Harry Houdini, A Halloween Legend
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger
Photos: Wikipedia
Halloween is full of trick-or-treating and magical surprises. Perhaps you may not have known that the Master of Magic, Harry Houdini, died 85 years ago today on Halloween. The story of his life has conjured up many a rumor and much speculation.
Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874, as Eric Weisz. At the young age of 9, he became a trapeze artist known as ‘Ehrich, the Prince of the Air.” Once he began to get into the art of magic, he changed his name to “Harry Houdini” after the great French magician, ‘Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin.’
His career of magic began in 1891. It started small with card tricks and Houdini began experimenting with escape acts that brought him to the professional level that amazed audiences far and wide.
He is best known for six difficult acts that were hard for anyone to replicate.
First was the Mirror Handcuff Challenge. This was a special handcuff that took seven years to make. Houdini had to escape without the use of a key. He did it in front of a massive audience.
The Milk Can Escape finds Houdini handcuffed and sealed inside an over-sized milk can filled with water. The escape took place behind a curtain. It became a sensation.
It progressed from there to the Chinese Water Torture Cell. Houdini’s feet would be locked in stocks and he would be lowered into a tank of water upside down. Through the glass front, entranced show goers could watch the escape with baited breath. His escape would be concealed behind a curtain.
One of the most popular stunts was the Suspended Straightjacket Escape. It was as it sounded. Suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane, Houdini would be bound in a straightjacket and make a daring escape for all to witness. The escape took 2 minutes and 37 seconds.
New York City was excited for the Overboard Box Escape. Houdini escaped from a nailed and roped packing crate as it was lowered into the water. This was performed in New York’s East River.
Perhaps the most daring of all was the Buried Alive Stunt. This stunt almost cost Houdini his life. He performed it in three variations. Houdini was buried, without a casket, in a pit of earth six feet deep. He became exhausted and panicky trying to dig his way to the surface and called for help. When his hand finally broke the surface, he fell unconscious and had to be pulled from the grave by his assistants. Houdini wrote in his diary that the escape was “very dangerous” and that “the weight of the earth is killing.” In the second variation, he was buried in a swimming pool in a sealed casket for an hour. It was all based on controlled breathing or so he said. The last variation was all thought out but Houdini died before he could perform it. He would be strapped in a straightjacket, sealed in a casket and buried in a tank of sand.
Houdini traveled the vaudeville circuit for many years and made his way to Europe as well keeping audiences in amazement and wonder. Life took on new meaning for him when he met the woman of his dreams who would go on to become his dear wife for the rest of his life, Bess Rahner. She became his stage assistant for his entire performing career.
Unfortunately with the rest of his life ahead of him, Houdini died at the age of only 52 years of age. It was said to have been a ruptured appendix but rumors swirled behind that cause. There was talk that a student gave multiple blows to his abdomen to test claims that a blow to the body above the waist would be without injury but that was not the case if it held true. Bess, his wife of all these years, was heartbroken. Life would never be the same. Even though Houdini was always out to prove that it was impossible to communicate with the spirits of the dead, Bess selfishly wanted to prove him wrong. For a decade, on every Halloween night, Bess would hold seances to try and contact her husband from beyond the dead. After ten unsuccessful years, she gave up only saying, “Ten years was long enough to wait for any man.”
Houdini enthusiasts refused to be disappointed. They continued seances for many years to no avail.
To this day, we think of Harry Houdini on Halloween and imagine all the unbelievable escape attempts he managed to succeed at for his wide-eyed audiences. He is interred at a cemetary in Queens, New York.
Halloween celebrates the Master of Magic, ‘The Great Harry Houdini’!
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