Their sparring back and forth kept their names in the press. He and another magician cooked up a fake feud. The move also unleashed Harry’s gamesmanship. Harry Houdini defied drowning with underwater escapes, seen here (R) as he steps in a crate for an underwater plunge. He escaped in 18 seconds." The feat made the local news, but that was all. “In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, police and newspaper reporters shackled Houdini with six sets of handcuffs and locked him in a room. In his book “Spellbinder: The Life of Harry Houdini,” Tom Lalicki tells what happened next. In small towns he drummed up publicity by daring the local gendarmes to restrain him. They assumed the restraints were rigged.Īnyone else would have thrown in the towel and taken a “sensible” job. The latter was dangerous, since the powerful contortions required to get out of it left Harry bruised, even bloody. But neither trick impressed audiences. He added two escape tricks: from handcuffs (locks had fascinated him since childhood) and from a straitjacket. Harry worked obsessively to refine and improve the act. Barely five feet tall, she was the right size to sneak in and out of a trunk-and being so petite, she made her husband look taller.Īfter years of performing with his wife, Bess, in circuses, traveling medicine shows, and dime museums - the lowest branches of show business - Houdini began to wow the crowds on the vaudeville circuit with his handcuff escapesįor five long years, the Houdinis (now plural) played small towns, circuses, and even beer halls. Bess became his partner onstage as well as off. Bess Rahner was a Catholic, but Harry’s mother liked her and approved of the union. Ehrich, now calling himself Harry Houdini, found a replacement-and married her. Discouraged by their lack of success, Jacob left the act. The “Metamorphosis” intrigued audiences, but the pair’s other tricks didn’t. When volunteers unlocked the trunk, they found Jacob, trussed up like a turkey. The curtain would close for a moment, then reopen to reveal Ehrich set free. As a tribute to their idol, they called themselves “The Brothers Houdini.” Their act wasn’t much, but they had one good illusion called “Metamorphosis.” Jacob and audience volunteers would tie up Ehrich and lock him in a trunk. When teenage Ehrich and his friend Jacob read the memoirs of the great French illusionist Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, they decided magic was their future. Harry Houdini was devoted to his mother (L) and his wife Bess. His compact, muscular physique was ideal for boxing, swimming, and running. Ehrich worked long, grim hours cutting fabric in a sweatshop, but he found a positive outlet for his frustration in sports. Struggling to make ends meet in an East Side tenement was a humiliating comedown for the family of a respected clergyman. He wrote: “I have loved two women in my time.” His mother and his wife. But even there, no one wanted a rabbi who couldn’t speak English. Before he died, he made Ehrich promise that he would always care for his mother. Unable to find work in Appleton, Rabbi Weiss moved the family from town to town, and, finally, to New York City. Rabbi Weiss, never comfortable with English, had continued saying prayers in German, irritating members of his congregation who already considered him too Old World. The family was reunited, but the good times didn’t last. Overjoyed, he sent for his own family, including 4-year-old Ehrich, to join him. These families promptly hired Mayer Samuel to be their rabbi. He found it in Appleton, a community so welcoming the Christian congregations helped raise money to build a temple for the Jewish families. His father, Mayer Samuel, like millions of immigrants during that era, sought a better life in America. Houdini was actually born Ehrich Weiss (also spelled Erik Weisz) on March 24 in Budapest, Hungary. Separating truth from illusion is as hard for his biographers as it was for his audiences. He wrote: “My birth occurred April 6, 1874, in the small town of Appleton in the state of Wisconsin, U.S.A.” Although many books and sites repeat this, none of it is true. All his life, Houdini, and later his widow Bess, told fibs and conflicting stories.
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