With time to kill and my wife Pat at work on a Saturday afternoon about 15 years ago, I drove to an antique mall outside of town to do a little shopping.
This is the card that caught my eye while wandering the aisles. What drew my attention was the Jefferson Theatre return address. For many years my grandfather managed vaudeville at the Majestic Theatre, so I naturally felt some affinity to vaudeville performers.
While thumbing through the cards I saw one with the name “Houdini” as addressee. I thought to myself, “Yeah, right. Houdini.” and skeptically tossed it aside. The cards didn’t seem especially interesting to me but I bought a few anyway. On the drive home I began to think about the “Houdini” name and decided to check on it when I got home. This was the era after the internet but before smartphones.
At home, perhaps using Goggle, but more likely Alta Vista, I quickly discovered that Weiss was Houdini’s real name and that Gladys was his sister. Soon after this discovery, Pat (who shares my love of postcards) returned home from work. Turning to her, I said, “We have to leave NOW! There is a POSTCARD EMERGENCY! We drove back to the mall, went through every card in that booth, buying all we could find from the set. The result was the 36-card set I’ve had for the past 15 years.
Before this event, I never had a particular interest in Houdini. Since then, I’ve learned much more about him and his family but remain primarily a general postcard collector, Houdini collecting being a bit beyond our budget. In spite of this, we continue to search for more random Houdini cards, but, so far, without success.
An Evening with David Copperfield
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Distinguished Speakers Series
David Copperfield, Mark Pocan (moderator)
Sat, June 16th, 2018 | 7:00 pm
$38 (Members $24)
Magic has the power to inspire, amaze, and make the impossible a reality. How did sleight of hand and grand illusion evolve into one of the most fascinating and intricate performance arts in history? In an illuminating conversation with Mark Pocan, world-renowned magician David Copperfield uncovers the history of magic from its origins, including well-known figures such as Georges Méliès and Harry Houdini. Purchase tickets here.
The year is 1885 and Erik Weisz, a penniless immigrant, has found himself in trouble again. His uncanny talent for picking locks and his gleeful showboating to match it, have earned him very few friends and a bad reputation. But this is just the beginning of his story and Erik is destined for a far more magical future. Watch as he transforms before your very eyes into the greatest showman the world has ever seen...
From what I can gather, strength and endurance were critical to most of his spectacular effects. Early on, Houdini grasped that what audiences wanted to see was a struggle--a severe test of sorts in which he would emerge victorious or...die. Anything that looked easy or was not dangerous seemed to lack dramatic impact. I further believe that Houdini felt the best way to convince the audience of the veracity of his struggle was to make it a real one whenever he could do this and not give away the secret of an illusion. But this required, I believe, his certainty that his body could keep up with his mind. It always did.
I never thought of Mrs. H. as being older. We were just pals. I had breakfast with her and spent my days with her, laughing and kidding. We'd buy clothes together; she liked clothing and was always charmingly dressed. She made all my costumes, too, using gorgeous materials and making the costumes very sexy. I remember that she smoked a lot. (Houdini didn't at all.) The doctor told her to stop, that she would live ten years longer. She said she'd rather enjoy the ten years smoking.
Sid Radner devotes a large section of his "Backstage with Sidney Radner" column to a 1930 horoscope of Houdini that appeared in the book Your Future, A Guide to Modern Astrology by Sidney K. Bennett aka "Wynn." Sid wryly points out:
Considering that Wynn did not known when or where Houdini was born, missing the date by 13 days and the location by a few thousand miles, it is quite remarkable how accurate the horoscope is. Or can we attribute Wynn's skills to the fact that he was doing the horoscope after Houdini's death?
If you haven't yet purchased the new Houdini-Opoly game, you'll want to do so before July 1st. That's when the price of the remaining games will increase to $50 plus $15 shipping. Currently the games are available for $35 plus $15 shipping from the Official Houdini-Opoly website.WOW! What a fantastic job you did on the Houdini-Opoly game. It's gorgeous. We love it. The research and effort you put into this project is much appreciated by the entire Houdini family. Everything you included in the game is top notch and high quality. The photos are all clear, detailed and beautiful. Houdini-Opoly players will learn alot of information about Houdini's life just by playing the game. You produced a great tribute to the life of Houdini. I am sure Houdini and Bess would be pleased and proud of your efforts. Much appreciation and thanks!
Jeff & Debbie BloodGrand Nephew of Houdini
My older brother introduced me to Harry Houdini on a wet English summer’s day sometime in the mid-1980s. We were trapped inside while it poured down outside and I guess I was being a pain because I was bored. John felt the need to entertain me. I was 7, maybe 8, so John would have been 12ish. We didn’t play together as often as we used to and we’d drift apart even more once John became a teenager and therefore cool by default. But on this day we were having fun in each other’s company leaping around our shared bedroom, bellowing and guffawing, playing one of our brilliantly weird storytelling mash-ups of heroes and villains. At least, having fun until I got fed up with being the bad guy all the time. I wanted to be Batman for once. Why was John always King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Spiderman, Steve Austin? To stop me moaning he said I could be Harry Houdini. And I asked: ‘Who?’
I was soon obsessed.
In hindsight I think one of the things that appealed to me so much was the fact that Houdini was real. Really real. A real-life person. There were photos! Most of mine and John’s play-heroes were made-up, fictional, possibly mythical. But Houdini had been a honest-to-goodness living legend. He’s been called ‘America’s first superhero’. But he didn’t get to be super because he was accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider or was bestowed a multi-million dollar inheritance or even born of magical parents. He got his amazing powers because he strived so damn hard to achieve them. And to a working class kid from the North of England that mattered. A lot.
And I suppose, in the beginning, I followed the usual path of most Houdini obsessives. I received rope burns, dislocated shoulders and even a cracked rib thanks to my terrible but enthusiastic imitations. Luckily card tricks are less dangerous and even now I can still fool my 6 year-old daughter with a couple of them.
Down the years my desperation to be a magician faded but not my interest in Houdini. My desperation to write took over. But it’s been said before that novelists and conjurers share a little bit of DNA. We’re both hoping our audiences can suspend their disbelief long enough for us to entertain them. Fiction should also be an intricately constructed illusion.
With ‘Houdini and the Five-Cent Circus’ I’m not trying to tell the true story - definitely not attempting a biography, there are plenty of them already. I’ve taken a handful of reported incidents from Houdini’s childhood, and shuffled them up, before dealing them out into what I hope is an original and entertaining narrative. I hope the truth that shines through is just how imaginative and ambitious Erik was. And how driven he needed to be before he could become Harry. Destiny didn’t happen to him. He chased it down.
Barrington Stoke are a publisher who specialize in nurturing new and struggling readers. I’ve written this book with the intention of introducing young people to the fascinating immigrant boy Erik who refused to be restrained and grew up to conquer the world. But I’d also like to reveal the wonderful escapism of books and reading too.
For now I’ll be sending a copy of the book to my big brother, as a thank you. And when she’s old enough, I’ll read it with my daughter. She has her own heroes she likes to play and pretend to be but there’s always room for one more hero in the world. And especially for one who’s self-made.
"It’s very important to us historic elements are preserved and to clean throughout but update only in areas where Fred already modernized."
