple-handcuffed inside a rattan hamper. In the second, he broke out of the city jail, somehow eluding police stationed at the three exits, and called them blocks away from the theater to let them know that he’d left. In the third performance, at Harvard University, students tied him with over sixty feet of rope, from which he escaped in around twelve minutes. Houdini also performed his needle-swallowing trick for a group of Boston physicians.

  The following year, 1907, Houdini returned to Boston for another daredevil trick: an escape from an iron boiler made by a Cambridge manufacturer. The trick did not go as planned, and Houdini took nearly an hour to escape, emerging bloody and trembling. His fame in Boston reached a huge climax.

  V. Houdini, the Aviator

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  Houdini and the sea: Able to escape from handcuffs even underwater, Houdini nonetheless suffered from seasickness.

  Houdini’s obsession: He didn’t just want to learn to fly; he wanted to be the first in the country.

  Accidental fame: Although Houdini never intended to perform in Australia, the desire to fly brought him to the island continent where the tricks he performed to support his new obsession made him popular.

  Houdini’s “flight”iness: After only a few years, Houdini was bored with flying and sold his plane.

  Despite having vowed to never perform in Australia, Houdini found himself on his way to that continent on a ship called the Malwa in 1910. Houdini, who always got very seasick when traveling by boat, reportedly lost twenty-five pounds on the trip. He was determined, however, to reach Australian shores because of a new obsession: flying airplanes. In 1909 the first flights around the world were taking place, and Houdini immediately became obsessed with aviation. He bought himself a plane in Hamburg, Germany and rented the services of a plane mechanic named Brassac. Houdini began to train with Brassac in Hamburg and then in Paris. He was determined to become the first man in flight in Australia.

  On February 6, 1909 the ship finally reached Australia. Houdini exhausted himself by continuing to perform his magic shows while keeping a rigorous flying practice schedule. Others on the Australian continent were getting close to getting into the air, and Houdini wanted to be the first. On the morning of March 18, he took three successful flights. A day earlier, another amateur aeronaut had also taken flight but didn’t reach an altitude high enough to technically have completed what officials called a flight. Perhaps troubled by this possible challenge to his record, Houdini kept taking more and riskier flights, with more and more spectators coming to watch.

  While in Australia, Houdini performed his manacled bridge dives and became a celebrity there as well. He was able to obtain ringside seats to boxing matches, boxing being one of his passions.

  In May of 1910 Houdini finally packed up his plane and headed back to New York. Houdini kept up with aviation in the United States, watching professional aviators take flights that were beyond his reach just a few years ago in Australia. In 1913 Houdini sold his plane and announced that he was done with flying.

  In Houdini’s Words

  Houdini’s experience in Australia was not limited to flying, as mentioned above. While there he traveled and performed. As always, he sought to improve his performance and explore the methods of other performers. In Miracle Mongers and Their Methods Houdini describes a story he became familiar with about the experience of the Australian traveler. His tone in this passage helps us to discover some of his thoughts about the island continent he was so reluctant to visit.

  I will here relate the story of a sad death—I might feel inclined to call it suicide—which occurred in Melbourne shortly before my arrival in the colonies. About a year previous to the time of which I am now writing, a gentleman of birth and education, a Cambridge B. A., a barrister by profession and a literary man by choice, with his wife and three children emigrated to Victoria. He arrived in Melbourne with one hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket, and hope unlimited in his heart.

  Poor man! He, like many another man, quickly discovered that muscles in Australia are more marketable than brains. His little store of money began to melt under the necessities of his wife and family. To make matters worse he was visited by a severe illness. He was confined to his bed for some weeks, and during his convalescence his wife presented him with another of those "blessings to the poor man," a son.

  It was Christmas time, his health was thoroughly restored, he naturally possessed a vigorous constitution; but his heart was beginning to fail him, and his funds were sinking lower and lower.

  At last one day, returning from a long and solitary walk, he sat down with pen and paper and made a calculation by which he found he had sufficient money left to pay the insurance upon his life for one year, which, in the case of his death occurring within that time, would bring to his widow the sum of three thousand pounds. He went to the insurance office, and made his application—was examined by the doctor—the policy was made out, his life was insured. From that day he grew moody and morose, despair had conquered hope.

  At this time a snake-charmer came to Melbourne, who advertised a wonderful cure for snake-bites. This charmer took one of the halls in the town, and there displayed his live stock, which consisted of a great number of the most deadly and venomous snakes which were to be found in India and Australia.

  This man had certainly some most wonderful antidote to the poison of a snake's fangs. In his exhibitions he would allow a cobra to bite a dog or a rabbit, and, in a short time after he had applied his nostrum the animal would thoroughly revive; he advertised his desire to perform upon humanity, but, of course, he could find no one would be fool enough to risk his life so unnecessarily.

  The advertisement caught the eye of the unfortunate emigrant, who at once proceeded to the hall where the snake charmer was holding his exhibition. He offered himself to be experimented upon; the fanatic snake-charmer was delighted, and an appointment was made for the same evening as soon as the "show" should be over.

  The evening came; the unfortunate man kept his appointment, and, in t
he presence of several witnesses, who tried to dissuade him from the trial, bared his arm and placed it in the cage of an enraged cobra and was quickly bitten. The nostrum was applied apparently in the same manner as it had been to the lower animals which had that evening been experimented upon, but whether it was that the poor fellow wilfully did something to prevent its taking effect—or whatever the reason—he soon became insensible, and in a couple of hours he was taken home to his wife and family—a corpse. The next morning the snake-charmer had flown, and left his snakes behind him.

  The insurance company at first refused payment of the policy, asserting that the death was suicide; the case was tried and the company lost it, and the widow received the three thousand pounds. The snake-charmer was sought in vain; he had the good fortune and good sense to be seen no more in the Australian colonies.

  VI. Houdini, the Evolving Magician and Illusionist

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  After reading this chapter, you will know more about

  Houdini’s new act: Eschewing handcuff tricks, the magician focused on more daring escapes.

  Early injuries: As he grew older, Houdini’s tricks began to take a physical toll.

  The death of Cecilia: When Houdini’s mother passed, the magician was deeply grieved and had difficulty recovering.

  Illusions: Houdini used these tricks, which were growing in popularity, in astonishing ways.

  Starting in 1910, Houdini announced that he would no longer do handcuff tricks. To replace these stunts, Houdini turned to even more daring and complex acts: the Underwater Box Escape, the Crazy-Crib, and the Chinese Water Torture Cell. In a forever-famous incident, Houdini scheduled an underwater escape in the East River of New York. However, the police prevented him from performing, so Houdini had a tugboat bring him out to federal waters. Once there, he was shackled and placed inside a thick pine box, with holes that allowed water and air to get in. The box was thrown over the side of the boat. Houdini managed to get out of the box and the shackles, climbing into the boat to great cheers. Houdini repeated this stunt in New York in 1914 in the waters off Battery Park, to great fanfare.

  Houdini also performed escapes from restraints used to confine criminally insane individuals, including “crazy-cribs,” which were lightweight beds with extensive straps. He invited more “one-time-only” challenges from the public, which lead to his escape from ropes in which he dangled from the Heidelberg Tower’s roof in New York City. He also escaped from the belly of a huge sea creature found in Cape Cod, which was brought to a stage and chained closed after Houdini climbed inside.

  Houdini additionally introduced escapes from torture chambers brought from around the world, including the Chinese sanguaw, the Scottish gibbet, and the German iron maiden torture chest. Houdini devised yet another, more complex torture chamber for himself: the Chinese Water Torture Cell, or the Upside Down (USD). In this device, Houdini was shackled upside down with his feet in stocks and lowered into a vat of water. The stocks were then closed with padlocks. Many people at the time believed that Houdini was only able to escape from the cell by using supernatural abilities to dematerialize and re-materialize. Only a few people in the world know how Houdini actually did this trick.

  Houdini’s years of constant, physical performances took a strain on his body. In 1911 he suffered his first lasting injury, a broken blood vessel in a kidney sustained when he was tied too tightly in one of his public challenges. The doctor told Houdini that he needed to stop his contortionist activities for good, but Houdini refused. He tore a ligament in his side soon after.

  Houdini began to need help lugging around his huge amount of equipment. But he risked exposure of his secrets by employing assistants. He carefully selected helpers, whom he paid well and made take oaths of secrecy about what they learned about his magic. Even still, the assistants were never told the whole story behind any trick, just in case one were to betray him. Likely Dash and Bess were the only two people who knew how Houdini really pulled off his tricks.

  In July of 1913 Houdini left for Europe again. He got word of his mother Cecilia’s grave illness soon after arriving and headed straight back to her bedside. Unfortunately, Cecilia passed away before Houdini arrived, and Houdini returned to his European tour with a grieving heart.

  In Nuremberg, Germany, he defied a court order that forbid him from performing the Chinese Water Torture Cell under the waters of a lake near Nuremberg; he was prosecuted by the police and won the case. Houdini was the only one who didn’t seem to take pleasure in the ridiculous proceedings; he sat lost in grief in the courtroom. Houdini saw that his black mood was having a negative effect on Bess’s health and resolved to bounce back. He took Bess on a vacation in the French Riviera but indulged in a morbid fascination with a cemetery there.

  Houdini tried starting a new show based solely on illusions instead of on escape tricks, including an illusion invented by another magician, the Expanding Cube. Houdini performed this illusion by telling the audience that his wife was inside a small die, and then “making” the die expand, removing the enlarged item to reveal Bess, sitting on the platform. However, other performers also used this trick, and audiences wanted Houdini to perform his trademark escapes, not other magicians’ illusions.

  On a boat trip back to the United States, Houdini performed for an amazed President Theodore Roosevelt. A photograph of the president and eight men from the ship, including Houdini, was taken. Houdini had the other men in the picture airbrushed out and presented the photo of himself and Roosevelt to the public as the original photograph.

  Houdini’s next tour abroad was delayed by the breakout of World War I. He turned back to touring in the United States, still struggling with grief over the loss of his mother. He leased the house in Harlem that his mother had lived in for the last years of her life and turned to new tricks: walking through a brick wall, being buried alive, and, most famously, the Suspended Straitjacket Escape. His “walking through a brick wall” trick, in which he literally seemed to do what the trick’s title indicates, made a big sensation but was quickly discarded by Houdini as too easy to replicate and too hard to orchestrate (one had to build a genuine brick wall for each show). In Los Angeles, he agreed to escape a six-foot deep grave, shackled by handcuffs. He reported later that he panicked and nearly died.

  Houdini’s crowning escapade of this era was being hung, upside down and straitjacketed, from tall buildings, far from the ground. Houdini first did this trick in Minneapolis from the building of the city newspaper, and he repeated it on skyscrapers in Omaha, San Antonio, New Orleans, New York, and Providence, among others. Huge crowds turned out to see this breathtaking stunt. This trick was as dangerous as it was attention grabbing. Several other performers died trying to replicate the feat; safety hazards lay in tangled ropes, fractures of ankles and necks from the upside-down position and heavy pulleys, and the risk of catching overhead wires or hitting a wall while struggling to get free. While performing in Oakland, Houdini met the famous writer Jack London and his wife Charmian, which produced another photo opportunity for Houdini to pose with a famous person and circulate the picture among friends and family.

  In the fall of 1918, Houdini starred in a new variety show at the Hippodrome, called “Everything.” Having shown himself to be very proud of being American at the break-out of the first world war, he continued his patriotic theme by buying an eagle named Young Abe, which he produced out of nowhere in a spectacular opening number. Houdini also performed his upside-down straitjacket escape, suspended high over the Hippodrome stage by wire.

  Illusions

  In his later career, Houdini introduced a new kind of magic, illusions. Houdini’s illusion acts differed from his past stunts which showcased his physical prowess and mental skill at beating locks, chains, and all sorts of restraints, with the exception that Houdini had briefly introduced an illusion in which he appeared to walk through a brick wall. Like everything Houdini did, he did illusions in a big way. He procured an ele
phant named Jenny, who was reportedly the daughter of P.T. Barnum’s circus elephant Jumbo.

  Jenny weighed between four thousand and ten thousand pounds. Houdini made her disappear onstage during an eight-minute act in which the elephant appeared onstage, gave Houdini an elephant kiss, and was concealed briefly behind a screen. When the screen was lifted, two seconds later, Jenny had disappeared. Houdini purchased the international rights for this trick from its inventor, a British magician named Charles Morritt. This trick made huge news even though in actuality, only a small section of the audience in the huge Hippodrome theatre was actually positioned such that they could see the elephant and her disappearance. Houdini’s showmanship and reputation, however, was such that the trick still became hugely famous, and Houdini maintained the satisfaction of staying on top of the world of magic. The illusion is still talked about today.