Debunking the myths behind Harry Houdini’s life—and death

His name is now synonymous with breaking out of impossible situations and surviving death-defying stunts, including one that came with the warning “Failure Means a Drowning Death.” To his audiences, Harry Houdini’s skills seemed almost supernatural. But to Houdini himself, an immigrant who embraced showmanship to escape grinding poverty, his abilities were built entirely on intelligence, reason, and meticulous preparation.

Always looking over his shoulder at imitators, Houdini spent his career upping his game–and the stakes. In 1903, in Russia, he requested to be locked naked in a freezing prison van the tsarist police used to transport prisoners on a three-week trip to Siberia. To the astonishment of the guards, Houdini broke out after 45 minutes. From then on, his acts became riskier: He was locked into water-filled milk cans, thrown chained off bridges, and tossed bound in a packing crate into the sea.

What drove him to these extremes during his relatively short life? The riddle of how and why Houdini pulled off such feats continues to fascinate his admirers, while the circumstances around his death still intrigue his biographers.

Prince of the Air

Houdini’s first escape was from the poverty of his childhood. Born Ehrich Weiss in 1874 into a Jewish-Hungarian family in Budapest, he immigrated at a young age with his family to Wisconsin, where his father struggled to make a living.

Hardship and showmanship went side by side in Ehrich’s childhood. He practiced dexterity skills with sleight of hand at age six and became a regular at circuses by age seven.

(How does a magician trick other magicians? We went to find out.)

His desire for success grew stronger when his father fell sick. In 1883 Ehrich set up an improvised circus along with boys from his neighborhood and performed as a trapeze artist. In a glimpse of his future flair for self-styling, the nine-year-old crowned himself Prince of the Air.

Having tried and failed to work as a rabbi, Ehrich’s father moved the Weisses to a New York slum. The young boy’s early love for illusionism and tricks offered the chance of freedom from the fate that awaited so many young immigrants at that time: the lifelong drudgery of the garment trade. As if in preparation for the feats ahead, the stocky Ehrich trained by lifting weights, swimming, and boxing while taking on a variety of manual-labor jobs to make ends meet.

A friend introduced Ehrich to the memoirs of 19th-century French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, considered the father of modern conjuring. In the 1890s, Ehrich added an i to Houdin to make his new last name, and his career, “like Houdin.” He also gave himself a new first name in homage to American magician Harry Kellar. Under this stage name, Harry Houdini set up a traveling circus with his younger brother, whose stage name was Theodore “Dash” Hardeen. The brothers featured high-wire acts, snake charmers, and belly dancers.

The duo reached their long-sought acclaim with what became their signature act, Metamorphosis, first performed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Dash tied Houdini up and put him in a sack, which was placed inside a chest. Once the curtain was pulled, Dash was revealed to have replaced Houdini, the speed of which astonished the crowds.

Within a year, Dash was superseded by young singer and dancer Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner, or Bess, who Houdini had married within three weeks of meeting and made his new partner in magic. They went by the Houdinis, and Bess became his stage assistant for the rest of his life. Although their performances, also consisting of traditional magic tricks, were popular, earnings were scant. Houdini knew he had to maximize the sensationalism to pull in the crowds.

The handcuff king

Experience as an apprentice locksmith gave Houdini the founding idea of his career. Arriving in a town, he’d alert the press. He would then call a police station and ask to be handcuffed and locked in a cell. Within minutes, he’d walk free.

The media coverage from these stunts helped promote the Houdinis’ shows. In 1899 entrepreneur Martin Beck offered Houdini a contract to perform in his theaters. Houdini now had a substantial income, and new horizons suddenly opened. He was performing in Britain in 1900 and Russia in 1903.

His popularity led to an avalanche of copycats and doubters, forcing him to push his limits and defend his name, even winning a lawsuit in 1902 against a German newspaper that called him a fraud.

Starting in 1908, his signature act was being locked in a milk can full of water. In 1912 he replaced the milk can with the water torture cell, where he was bound in chains and padlocks and submerged upside down. Public fascination with his daredevilry won Houdini star roles in early cinema. The plot of the 1919 movie The Grim Game centers on an escapologist played by Houdini.

The shadow of death

“My chief task is to conquer fear,” Houdini said of his acts. He made himself undergo “tortuous self-training” to avoid panic. Biographers have wondered what drove Houdini to such extreme acts. Some suggest it was to resolve the trauma of being a poor outsider. A target of anti-Semitic insults, Houdini seemed to have aligned himself with the emerging idea of the muscular Jew to counter the prevalent stereotype that Jewish men were physically weak.

(Harry Houdini’s unlikely last act? Taking on the occult.)

Houdini was fiercely critical of spiritualism, a hugely popular practice at the time. He regarded it as fraudulent. One reading of his career is as extreme rationalism in the face of death. Yet for a man always prepared to die, the nature of his demise took his admirers, and the country, by surprise.

During the height of his career, in October 1926, Houdini was in Montréal to perform at McGill University. A student asked about his abdominal strength and whether he could withstand punches. When Houdini replied he could, the student punched him in the stomach. Houdini seemed to have been unprepared for the blow, which caused him a great deal of pain. Days later, on October 31, 1926, he died in Detroit at age 52. The cause of death was peritonitis, caused by appendicitis.

Debate continues to rage over whether the punch had indeed been fatal, or if Houdini succumbed to an unrelated intestinal condition caused by his ruptured appendix. In his will, he left his effects and props to Dash, requesting they be burned upon Dash’s death.

Many myths have formed around Houdini over the years. One story was popularized by director and actor Orson Welles. In audience with the tsar in Russia, Welles recounted, Houdini made the bells of the Kremlin ring simply by lifting his hand.

The story is highly implausible, not least because of Houdini’s hostility toward paranormal performances. But the fact that some people believe it underlines a core contradiction of his career: This most rational man seemed to do magical things. Nearly a century after his death, that same aura of the supernatural still clings to Harry Houdini.

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