Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini, professional name of Ehrich Weiss (1874-1926), American magician, born in Budapest, Hungary. His parents brought him to the United States as a young child, and they settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. He took his professional surname from that of a French magician, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Houdini began his career in 1882 as a trapeze performer. Subsequently he became world famous for his performances of feats of magic.

Houdini showed astounding ability in extricating himself from handcuffs, ropes, locked trunks, and bonds of any sort. At one time he had himself tied with rope and then locked in a packing case, which was bound with steel tape and dropped into the harbor off the Battery in New York City. Houdini reappeared, unshackled, on the surface of the water in 59 seconds. One of his most spectacular feats was to allow himself to be hung head down, in a straitjacket, high over a crowd on Broadway; he then freed himself from the straitjacket in a matter of seconds.

Houdini attributed all his feats of magic to natural, physical effects and explained how many of his tricks were performed. He exposed the tricks of fraudulent spiritualistic mediums, often producing “spiritualistic” phenomena himself that he explained in nonmystical, physical terms. Before he died, Houdini arranged a definitive test of spiritualism. He devised a ten-word code that he would communicate to his wife, if possible, within ten years after his death. After he died, various mediums maintained that they were able to establish contact with him, but none was able to transmit to his wife the prearranged code.

Houdini left his library of magic, one of the most valuable in the world, to the Library of Congress. Among his own writings are Handcuff Secrets (1907), The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin (1908), Miracle Mongers and Their Methods (1920), and A Magician Among the Spirits (1924). A selection of his writings, Houdini on Magic, appeared posthumously in 1954.