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Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories |
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THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE Harry Houdini--or Erich Weiss--born on March 24 or April 6, 1874--was the greatest escape artist--or most gifted medium--of the twentieth century, who may--or may not--have died of a ruptured appendix on Halloween night in 1926. Such is the fascinating history of this true man of mystery who charmed, confounded and inspired legions of fans, both during life and after death. Most intriguing of all was Houdini's secret: the red magic that was hinted to be both supernatural and commonplace. Was Houdini's secret his means of projecting and protecting such superhuman powers? Or was such power no more than the secret itself? Misdirection and mystification, after all, are the heart and soul of most magicians' tricks. Even so, Houdini was not really a magician. According to magic expert Walter B. Gibson, "During the years in which he rose to fame, Houdini was not regarded by the public as a magician, but rather as a man of mystery who might be anything from a contortionist to a stunt artist" (Mastering Magic, 165). Though Houdini was unparalleled as a showman, "some of his magic was comparatively mediocre...." (Gibson). Gibson concludes, "today the fame of Houdini is more exaggerated than ever. From this it may be concluded that the alchemy of time can transmute gross publicity into golden legend" (166). Gibson's metaphor is well chosen, for Houdini researched the ancient alchemists and incorporated their most mysterious allegories in his stage acts and publicity stunts. How then did his magical transformation take place? That was Houdini's secret! The secret extends from his uncertain birth date to his mysterious death to his shadowy life after death. For instance, there is the knotty question of Houdini's birthday. According to the Amazing Randi, Houdini was born in a "miniature time warp." The world-famous magician explains, "when the designers of the Gregorian calendar attempted to reconcile the error in the Julian calendar, they dropped several days...Houdini had two birthdates--March 24 and April 6, 1874--a fitting beginning to the life of an illusionist" (17). Also in question is Houdini's place of birth. The great escape artist himself claimed Appleton, Wisconsin, but actual birth records show his birthplace to be Budapest (Christopher, 9-10). There Erich Weiss was born to Samuel and Cecilia Weiss, along with brothers Herman (1863), Nathan (1868), William (1870), Theo (1876), Leopold (1879), and sister Gladys (1891). Samuel Weiss was an impoverished rabbi who died in 1892. The young magician showed the facility for picking locks at an early age. Stephen Cannell writes: He never lost his fondness for pastry and in later years delighted to extract cakes from his wife's cupboard by the same method he had employed as a boy to help himself to his mother's pastry. More than once his wife found the cupboard empty although locked, with Houdini's visiting card on one of the plates (18). In 1886 the future escape artist disappeared for two years, living the life of a hobo traveling the rails. By 1888 Houdini was reunited with his family in New York City where he worked as a messenger boy. One Christmas he returned home from work and told his mother that he was made of gold. Cecilia Weiss took her hand, as was her custom, to ruffle her son's curly black hair, only to find gold coins spilling onto the floor. Knowing his mother's habits, the young Houdini had hidden his tip money in among his thick, dark locks as a surprise gift. Instinctively the young magician knew the importance of presentation. Although Houdini worked numerous jobs, from garment cutter to locksmith, by 1892 he and his brother Theo had a magic act at Coney Island. They were billed as the Houdini brothers. The name Houdini was suggested by his friend Jake Hyman, who was familiar with the reputation of the French magician Robert Houdin. Since neither Houdini nor Hyman knew French, adding the additional letter changed the entire pronunciation--another surprising transformation in a surprising career (Christopher, 15). At Coney Island Houdini found the love of his life, excepting his mother. Beatrice (Bess) Rahner was a member of a sisters act; her big number was "Rosabelle Believe": Rosabelle, Rosabelle Houdini and Bess married shortly after meeting. Legend has it they met during a performance. Houdini, in a theatrical flourish, spilt acid on Bess's new dress. She was smitten. When Houdini called on her home with a new dress, sewn by his mother, he talked her into slipping away with him to Coney Island. On the way there, they were married. The date of the wedding was June 22, 1894 (Brandon, 41). Soon the Houdini Brothers became simply the Houdinis, with Bess joining the act and Theo leaving it after being bought out by his punctilious brother. Bess Houdini had an unusual role to play--and not just in the magic act. As Houdini's wife, she was his main supporting player, his accomplice in difficult escapes, his chief mourner when tensions mounted on stage, his partner in abject and somewhat shameful poverty, his trophy during the long periods of lonely success, and finally, as his widow, the keeper of the flame at Houdini's altar. How did she cope? Supposedly, she drank. Stephen Cannell gives an intriguing picture of this capable, at times uncanny woman: "She believed in witches and hobgoblins, and some of her husband's mysterious tricks seriously frightened her....One such trick was that in which he made the Christian name of her dead father appear, as though by magic, on his arm" (20-21). Her dead father was Catholic; her husband was Jewish: Such a divide in cultures could not be crossed conventionally in 1894. An entirely new family and way of life had to be provided for the new Mrs. Houdini. Houdini did his best. He gave his bride the world of the midway and the family of circus freaks. They began promisingly enough, with a limited engagement at Tony Pastor's in New York City. Within a month, though, they were both performing as a sideshow act for Huber's Museum in Brooklyn. Bess found this venue sordid. Often Houdini worked the act alone. When they quarreled, Houdini resorted to his hat trick. Cannell writes: "If she became angry, he would leave the house, walk around for awhile, and then, returning, throw his hat into the room. If it were thrown out, he would take another short walk and repeat the operation until his hat was allowed to remain in the room" (22). Inevitably the Houdinis took their act on the road. They joined the Welsh Brothers Circus in 1895. There they found themselves befriended by San Kitchy Akimoto, the regurgitationist, and by Mrs. McCarthy, gun-juggler. Often they had the adventures of circus performers surviving in the Victorian Age. One Sunday, in a small town in Rhode Island, the whole troupe was suddenly arrested for breaking the Sunday Law. Mr. Welsh was in New York, and with no one to defend them, the entire troupe was locked up in jail overnight. "In the evening the Fat Woman wept bitterly. Her cell was too small, and she was wholly uncomfortable and miserable. So after the sheriff had gone and everything was quiet, Houdini picked the locks of the jail and the whole company stole quietly back to the big tent" (Kellock 78). Eventually the Houdinis found themselves between engagements in 1897 winding up on the mudflap circuit, performing for a medicine show. Dr. Hill's California Concert Company traveled the small towns of the Old West. Among the performers were Joe and Myra Keaton, whose knockabout clown act included their young son who took the brunt of the father's physical comedy. "He's some buster!" Houdini exclaimed after one performance, and the name stuck. Not only did the soon-to-be famous silent film star Buster Keaton owe his name to the Houdinis, he owed them his life as well. According to Ruth Brandon, "When there was a fire at the hotel where they were all staying, [Bess Houdini] rushed up to the room where he [Buster Keaton] was sleeping and rescued him" (67). It is worth noting that the rescue was not attempted by the boy's own father or by the great escape artist himself. Instead, the young Buster Keaton's life was saved by the childless Bess Houdini. By 1898 the Houdinis were in Chicago performing the challenge handcuff act at Kohl and Middleton's Museum (Gibson Scrapbook, 10). After making a successful impression on showman Martin Beck, the Houdinis appeared on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit starting at $60 a week. Soon the pay was doubled to $120 weekly (Gibson Scrapbook). Here Houdini came into his own, and Bess was relegated to the part of stage dressing and head cheerleader. Soon the challenges became wilder and more dramatic. Often he would be bound and chained, completely naked, in some local prison where the police could authenticate that his escapes were performed without tools or keys. Whether dressed au natural or de rigeur in matinee clothes of cutaway coat and breakaway sleeves, Houdini cut an imposing figure, mesmerizing
audiences with his smoldering eyes or charming them with his dazzling smile. For most of his half-hour vaudeville act, he was offstage. Music alone would be the entertainment as the public waited breathlessly for his escapes.
"Asleep in the Deep" was played during the famous Chinese Water Torture act, though something louder, like "The Chariot Race," was preferred for the Boiler Escape to drown out banging noises. Usually Houdini escaped within the
first 10 minutes of the performance, then waited backstage reading a newspaper until the audience's frenzy reached a fever pitch. Only then he would dash on stage, drenched in sweat, as if escaping death itself. Despite his great success as an escape artist, Houdini never gave up on his magic act. In 1914, the year he was elected president of the Magicians Club, Houdini astounded audiences by walking through walls. In 1918 he caused an elephant to vanish on stage. Soon Hollywood beckoned. Houdini appeared in three serials during 1919: Master Mystery, Terror Island and The Grim Game. These attempts were followed in 1921 with two full-length silent movies, Haldane of the Secret Service and The Man from Beyond. Though neither movie was a critical success, both helped promote the Houdini legend, for Houdini was known to have a secret and many believed the man from beyond was someone who had pierced the material world to enter and to return at will from the spiritual realm. The years directly after World War I saw a rise in spiritualism, which had grown in popularity since the mid-1800s. Even the magazine The Scientific American investigated spiritualism to learn if there were any legitimacy to mediums' claims of ghosts, ectoplasm and pseudopods. Houdini himself attended séances shortly after his mother's death in 1913 to learn the meaning of her final word: "Forgive." Time after time Houdini found himself hurt and humiliated by the false pronouncements of fake fakirs. In 1924 he wrote A Magician Among the Spirits, his attack on spiritualism. He also agreed to edit a weekly supplement "Red Magic," for the New York World. As he once wrote to Henry Ridgely Evans, "Let our time start the accurate magic age" (Brandon, 228). According to Cannell, "One of Houdini's obsessions was to reproduce by normal means the wonders of fakirs and fraudulent mediums. He was always annoyed if anyone suggested that an achievement in this category must be supernatural" (47). This was also the year of his great feud with the medium Mina Crandon, known professionally as Margery, the Blonde Witch of Boston. The battle royal between the wizard and witch ended in a draw, though spiritualists began to predict that Houdini would soon die an early death. He was to live a little more than a year. By 1926 Houdini testified before a Congressional Committee on the fraud perpetrated by spiritualists. Then, in the fall of that year, came his strange and mysterious death. While Houdini was performing in Montreal, an undergraduate admirer punched him hard in the stomach in a fit of fanatic fandom. What resulted from the blow was peritonitis brought on by a ruptured appendix. "His body was taken to New York in a stage coffin in which he had been making experiments under water." He was buried with his family in Machpelah Cemetery in Brooklyn. One of his pallbearers, theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, was heard to say as the coffin was lowered into the grave, "Suppose he isn't in it!" (Brandon, 293). TO READ IT ALL, ORDER "RED MAGIC: HOUDINI'S SECRET"
HOUDINI on the WEB The American Variety Stage: Houdini
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