Happy Birthday, Harry Houdini, Escape Artist Extraordinaire

Born as Erik Weisz on March 24, 1874, Houdini spent the first four years of his childhood in Budapest, Hungary, before immigrating to the United States with his parents and four siblings in 1878. After settling in Appleton, Wis., a young “Ehrie” (Harry) moved with his father, a rabbi, to New York City.

It was in New York that Ehrie first began to cultivate his passion for magic. The young man was burdened with numerous jobs to help support his family back in Wisconsin, but he still found the time to make his debut as a trapeze artist. The trapeze act led him to take on magic professionally.

In 1891, he took the stage name “Harry Houdini,” a name inspired by his admiration for magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. Along with his younger brother, Theodore, who was also fascinated with magic, Houdini began performing regularly when he was just a teenager.

After a lackluster magic career in the United States, a new manager convinced Houdini to take his act to Europe in 1899, where he wowed audiences with his escapes from handcuffs and shackles. His success in Europe led him back to the States, where he triumphantly took center stage in the magic world.

Houdini amazed the public with his ability to escape from milk cans, water tanks and straitjackets. He wasn’t the first to escape from locked handcuffs, but his presentation beat all other magicians’ and delighted audiences. His first successful stage trick, however, wasn’t an escape trick—it was the needle trick. He would swallow several needles and some thread, and then regurgitate them with all the needles threaded.

In July 1904, Edna Ferber, the first female reporter for the newspaper the Appleton Crescent, interviewed Houdini. “Now, don't you exaggerate just a little bit when you are giving your performances?,” she asked him, continuing, “And is it a feat of strength, or a trick that you resort to?” 

Houdini reportedly responded good-naturedly that exaggeration could never help him in his magic. “My secret?” he said. “Well certainly it is a trick of my own. No house or bank would be safe from prying hands if I revealed it to the world.”

Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926, apparently from injuries sustained during a performance when a college student repeatedly punched him in the stomach, testing his abdominal strength. But an autopsy was never performed and mysteries surround the performer’s death; many have suggested over the years that Houdini was murdered by poisoning. In 2007, a group of forensic experts exhumed his body for investigation.

Though the mystery of his death is yet to be solved, there is certainly no question that Houdini’s legacy lives on. The movie “Death Defying Acts,” which focuses on a fictional romance between Houdini and a Scottish psychic, opened in 2008, and biographies and Web sites chronicling the legendary performer’s life abound.