Harry Houdini Biography

To explain who was Harry Houdini, Harry Houdini is fascinated with magic art from a young age. Upon his interest, he began performing and drew attention for his daring escape feats. In the year 1893, he married Wilhelmina Rahner, who has become his onstage partner also. Houdini continued performing his magic on escape acts until his death, which was happened on October 31, 1926, in Detroit, located in Michigan.

Harry Houdini Biography

Let us look at harry houdini biography or houdini biography in detail. 

Harry Houdini Early Life

Houdini was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, located in Hungary - Erich Weisz. As a child, Weisz moved with his family to Appleton, Wisconsin, where he later claimed he was born, as one of seven children born to a Jewish rabbi, including his wife. Weisz travelled to New York City with his father when he was 13 years old, working various jobs and living in a boarding home until the rest of the family joined them. It was then

that he developed an interest in trapeze skills. This is Harry Houdini's early life.

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Weisz began his career as a professional magician in the year 1894. He changed his name to Harry Houdini, with the first part being a play on his boyhood nickname "Ehrie" and the second part being a tribute to the legendary French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. (He then wrote The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin, which is a study that attempts to disprove Houdini's abilities.) Though his magic was only moderately successful, he quickly gained notoriety for his daring escapes while wearing handcuffs. In the year 1893, he married Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner, a fellow performer who would go on to be Houdini's lifelong stage assistant, Beatrice "Bess" Houdini.

Commercial Success

Martin Beck, an entertainment manager, noticed Houdini's act and quickly booked him in some of the country's most prominent vaudeville theatres, followed by a European tour. The local police would strip search Houdini, put him in cuffs, and finally lock him up in their jails. The act was a big hit, and he quickly rose to become the highest-paid performer in American vaudeville.

Houdini continued his specified act in the US at the time of the early 1900s, constantly upping the ante from straight jackets and handcuffs to locked, nailed packing crates and water-filled tanks. He was capable of escaping because of his equally uncanny ability and also the uncanny strength to pick locks.

In the year 1912, his act reached its pinnacle, which is the Chinese Water Torture Cell that would be his career's hallmark. Houdini was hanged by his feet and placed upside-down inside a sealed glass cabinet filled with water, requiring him to hold his breath for more than three minutes in order to escape. This performance was so bold and popular with the audience that it continued in his act until his death in 1926.

Exploits Outside of Magic

Houdini's money allowed him to pursue other interests such as movies and aircraft. In the year 1909, he bought his first plane and set out to become the first person to fly over Australia under controlled power in the year 1910. While he did it after some failed attempts, later, it was revealed that Houdini was more likely beaten to the punch by simply a few months by Captain Colin Defries, who made a short time in Dec 1909.

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Houdini also began his cinema career in 1901, when he released his debut film, Merveilleux Exploits du Célébre Houdini Paris, which documented his escapes. He starred in many subsequent films, including "The Grim Game," "Terror Island" and "The Master Mystery." he started his own production company in New York, Houdini Picture Corporation, and a film lab is known to be as "The Film Development Corporation," but neither was a success. Later, in the year 1923, Houdini became the President of Martinka & Co., which is America's oldest magic company.

Houdini's publication career did not finish with his literary smear on Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, as he went on to write A Magician Among the Spirits (1924) and Miracle Mongers and Their Methods (1920). 

As President of the Society of American Magicians, Houdini was a vocal opponent of fraudulent psychic mediums. More notably, he debunked a renowned medium named Mina Crandon, better called Margery. This particular deed has turned him against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a longtime friend who was a firm believer in Margery sight and spiritualism. Despite his anti-spiritual charlatanism stance, Houdini and his wife conducted an experiment with otherworldly spiritualism when they determined that the first of them to die would try to connect with the survivor from beyond the grave. Bess Houdini declared the attempt a failure before her death in 1943. 

Harry Houdini Death

Though there are various reports as to why Houdini died, it is evident that he died of acute appendicitis. It's unclear whether his death was caused by a McGill University student who was putting his will to the test by ingesting poison from a horde of enraged Spiritualists or hitting his stomach (with his permission). What is known is that he died on October 31, 1926, at the age of 52, in Detroit, Michigan, of peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix.

Houdini's props and effects were utilised by his brother Theodore Hardeen after his death, who finally sold them to collector and magician Sidney H. Radner. Until the Radner auctioned it off in 2004, the majority of the collection could be exhibited at the Houdini Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin. The majority of the precious pieces, including the Water Torture Cell, were sold to a magician named David Copperfield.

Some Unknown Facts about Harry Houdini

Once, Houdini staged an escape from a sea monster

In Sep 1911, a group of Boston businessmen challenged Houdini to perform a "escape from the belly of a 1,500-pound sea monster" from the innards of a 1,500-pound sea monster that had washed ashore in the harbour city. Still, Historians are not sure what creature actually he has - it has been defined as everything from the whale to a leatherback turtle. But, Houdini was completely up to the task.

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As thousands of onlookers watched, he permitted himself to be handcuffed, shackled in leg irons, and crammed within the putrid carcass, which was then wrapped in chains and hidden behind a curtain. Houdini triumphed after only 15 minutes, but subsequently acknowledged that he was nearly suffocated by the fumes from the chemicals used to embalm the beast.

He was an Aviation Pioneer

After establishing an interest in aviation while in Europe in 1909, Houdini purchased a Voisin biplane built in France and became the world's first private pilot;in Germany, the magician has crashed during his maiden flight, but he continued his practice and eventually set his sights on becoming the first man to pilot an aeroplane in Australia. During a tour of Australia in March 1910, Houdini jumped behind the controls of his Voisin and flew three successful flights near Melbourne, each lasting barely a few minutes.

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The Aerial League of Australia has certified the display of Houdini as the country's first powered and controlled flight, but some of the historians have since argued that, actually, Colin Defries, an Englishman who had made a brief flight a few months before, holds the record. Defries and Houdini were both honoured in a series of stamps marking the centennial of powered flight in Australia in 2010.