Houdini's NYC boyhood home today

Site of the Weiss home today.

A modern condo now stands at the site of 305 East 69th Street where the Weiss family lived while Houdini was a teen. How ironic that this neighborhood which was once a refuge for poor Jewish immigrates is today among the most expensive places to live in New York City. Oh to be a slum lord with foresight in 1880!

Just up the street is the site of Mrs. Leffler's boarding house at East 79th Street where the Weiss family first stayed upon their arrival in New York. Incredibly, the building still stands and would be recognizable to Houdini today.

Mrs. Leffler's boarding house.

This post originally appeared on www.houdini-lives.com.

Hotel Shelton pool is no more

The Hotel Shelton in New York City is now the Marriott, but it still looks much as it did in Houdini's day. Even the hotel restaurant still bares the name "Shelton Grill."

However, I was disappointed to learn that the famous swimming pool -- where Houdini performed the remarkable feat of remaining submerged in a coffin with only minutes of air for over an hour -- is no longer there. Hotel staff told me the pool had been filled in about 2 or 3 years ago.

This post originally appeared on www.houdini-lives.com.

Dead Famous: Houdini

The Biography Channel recently aired DEAD FAMOUS: HOUDINI, in which hosts Gail Porter and ghost hunter Chris Fleming go searching for Houdini's spirit.

Their search takes them from Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, to New York City's Palace Theatre on Broadway (where Houdini performed), to the Houdini Museum in Scranton, and Coney Island.

Did they find him? I don't know. I missed it, dang-it! The show aired Aug 2. Watch for repeats.

UPDATE: When 'Dead Famous' went in search of Houdini (full episode).

New Houdini movie in the works!

Variety is reporting that Guy Pearce has signed to star in the Houdini drama DEATH DEFYING ACTS, with Rachel Weisz in negotiations to co-star as the magician's mistress.

The movie follows Houdini's passionate relationship with a woman he encounters in Scotland during a tour of Britain in 1926. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also features in the storyline.

The film will be directed by Gillian Armstrong and was written by Tony Grisoni and Brian Ward.

Disney shows upcoming Houdini book at Comic Con

At this year's San Diego Comic Con I made an interesting discovery. Disney's publishing division, Hyperion Books, is planning to release an illustrated biography of Houdini in Fall of 2006.

Called HARRY HOUDINI, the book will be written and illustrated by Jason Lutes & Nick Bertozzi. It is part of the Hyperion/Cartoon Studies Biographies. A terrific full color poster of what presumably is the cover of the book was displayed at Comic Con.

This post first appeared on Houdini Lives.

UPDATE: Houdini: The Handcuff King released.

J. Gordon Whitehead revealed in 'The Man Who Killed Houdini'

The Man Who Killed Houdini by Don Bell is a definitive investigation into the events that occurred in Harry Houdini's dressing room on Oct 22, 1926, and the man at the center of the fatal "attack," J. Gordon Whitehead. It is a remarkable work that will blow the minds of Houdini enthusiasts and magic historians.

Within the first few chapters, Bell rewrites Houdini history by discovering that the magician was attacked (or at least "tested") three separate times during that fateful week in Montréal. A native of Montréal, Bell finds independent eyewitnesses to each of these other, non-lethal punches. It's a stunning discovery.

Unfortunately, Bell doesn't investigate these other incidents in detail, but remains focused on the final famous dressing room attack by J. Gordon Whitehead. Bell's hypothesis is that Whitehead may have been acting as an agent for spiritualists. Considering Houdini's vehement anti-spiritualist crusade, this is not a far-fetched theory. Trouble is, absolutely nothing is known about J. Gordan Whitehead (and some have even questioned whether or not he even existed).

It's Bell's search for the phantom Whitehead (which takes up a good middle of the book) that presents my only criticism with the book. Bell describes in detail every step of his 20 year investigation, including his many false leads. Okay, dramatizing a few false lead is entertaining and adds to the detective story (not to mention makes the eventual discoveries all that more exciting), but Bell relates EVERY false lead, devoting whole chapters to lines of inquiry that never pan out. This does becomes a bit tiresome after a while.

However, when Bell finally gets on the right scent and starts uncovering the life and death of "the man who killed Houdini", the book again becomes fascinating. I won't spoil it, but somehow J. Gordon Whitehead turns out to be both a complete surprise and exactly what we would expect. Bell also tracks down the elusive eyewitnesses to the dressing room incident, Jack Price and Sam Smiley. Thank goodness Bell did this investigation when he did, as most of these key players are now deceased (as is the author himself).

In the end, Bell is never able to pin a conspiracy on spiritualists, nor link Whitehead to the movement. There is also a nagging feeling that there is still something untold in all this. But in this age of sensationalized conspiracy theories as entertainment, it's refreshing to finally get book that admits the truth of its own findings (even though this tends to relegate them to smaller publishers, as is the case here). But this honesty also legitimizes this book as a real investigation by a real investigator. And what Bell delivers in The Man Who Killed Houdini is far more interesting than any conspiracy, and of much greater value to the serious scholar of Houdini and magic history.

This book is a must.

The Man Who Killed Houdini is out now in Canada. It will be released in the U.S. on September 28, 2005 and can be purchased at Amazon.com.

Rare 'Terror Island' poster at auction

A rare French color lithograph for Houdini's second feature film, Terror Island (1920), is going to be auctioned by Christies's auction house as part of their Christian Fechner Collection of American & English Magic, Part I. The poster is reported to be the only known copy.

The auction will be held on October 27, 2005. The estimate is $12,000/18,000.

UPDATE: The poster sold for $12,650.

The Man From Beyond comes back

Houdini: The Man From From Beyond is a new mass market graphic novel by Brian Haberlin, Jeff Phillips, and Gilbert Monsanto. It's relased today by Image Books.

Celebrate the anniversary of the death of a legend with his greatest escape of all! On the eve of the Wall Street collapse of 1929, Harry Houdini makes the ultimate escape: He returns from the dead in the guise of a young stockbroker and partners with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to prevent his wife Bess from being murdered. Their search calls into question Houdini's own demise and brings them into contact with such period luminaries as Aleister Crowley and Charles Lindbergh as they uncover a cult that threatens to unlock the secrets of eternity.

You can purchase Houdini: The Man From Beyond from Amazon.com.

Marie H. Blood, 1917-2004

Marie H. Blood, niece of Harry and Bess Houdini, passed away peacefully on Tuesday evening November 2nd, 2004. She had been ill for the past 2 months and then contracted pneumonia. She will be missed by all who knew her.

Funeral arrangements have been made with Bartolomeo and Perotto Funeral Home, located at 1411 Vintage Lane (between Rt 390 and Long Pond Road), Rochester, NY 14626

• Visitation on Sunday 11/7/04 from 2 PM to 6 PM
• Magicians Broken Wand Ceremony on Sunday 11/7/04 at 5:30 PM
• Funeral Mass on Monday 11/8/04 at 10 AM, to be held at St. Lawrence Church, 1000 North Greece Rd, Rochester, NY 14626

After Marie's Funeral Mass there will be a gathering for brunch at the Red Fedele's Brook House Restaurant, 920 Elmridge Center Drive, Rochester, NY 14626

In lieu of flowers the family has established a foundation in Marie's honor called the "Houdini Family Young Magicians Foundation" (HFYMF). The purpose is to assist young magicians pursue their interest in magic.

Tax deductible donations may be made payable to the "S.A.M. Magic Endowment Fund", Attention: Donation to HFYMF, 234 Town Court, Lower Gwynedd, PA 19002"

Marie with her Uncle Harry in 1921

Houdini's Water Torture Cell sells at auction

Houdini's restored Water Torture Cell sold for $300,000 at "The Great Houdini Auction" held at the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas on October 30. The auction sold off the vast majority of the Sidney Radner collection. The USD was the auction highlight with an estimate of $75,000-$200,000. Below is the auction page as it appeared on eBay.

Click to enlarge.

The $300,000 bid was the highest price ever paid for a piece of magic apparatus. The buyer was David Copperfield. Copperfield also acquired Houdini's Milk Can for $35,000 and Houdini's iron gibbet for $65,000.

UPDATE: It appears irregularities with the bidding and an undisclosed reserve resulted in a settlement of the final sale price at $150,000.

Related:

• New York Times: Sidney Radner collection to be auctioned in Las Vegas

Sidney Radner collection to be auctioned in Las Vegas

The following article appeared in The New York York Times on October 29, 2004.

With Sadness, Houdini Artifact Collector Puts It on the Auction Block
By DEAN E. MURPHY 

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 26 - In a windowless room behind the snack bar at the Liberace Museum, an elderly man with a thousand magic tricks up his sleeve could pocket $1 million or more this weekend. But the man, Sidney H. Radner, a retired rug salesman from Holyoke, Mass., is awfully downcast for someone of good fortune. His eyes, set deep behind wire-rimmed spectacles, invite sympathy, not envy. 

"My wife just says, 'Take the money and run,"' said Mr. Radner, who is 84. "But I have such mixed emotions about it all." 

Mr. Radner, aka Rendar the Magician, owns one of the world's biggest and most valuable collections of Harry Houdini artifacts, including the Chinese Water Torture Cell, one of Houdini's signature props from 1912 until his death in 1926. 

Most of the items were given to Mr. Radner in the 1940's by Houdini's brother, another escape artist who went by the stage name Hardeen. Hardeen considered Mr. Radner, then a student at Yale with a reputation for jumping from diving boards in handcuffs, as his protégé. 

Until early this year, the collection was on display at the Outagamie Museum in Appleton, Wis., where Houdini's father was the town rabbi in the 1870's. But after a rancorous falling out between Mr. Radner and museum officials, the 1,000-piece collection was packed up and shipped here, where it will be auctioned on Saturday in the windowless back room at the Liberace Museum and on eBay. 

"Sid is very sad about it," said Jane Merrill of Capital Recovery Group, the auctioneers. "He really wanted it in a museum." 

The sale, being promoted with true Houdini hyperbole, is the buzz of the magic world. Auction materials quote a 1942 letter from Hardeen, in which he described Mr. Radner as owning "the greatest collection of Houdini material of anyone in the world." Mr. Radner says it is worth perhaps $4 million. The auctioneers set the value at $2 million. When in Appleton, the collection was insured for $1 million. 

David Copperfield has inquired about several pieces, Ms. Merrill said. Lance Burton stopped by the Liberace Museum this week to be filmed by the History Channel escaping from one of the Houdini straightjackets. A 94-year-old woman from New Jersey, Dorothy Young, who Mr. Radner said was the last living person to have performed with Houdini, is scheduled to arrive here this weekend. 

"Houdini is still the most recognized name in magic," Mr. Burton said. "It is very exciting to have all of his stuff here." 

Beneath the excitement, though, are anger, resentment and disbelief that the artifacts, kept together for nearly eight decades by Hardeen and then Mr. Radner, will be dispersed, perhaps never to be in one place again. 

Sometime past midnight on the morning after the auction, Mr. Radner will convene a séance, as he does every year on Halloween, to mark the day that Houdini died. This time he will do so with an unusually heavy and conflicted heart, he said. 

"If there is any hope of ever bringing him back, this would be enough to agitate him," Mr. Radner said. "Maybe he will have something to say. Maybe he will say, 'Don't do it!"' 

Mr. Radner blames the Outagamie Museum, and in particular its executive director, Terry Bergen, for the turn of events. Though saddened to see the collection broken up, Ms. Bergen said the outcome reflected the "very little common ground" that exists between "the entertainment world and the museum world." 

Relations between Mr. Radner and Ms. Bergen turned sour last year when the museum decided it could not afford to renew the contract for the collection. For 15 years, Mr. Radner had lent the pieces for an annual fee, which by the last year of the contract, 2003, had reached about $27,000, Ms. Bergen said. (Mr. Radner said it was closer to $22,000.) 

"Houdini lived here four years and his story is interesting, but there is a whole lot of other stuff that has gone on in Appleton," Ms. Bergen said in a telephone interview. "Our county funding had been cut by 35 percent. It was just ruinous for us. We had to cut a lot of things." 

Mr. Radner said he was interested in working out a deal, and had even included a provision in his will that would have given the collection to the museum after he and other members of his immediate family had died. But if there was ever hope of a compromise, it was crushed when the museum opened a new interactive exhibit on Houdini in June. 

The exhibit, intended for children, reveals how Houdini pulled off one of his most storied illusions, known as Metamorphosis, in which he was placed inside a trunk that was locked by his assistant. Houdini managed to get out of the trunk and switch places with the assistant. 

Ms. Bergen said the exhibit was a huge success, both in drawing visitors to the museum and in creating interest in Houdini and his magic. But the exhibit infuriated Mr. Radner and many other magicians, who protested that the museum had broken the magician's code by revealing the secret. 

Ms. Bergen, who explained to Mr. Radner that the trick was widely available on the Internet and in libraries, said she nonetheless was bombarded with complaints from "a small but angry" group of magicians who branded her the "Houdini betrayer." 

"The stink over the Metamorphosis was part of the stink over us not renewing the lease," Ms. Bergen said. "It would not have happened if we hadn't made Sid mad and other people mad." 

Geno Munari, a friend of Mr. Radner who owns a chain of Houdini magic shops, including several here in Las Vegas, said the Appleton museum had taken advantage of Mr. Radner's generosity. By Mr. Radner's reckoning, he had donated $750,000 worth of artifacts to the museum over the 15 years. Now, Mr. Munari said, the museum figures it can get along without him and his collection. 

The ultimate act of selfishness -- and disrespect -- was exposing the illusion, Mr. Munari said. 

The ill feelings have persisted. Ms. Bergen recently had a lawyer remind Mr. Radner that he could not use museum stationery to promote his collection. Though Mr. Radner was a founder of the Houdini Historical Center, a division of the Outagamie County Historical Society, which operates the museum, Ms. Bergen said it was inappropriate for the letterhead of a nonprofit group to be used for commercial purposes. 

Mr. Radner said this week that he would not rest until he had removed the Houdini Historical Center from the control of the Outagamie County Historical Society and had relocated it far from the grip of Ms. Bergen. 

"I don't care where it goes, so long as it is not in Appleton," he said. "She doesn't know Houdini from Liberace. She just knows dollars." 

The curator of the Houdini exhibit in Appleton, Kimberly Louagie, said if Houdini's wishes had been honored, there would be none of the bickering over the collection. As Ms. Louagie tells it, Mr. Radner and his friends might not like what they hear should Houdini reveal himself at the séance on Halloween. 

"According to his will, he wanted it destroyed," she said. "I would suspect that he doesn't like the fact it is out there at all."

UPDATE: Houdini's Water Torture Cell sells at auction.

BBC: Houdini exhibit enrages magicians

BBC News reports on the controversy over the Houdini Historical Society's "AKA Houdini" exhibition in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Houdini exhibit enrages magicians 

The AKA Houdini exhibit warns visitors that secrets are revealed Magicians have protested against a new exhibit in a Wisconsin museum giving away the secret to one of illusionist Harry Houdini's most famous tricks.  

The exhibit at the Outagamie Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin shows how Houdini performed his "Metamorphosis" trick. 

In the illusion Houdini - supposedly handcuffed in a sack and locked in a trunk - miraculously switched places with an assistant on the outside. 

Some members of the Magic Circle have been angered by the museum's decision. 

Illusionist David Copperfield has reportedly expressed his disapproval, along with lesser-known practitioners of the craft. 

"This is a very, very passionate thing that magicians feel about," said Ronald "Rondini" Lindberg. "What the museum is doing is wrong." 

However, curator Kimberley Louagie defended the museum's actions. 

"We didn't feel like we were exposing anything, because this information is readily available," she said. 

"By telling people how this trick works, we're giving people a deeper meaning of Houdini." 

Teller, one half of magical duo Penn and Teller, said people who see the Houdini exhibition would still be baffled if they watched a similar trick being performed at a show. 

The AKA Houdini exhibit features 38 artefacts, 190 documents and "hands-on" displays that include handcuffs, lock picks, a straitjacket and a jail cell. 

The part of the exhibit that shows how tricks are actually performed is in a backstage area. 

The entrance bears a sign warning visitors not to enter if they do not want to know how Houdini achieved his baffling illusions. 

Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss in 1874 in Budapest, Hungary. His family moved to Appleton when he was four and stayed four years. 

He died on 31 October 1926 - Halloween - of a ruptured appendix.

Related:

• Sidney Radner collection leaving Appleton