![]() A few days earlier, Houdini had lectured at McGill about his work in exposing fake mediums and spiritualists. 22, 1926, after his matinee show at the Princess Theatre in Montreal. On the other hand, he was proud enough of his superb musculature and toned body to allow the audience to feel his biceps or punch him in his ripped abdomen.Īs the story goes, a few medical students from McGill University visited Houdini in his dressing room at 5 p.m. Houdini never told anyone, save his wife and assistant, Bess, the secret of his great escapes. He may have escaped those dangerous feats, yet his death has remained a source of conjecture among both magicians and surgeons. Soon enough, Houdini got out of jail free.īy 1908, Houdini had graduated to far more daring escapes from air tight vessels filled with water as well as being completely tied up and chained, while hanging off of a skyscraper or being thrown from a bridge into an icy river, always reappearing unrestricted within minutes. 2 of the Washington, D.C., federal prison, the same cell that once housed Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President James Garfield. In 1902, he had himself locked into cell no. In 1900, he made his first European tour and conducted sensational escapes from Scotland Yard and dozens of other famous prisons. Billed as “the Handcuff King,” he performed at vaudeville houses across the nation.Įver the scintillating showman, Houdini kept developing new tricks and escape techniques beyond merely wiggling out of a cop’s manacles. He emerged sans shackles and was soon riding the rails. ![]() As the New York Times reported in its obituary of Houdini, one night in Coffeyville, Kansas, the local sheriff baited him with his handcuffs, bellowing to the audience, “If I put these on, you’ll never get loose.” It was a challenge that changed the young performer’s life. The climax of his act in these early days of his remarkable career was when he invited anyone in the audience to tie him up and he would free himself, inside a locked cabinet. His wife waited for a communiqué from the spirit world but it never came she declared the experiment a failure shortly before her death in 1943.Ever the scintillating showman, Houdini kept developing new tricks and escape techniques beyond merely wiggling out of a cop’s manacles. Then, on Halloween 1926, Houdini himself passed on at the age of 52. Several of these friends died, but Houdini never received a sign from them. At the same time, he was deeply interested in spiritualism and made a pact with his wife and friends that the first to die was to try and communicate with the world of reality from the spirit world. In his later years, Houdini campaigned against mediums, mind readers, fakirs, and others who claimed supernatural talents but depended on tricks. Other acts featured Houdini being hung from a skyscraper in a straitjacket, or bound and buried-without a coffin-under six feet of dirt. In another, he was heavily bound and then suspended upside down in a glass-walled water tank. In a favorite act, he was bound and then locked in an ironbound chest that was dropped into a water tank or thrown off a boat. In 1908, Houdini began performing more dangerous and dramatic escapes. In executing his escapes, he relied on strength, dexterity, and concentration-not trickery-and was a great showman. He went on his first international tour in 1900 and performed all over Europe to great acclaim. He soon was specializing in escape acts and gained fame for his reported ability to escape from any manacle. When he was nine, he joined a traveling circus and toured the country as a contortionist and trapeze performer. At a young age, he immigrated with his family to Appleton, Wisconsin, and soon demonstrated a natural acrobatic ability and an extraordinary skill at picking locks. Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, the son of a rabbi. The burst appendix poisoned his system, and on October 31 he died. Doctors operated on him, but to no avail. He fell ill on the train to Detroit, and, after performing one last time, was hospitalized. ![]() The magician hadn’t had time to prepare, and the blows ruptured his appendix. Suddenly, one of the students punched Houdini twice in the stomach. Twelve days before, Houdini had been talking to a group of students after a lecture in Montreal when he commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows. Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital.
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