Harry Houdini

The great American escape artist and magician Houdini, who was later portrayed by Tony Curtis in the 1953 film of the same name, was born Erich Weiss on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary, although he frequently listed Appleton, Wisconsin as his birthplace, where he was raised. The son of rabbi Samuel Weiss and Cecilia, Erich was one of five brothers and a daughter. He was four years old when his family emigrated to the United States. His early life was marked by poverty, and at age 17, he formed a magic act with his friend Jack Hayman to escape the hardships of manual labor. Weiss had been captivated by magic since childhood, after attending a performance by a traveling magician named Dr. Lynch. Performing under the name "Houdini Bros." in tribute to French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Weiss began his career in entertainment, though it took about seven years for him to gain recognition. Weiss and Hayman specialized in the Crate Escape, later known as Metamorphosis or The Substitution Trunk. Hayman was eventually replaced by Weiss's brother Theodore, who was billed as Hardeen, and later by Wilhemina Rahner, known as Bess, the woman Weiss would marry. Their marriage on June 22, 1894 caused tension with Weiss's Jewish family, as Bess was Roman Catholic. To satisfy both families, they married in secret, then again in a synagogue and in a Catholic church. While developing his act, Houdini sometimes used the carny trick of posing as a spirit medium, visiting town clerk offices and cemeteries to provide "messages from beyond." In 1896, while visiting a doctor friend in Nova Scotia, he saw a strait jacket, which inspired him to develop an act involving escape from it. Houdini achieved major success at age 24 in 1898 with his Challenge Act during a vaudeville tour. This act involved escaping from handcuffs provided by audience members, which later expanded to include strait jackets, boxes, crates, safes, jail cells, and other devices, including his famous Water Torture Cell. Houdini was also known for escaping from simulated "buried alive" scenarios, such as being hung upside down from a crane or lowered from a bridge, or escaping from padlocked crates submerged in a river. He also gained notoriety for exposing fraudulent mediums and paranormal experts, motivated by his desire to find a genuine medium to communicate with his deceased mother, Cecilia. Houdini became a prominent figure in the ragtime era of the early 20th century and appeared in motion pictures produced by his own company. Harry Houdini died in Detroit, Michigan during a national tour. The official cause of death was peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. His death occurred nine days after being punched in the stomach by J. Gordon Whitehead, a McGill University student who had tested Houdini's ability to endure body blows. Despite experiencing stomach pain, Houdini continued performing; earlier in the tour, he had also broken an ankle but did not halt the tour. His wife Bess inherited his half-million-dollar estate and collected a double indemnity on his life insurance policy, as the blow was deemed to have contributed to his premature death at age 52. Houdini died on October 31, 1926—Halloween, one of the three days (October 31–November 2) of Samhain, the Celtic New Year, when the veil between the living and the dead is believed to be at its thinnest. From 1927 to 1937, Bess held annual séances on Halloween in an attempt to contact her late husband, though she did not succeed. However, she played a key role in preserving his legacy in the American consciousness. To this day, magicians around the world conduct séances on Halloween in an effort to contact the late escapologist.