Harry Houdini, 52 (1874-1926) Austro-Hungarian-born American Magician

[Music] everyone who ever experienced seeing Houdini in the flesh remarked on his smile he grinned from ear to ear and he looked out over the enterance he swept everyone met his eye at one point or another up into the balcony even he got through [Music] they wanted to put him inside of a milk handful of water you know and put locks on the outside of the milk and he would make it as difficult as possible for himself it seemed everybody understands the fear of water fear being buried you know he takes all those metaphors that are nightmares and turns them into something that he can escape from and one way he did that with the milk camp was to say to them at the moment that I put my head beneath the water I want you all to take a deep breath and hold your breath as long as you possibly can to build up suspense for the milk candy had a huge clock but on the stage 45 seconds a minute a minute and a half when people in the audience realized they couldn't hold their breath for 30 seconds two minutes people would panic some of them would even leave the audience because they couldn't bear the suspense and then suddenly dripping he would appear from the cabinet there all the water still intact there was no clue to the method that he used that's a good escape isn't it he was our greatest showman throughout his rise from unknown immigrant to international star Harry Houdini radiated confidence and courage in public he confronted our greatest fears and always emerged victorious what we didn't know was that Houdini was plagued by doubts and haunted by his own mortality to us he was a Superman [Music] Harry Houdini was not his real name he was born Erik Weisz and Budapest in 1874 when he was four he emigrated with his mother and four brothers to the small Midwestern town of Appleton Wisconsin there they joined Eric's father who had come to lead a small congregation of Jewish immigrants Rabbi Meir Weiss was educated uncompromising and deeply devoted to his wife Cecilia Harry referred to her as a saint as an angel she was a very good caring nurturing person and it's something that gave Harry I think a goal in his life to please Cecilia his mother Houdini grew up in a family with five boys in it and Houdini worked very hard to try to stand out his tremendous competitiveness partly came out of trying to outshine his brothers Eric stood out is the most physically agile inspired by traveling circuses he performed for friends as a contortionist and trapeze artist calling himself the Prince of the air I'm sure that Harry would say I think I can do that too no matter how incredible it was or how impossible it seemed he knew that if they could do it he could do it but the idyllic years in Appleton were short-lived Eric's father was fired by his congregation for being too old world he struggled to support his family and they moved frequently finally ending up in the crowded tenements of New York City Eric and his father found work in a garment sweatshop what little time he had he devoted to building his body just five foot six he was muscular and often ran ten miles a day in the wonderful picture of him at about the age of sixteen he has a chest full of medals one of which in one for a cross-country race in New York that's a real medal all the other medals on his chest or fakes that's very typical of Houdini no matter how wonderful the things he did he had to exaggerate them desperation was the theme of his life that desperate desire to turn himself into something almost superhuman if he possibly could look at Who I am look at what I can do very very much desperate kind of thing but nothing Eric could do could transform his father's life as rabbi wisely dying of cancer at the age of 63 he made his son promise that Cecilia would never want for anything it became Eric's mission I think Houdini was partly ashamed of his failed father it was very important for him to overcome those beginnings and to really count in the world very few people that I know have wanted to make a mark on on life as much as in Dunedin it was on the streets of New York that Eric found a way to make his mark there were entertainment venues virtually every blog of the city concert series variety theaters dye museums dye museums would indeed advertise what's inside on the outside so there would have been a chance to see human anomalies demonstrated or even possibly a magician on the street at age 18 Eric joined up with a friend to form a simple magic act performing sleight-of-hand tricks they named themselves the brothers Houdini after the famous French magician robear who Dan Eric became Harry I think when you're a kid and you do something that's a little bit out of the ordinary whether it be magic or escapes or something like that it's impresses people you get that reaction a very genuine reaction of amazement of wonder it's something you can't replace with anything else the first big job for the brothers Houdini was on the mile-long Midway at the 1893 Columbia exposition in Chicago the organizers of the World's Fair expected to fare the exposition to be the great draw and reality the Midway was probably more successful more popular why because people were truly entertained American entertainment was still very much in its kind of formative state but in 1890s it exploded and Houdini was coming along just at that point of explosion [Music] Harry discovered there was plenty of work in show business he found someone to share it with the following year when he met eighteen-year-old Beatrice Rahner best was a German Catholic immigrant lively and funny part of a song and dance act called the floral sisters after a three-week courtship they married best was a natural-born magician's assistant she was very petite she was only about five feet tall and very live five feet tall thin very gamin light is wonderful for climbing in and out of boxes appearing as the Houdini's they performed conventional magic tricks and featured an illusion called the metamorphosis taking only three seconds to exchange places in a trunk the Houdini started out in the lowest branches of show business they did circuses they did traveling medicine shows where woody knee would do so Kickapoo joy juice in between the act they started out in dime museums performing next to various sort of human anomalies Houdini really hated he yearned to move up the ladder to the fog Hill stage the money was better than the pace less grueling [Music] and compared to the dime Museum it was positively refined Tony pastors in New York was the really first big date that the lydian he's had it was the place to be but what was also important was where were you in the bill Harry and Bess played in the worst position opening the second act while the audience was still getting seated when Harry later pasted the program into a scrapbook he moved the Houdini's into the headliners position to become a true headliner Harry needed a gimmick he was inspired by spiritualist shows in which the performers would enter a cabinet locked in handcuffs while the audience believed that spirits were playing instruments and making objects fly around Houdini knew immediately it was a trick the performers had gotten out of their handcuffs the whole idea of the Spiritualist was to make the audience believe that they did not escape Houdini saw the potential in the actual escape the first time he used handcuffs onstage he knew he was on to something [Music] but escape was just a small part of his act Houdini had struggled for six years and was still dime museum Harry he was thinking of getting out of magic but he went to fulfill a contract that he had in Minneapolis while it's a performing and some kind of beer garden there a very famous of agent named Martin Beck one of the leading hotel managers walked in and happened to see one of Houdini's handcuffs escapes he didn't think the escape act could maintain a continuity that an audience would come to see just that but Beck saw through that back saw that Escape Act could be an act in itself Martin Beck wired Houdini saying he could open an omaha and get paid $60 a week this wire changed my whole life's journey he later wrote the act was no longer best in Harry it was simply Houdini the king of handcuffs after 14 months on Beck's vaudeville circuit he was earning $400 a week and was famous in 1900 Bex Antarian bursts on a brief tour of England at the time at the turn of the century it was important that people in America came to England because that's where it it mattered most to be successful that's where everyone from America came to England in London Houdini astonished audiences and was hailed as the most wonderful entertainer the world had ever seen Harry and Bess decided to stay abroad and began performing all over Europe I think you adeney appeal to the working class they considered themselves need changed chained to the drudgery of the work for low pay and poor conditions and to see Houdini actually escape seeming from impossible things they thought that maybe it gave them a glimmer of hope that maybe they could do the same Houdini publicized his appearances by visiting the local jail where he convinced the police to lock him up and let him try to escape Dena came to town and you knew Houdini was in town he had placards mounted on two handles and he would employ perhaps 20 people to carry these through the street Houdini escaped from your jail today at 10:30 it was one just great big pipe the jail escapes were especially newsworthy because he performed them nude in that day that was exceedingly daring but it also proved that he didn't go in with special tools concealed in his shirt in his trousers and his shoes and whatnot though he would be searched assiduously he had ways around those searches as you can imagine there were so many ways by sleight of hand and such that he could actually be in that cell with sufficient tools that after he'd studied the lock he knew how to manipulate it the real trick of it all was I mean the RAI key at the right time but keeping it away from anyone that might seem having it as all escapology is anyway Harry worked the press just as skillfully as he worked his locks in 1904 he staged an event with London's biggest newspaper The Daily Mirror for days the mirror fed the public every detail about a set of handcuffs that were guaranteed impossible to pick [Music] in front of 4,000 spectators Houdini appeared to be worried I do not know whether I will get out or not he said he then was drew into a cabinet he called a ghost house and the audience waited one of the times that Houdini came out of the ghost town he asked to have his dress code taken off he was sweating profusely the manager of the escape said no he was afraid that that would show Houdini really how the cuffs could be opened Houdini then pulled a pure Houdini stunt he struggled to get into a side pocket of his coat terrifically difficult I removed a penknife opened this with his teeth and he hacked the Colt away from his body and threw it on the floor and everyone cheered and yelled the ankles triumphantly in the air and went back into the cabinet to try again for more than an hour the audience at riveted waiting for Houdini to appear and when he finally emerged from those cuffs they literally picked him up on their shoulders and walked around to them they were so excited the audience just went berserk there's only one way he could have gotten out of it he was able to get a newspaper to collaborate on a charade to get themselves publicity which is quite an interesting achievement it's really amazing marketing nothing on the walls but Houdini Harry bolston [Music] but after five years the constant touring had taken a toll Harry felt guilty leaving his mother for so long and as he wrote to a friend best wishes to stop working and rest long enough to raise one of them things we call children in 1905 the Houdini's headed home Harry was now an international star [Music] almost 30 years earlier Eric Weiss had sailed into New York Harbor as a young immigrant from Hungary now he was Harry Houdini and carried a passport which listed Appleton Wisconsin as his birthplace [Music] after you evolved in a foreign country and you're welcome back into your adopted America that's be nothing better than conquering something that was unconquered [Music] Houdini now commanded $2,000 a week he bought an elegant brownstone in a fashionable part of Harlem and moved in his sister one of his brothers and of course his mother Houdini was really twice married I mean he was married to Bess and then in a way also married to his mother he always called the my two girls he was in effect what we would call today a mama's boy he loved his mother to the point of obsession but he also loved Bess and I think loved her passionately romantically he left her little notes underneath the tablecloth tucked behind a picture that she would eventually find Harry addressed best adoringly a sweetie wife he mine saying he had a Bessie full of love awaiting her this whole relation to her is so sort of kidding is something very unserious about it it was the kind of relation Houdini had with other people too it was something very wrapped up in himself he was absolutely immense egoist to none larger he had the most elaborate stationery than had Houdini all over it his pajama set HH his wallet said HH the tiles the the floor tiles in his bathroom said HH Houdini was especially preoccupied with his health he swam and had massages regularly didn't drink or smoke and was evangelical about his diet he tried to tell people that he could build them up but they had lots of milk and oranges and eggs and God knows what and he gave them his recipes jotted things down for them to help them build the physique he was a very personable guy he a guy that you'd like to be around but the other side of him was one particular lady who was his secretary told me that he didn't like people he didn't like people at all as there was he he didn't just do an act on stage you did it off as well he was an implacable foe he had people that he disliked if not hated all of his life simply because they had slighted him the people who Dini hated the most were the imitators who had plagued him since the beginning of his career Harry often spied on them and then humiliated them in public do others he once said or they will do you in 1908 the dropped handcuff escapes and began performing a new Act the open challenge he offered $1,000 to anyone with a device that could hold him it was a wonderful of gimmick it brought him a lot of local goodwill I mean he come into Milwaukee and some packing-case firm door some piano maker would say we'll lock you in our piano and they lit shut you get out it'd be great publicity for them and great publicity for Houdini there were people in factories who I've spoken to who said oh it was wonderful when we got together and we said let's make up a challenge for Houdini to escape from they joined in he brought the public really onto the stage he made him feel the Borden darling Houdini escaped from a roll-top desk a huge envelope a giant football even a creature from the deep if he were working today there would be a level of cynicism that just didn't exist then there was a kind of innocence of that time before television before big high-tech 100 million-dollar movies that made his act a kind of a super act he created a frenzy to see his shows in Europe and America and streets were often blocked with hundreds unable to get in no flora billions developed 12 minutes of material across a lifetime and it was always the same but Houdini's I had suspense and no one knew exactly what was going to happen including himself unbelievable they would try every piece of his body with ropes and chains so it would be absolutely impossible to get out of it but he seemed to wiggle on he would display a challenge in front of the theater before the show to attract an audience there was a strategy Harry had picked up at the circus it also gave him a chance to plan his escape but no matter how much he prepared there was always risk Houdini broke injured sprained almost everything one of the worst injuries was he was performing in Pittsburgh and he was doing a rope tie and he had some longshoremen come up on the stage and tie him tightly they pulled very hard on his body so hard that they ruptured his kidney and for about the next week he was urinating blood all of Houdini's escapes involved a lot of pain and certainly part of the the interest in it has to do with some kind of masochistic pleasure Houdini was fascinated by mutilation he had a gruesome collection of photographs one of them some of them of prisoners somewhere in Asia who were beheaded and the heads are sort of lying around the field like cabbages harry was fascinated by madness and even visited mental institutions one day he was struck by the side of an inmate struggling to get out of a straitjacket [Music] it's part of his genius that he saw in that presentation piece because he appeared to be totally helpless [Music] but Houdini's strongest obsession was death after school house burned down he traveled out of his way to view the charred remains of the young victims [Music] Houdini had a lifelong fascination with death there are many many pictures of him the visiting graves usually the graves of other magicians he's tempting death himself all of his life when Harry introduced the milk-can escape he played on his audiences deepest fears I was fascinated to see just how crazy this man could get you know and get himself out of it because he put himself in peril he really did many many times Houdini almost died when he was challenged by the Tetley brewery in England to escape from the milk-can filled with beer he had a small airspace at the top of the cap the lid was slightly domed now when Houdini who many times had under strict went into the can and come up to the top he then found that little space that literally saved his life many many times that was full of co2 from the beer as soon as he took a gulp of hot air it was andhere boys they don't know exactly how he contacted the outside they knew it was going wrong than they act him out they rip the thing about and took him out [Music] there's a story that when he was young he was swimming in the river and seven years old or so in almost drowned that story always fascinates me because so many of them Dinis greatest.stunts are really underwater escapes perhaps that experience so much scared him that he spent a lot of the rest of his life trying to be sure he could overcome it and survive it Harry started preparing for hazardous water escapes he would submerge himself in an icy bathtub holding his breath as long as possible best time to Missy stayed under for up to three minutes he's so insanely devoted to what he was doing is so disciplined that the ultimate insanity of his life never occurred to him at age 33 Houdini began performing dangerous water escapes outdoors to promote his vaudeville shows around the country in New York he created one of the biggest spectacles the city had ever seen when he was handcuffed secured in a packing box and lowered into the East River [Music] the crowns are absolutely immense I mean up to 100,000 people you couldn't get anywhere near the East River people were standing on the seawall the police were afraid people were going to topple and I think actually a few people did he was enacting over and over again the same impulse had brought people from foreign countries here in the first lesson to escape from social hierarchy to escape from poverty to escape from injustice that kind of self-assertion appeal to people but in his head I think Houdini was always performing for his mother that was his real audience well it always amazes me is that when he was doing some of his most dangerous stunts he would have his mother come and see him jump off a bridge locked in handcuffs and at the end of his performance he would write in his diary ma saw me jump It was as if he never grew up he was the ultimate aspiring teenager a child who never could quite get the recognition he thought he deserved Harry had long wanted to be seen as a scholar like his father since his father was a rabbi a learned person Houdini tried to become a learned person in spite of the fact that he had very little basic education most of that was gained in the streets and on the road Houdini tried to turn himself into an intellectual he collected one of the largest theatre libraries in the world wrote books on magic and pursued friendships with famous writers such as Jack London and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle look how he started in the carnivals in the circus sideshow it's kind of the periphery of respected entertainment and you really eventually after you get success you really want people that you respect to respect you there was always this feeling that not only would he want to escape from the freezing River or the coffin or the milk-can but that he had to escape from the stage as well and be seen in the real world as a historical figure and not just a stage illusionist in 1910 Harry bought a plane and took it to Australia where he made a daring three-minute flight he was one man who hardly had to worry about being forgotten but he was never quite confident of it even if history forgets Houdini the handcuffed King he and will write down my name as the first man to fly here who remembers today that Harry Houdini was the first person to fly a plane in Australia not many harry was disappointed he and best were unable to have children without a family of her own best focused her maternal instincts on Harry his wife Bess was always after him to put on a clean shirt then she'd take a brush on occasion and scrub his knuckles because he was not too careful about his personal appearance he's sort of slob I mean he looks like he hasn't changed for weeks I think his sloppiness and dress was just a function of his total preoccupation with what he was doing by 1912 the milk-can escape was being copied and sold to imitators for $35 Houdini was furious but prepared he had spent five years in his basement workshop secretly developing a new escape the climax of all my Labor's he said is the Chinese water torture cell well here we had sort of a man-sized aquarium there were a couple of tons of water in there the lid had a couple of notches cut out of it into which his ankles would be placed had lock on the end [Music] he would be lifted up upside down hanging from the lid [Music] to be hung upside down by your ankles submerged in water takes a lot out of you your chest feels like it's exploding it's scary the last you saw of Houdini was him hanging upside down looking at the audience through the glass instilled terror his hairs are swirling around his cheeks puffed out turning sort of red in the face and he wondered how is this guy going to get out of there and then you saw the curtain drop over it and the tension was unbearable there was a representative or two from the audience standing there to make sure that no one approached it from behind to release him in any way and for a couple of minutes that's the way it had sat while they played asleep in the deep he would get out of the water turn yourself but concealed from the audience and they wouldn't be aware of the fact that he was now out and he would stall for a while of course to build the suspense [Music] and then suddenly at a signal because he stopped [Music] and there he was all out of breath and dripping wet walking forward to take his bowels what a wonderful moment even though Harry insisted it was only a trick many believed he must have escaped by supernatural means once you know the secrets the whole beauty of it is gone the secret is actually not the best part of it it's the presentation [Music] Houdini was headed for a big European trip is going to take in the Scandinavian countries he got aboard the ship but and the thing was just about to pull out but he insisted on running back down the gangplank and giving his mother another kiss and a big hug [Music] there's a very poignant picture that exists at the moment that Houdini last saw his mother he took that picture perhaps from the stern of the ship as the ship sailed away from New York Harbor bound for Europe and you see his mother just a small figure in a huge crowd of people waving goodbye to the boat the worst day in Houdini's life sterling was the day that his mother died by one account when he got the news he was performing in Copenhagen I think he fainted dead away I feel like a child who has been taken to the railroad station by mother he wrote train rushes in mother manages to get aboard and before my very eyes away goes the train and mother on board Here I am left alone at the station Harry cancelled his tour and four weeks only left the house to visit Cecilia's gravesite he bound her letters in a book so he could read them late into the night [Music] he told his brother he had lost all ambition and yet he was still driven to perform when you're passionate you don't have very much peace you have to keep going after really be passionate about continuing to move forward like the shark going through the water and Houdini had passionates yearning to stay out there on a cold winter day in New York City Houdini now over 40 performed his most physically demanding publicity stunts he would hang himself across at Times Square and get out of a straitjacket of course all traffic at times square was tied up thousands of people would stand outside and watch this phenomenon [Music] hey cut me is just one big muscle with a control center somewhere seem to have control of every muscle in his body there was a connection to the audience a sense of the modern to these tall new buildings 10 stories high oh the new miracles of architecture and cranes on the street [Music] it was a kind of very modern to feed by 1918 Houdini was a cultural icon there was even a new word who denies meaning to get out of a tight spot but Harry still felt Restless he had an affair with Jack London's Widow sharmee on both suffering from the loss of a loved one they had a relationship that was passionate but brief he was really a straight arrow and he seems to have felt very guilty about it that he should have had affair is sort of inevitable that he had only one and that it seems to have been not very happy is probably more revealing in major cities all over the country Houdini performed his upside down straitjacket escape his most popular publicity stunt it was also the last he ever created Harry was physically exhausted hereafter I intend to work entirely with my brain he wrote in his diary it's generally not appreciated that Houdini almost from the beginning really wanted to get out of the escape business he he writes in his diaries over and over again this is too tough must find some other way of doing this [Music] in the teens moving into the 20s film was skating rapidly as a major threat to vaudeville Houdini probably knew that his career as a stage performer might be limited and therefore it seemed very important for him to succeed on the screen in 1918 Houdini's first attempt to break into the movies was a 15 part ferial called master mystery [Music] his idea was he would haven't so filmed doing his escapes and then he wouldn't have to do them anymore people who'd just watch him on film for a time life in Hollywood was good Harry and Bess enjoyed staying in one place after years on the road on the evening of their 25th wedding anniversary he left her note we have starved and starred together I love you and I know you love me yours till the end of the world and ever after Eric but in the movie business Harry had met his match [Music] he's a terrible actor I mean he has about three expressions he can frown he can look wooden and he can look quizzical that's about it it's just so ridiculous it's as if it were a comedy he wanted to be taken very seriously he was a great failure in the films Harry and Bess retreated to their home in New York he buried himself and what he called his world-famous theater library with the death of millions during World War one a religious movement called spiritualism was flourishing one of its greatest disciples was Houdini's friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes the Doyle had lost a son in the First World War and various mediums had brought to oil son back to him to kiss him on the forehead and to speak to him Conan Doyle's wife offered to hold a seance for Houdini she claims she could receive a message from his mother Harry was extremely skeptical but he agreed the message was in English and Houdini said his mother knew almost no English she spoke kind of mixture of German Hungarian and and Yiddish so he was sure that the message was a fraud enraged by the exploitation of his grief Houdini began a crusade against spiritualists he went to seances in disguise confident that he was uniquely suited to expose their trickery it takes a flim-flam work to catch a flimflammer he said Harry was back in the headlines he told me that he thought they were wicked they preyed on poor people they'd spend their last dollar to hear the voice of a loved one Houdini's expose is proved incredibly popular they became his new act he read the name and address of every single spiritualist in every city and of course a lot of people sued him annoyed that but they didn't get anywhere because the information we had was authentic Houdini even testified against spiritualism at congressional hearings at last he was receiving the respect for his intellect that he had always craved he had become very well known in the pages of Scientific American magazine he'd become something much more than just a vaudeville entertainment even though he had promised best he would retire Harry could not step out of the limelight he was competing with all kinds of entertainment and he catered al jolson WC feels this is the great period of the sick felt follies this is the great period of the Broadway stage in 1925 Houdini launched a one-man show on Broadway doing your own show on Broadway was an enormous leap there is a kind of class associated with appearing on Broadway especially then and Houdini had reached Houdini's show featured magic tricks escapes and expose of spiritualists he would call on volunteers from the audience to participate in a mock seance really it was weird it was so real the way it was performed then after he did this the ants he showed the audience step-by-step how it was done the participants could not understand how the Bell under the table rang without the help of spirits but the audience could see Houdini's slipping out of his shoe and ringing the bell with his toes we've to go backstage after his performance and sit in his dressing room and I got to know him rather well I was fascinated by them hips welis stomach and shrink it and withstand blows he would say hit me hit me as hard as you can and I say well I don't want it there's no dude I hit him with us and I hurt my hand I mean before I'd hurt him but Houdini would not stay invulnerable much longer he fractured his ankle performing the water torture cell escape in Albany he continued on to Montreal and before his show that night gave a lecture at McGill University the psychology department invited him to give a talk on the psychology of mediumship just the kind of thing Houdini loved to do but some students came back to see him after one of the lectures one of them was going to sketch him while he was being sketched Harry lay on a couch in his dressing room reading his mail he was worn out and in great pain as the student observed Houdini looked in need of a long carefree vacation another student entered the dressing room the student asked him whether or not he could take a blow to the stomach Houdini nodded that he could and as he put down the letters to stand up getting ready to be prepared the student struck him in the stomach Perry could only mumble that will do he went on that evening gave the show the next day he left for Detroit by train and on the train he developed a very high fever they got a doctor to meet them when the train came to Detroit who urged him you know don't do the show of course he did and perform that night and when he finished the show he collapsed and was taken to the hospital Houdini was operated on but his appendix had burst and the infection had spread it is likely he had been suffering from appendicitis for several days before the punch they ministered to him but they pretty well knew that he was doomed after 52 years of breaking his bones and getting ahead of everyone and insisting on being at the table he said to his brother presumably his last words I can't find anymore Houdini died in Detroit on Halloween 1926 he was laid in a bronze coffin he'd had made for a buried alive stunt according to his request a black bag of his mother's letters was placed beneath his head as a pillow best collapsed the world will never know what I have lost she cried [Music] after a life spent in pursuit of Fame Harry Houdini would now assume his place in history I've had people actually asked me whether Houdini was a real person or whether he was like Sherlock Holmes a fictional creation to get to a point where people don't know whether you were real or not and that's Fame beyond Fame [Music] you

Channel: George Pollen

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Keywords: Harry Houdini

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Length: 52min 15sec (3135 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2018