Harry Houdini at Children's Hospital on 17th and Wisconsin, 1926
Harry Houdini at Children's Hospital on 17th and Wisconsin, 1926
On a sunny October morning in 1897, a young man walks into the Milwaukee police station at Broadway and Wells. The crime beat reporters perk up when the man says there is no handcuff or restraint in the station that can hold him for more than a minute or two. With the reporters egging him on, a police officer agrees to handcuff the man. “Lock me up with everything you have," he says. Sixty seconds later, numerous sets of heavy steel handcuffs clatter to the floor. “My name is Harry Houdini,” he says. “Don’t miss my show at the amusement hall tonight." The policemen gather around as Houdini uses a deck of cards to demonstrate ways dishonest players can cheat. Milwaukee’s evening papers carry stories of the performance in the station and the morning editions run favorable reviews of his show.
Twenty-three-year-old Harry Houdini was already a seasoned performer at circuses, dime museums, beer halls, and even Chicago’s fabled Columbian Exposition. He was born Ehrich Weiss in Hungary on March 24, 1874. Within a year his family fled Budapest’s religious persecution and were processed through New York’s Ellis Island. They continued west to Appleton, Wisconsin and moved in with relatives. Mayer Weiss, an ordained rabbi, was hired to lead the city’s Jewish community for $750 a year. But he was unwilling to learn English and soon lost the job to a younger, more flexible man.
Weiss relocated the family to Milwaukee to look for work. Initially they lived at 708 W. Winnebago Street. Moving frequently to avoid angry landlords, subsequent addresses included 725 W. Highland Avenue, 1743 N. Fifth Street, and 619 W. Cherry Street. His father was chronically unemployed, and Ehrich began shining shoes and selling newspapers to earn extra money. Years later, Houdini told local newsmen, “Such hardship and hunger was our lot that the less said, the better.”
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Five-Cent Circus
As the age of nine, Houdini was part of a trapeze act with Jack Hoefler's Five-Cent Circus. His weekend-long appearance was advertised as “Erich, Prince of the Air.” Several years later, a magician nicknamed “The Bloodless Vivisectionist” brought his act to the Dime Museum, a lurid theater on Wisconsin Avenue. The illusionist used wicked-looking knives to dismember a volunteer from the audience in full view. With a flourish, the magician then replaced his victim's arms, legs, and head. Houdini later said this was the night he decided to pursue magic as a career.
Ehrich found a menial, repetitive job in a necktie factory as a fabric cutter. At night he worked in second-rate halls and theaters, often for no salary. He gained confidence in front of an audience as his skills improved. Ready to move to better venues, he changed his stage name to Harry Houdini, an homage to the legendary French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin.
The newspaper notices bring a modest number of patrons to Wonderland, a theater on Third Street near Wells. They watch as Harry's hands are tied behind his back. “Ladies and gentlemen, once I am locked into the mystery box, I will reappear before your eyes in three seconds.” He is placed into a large sack and the opening is tied shut. The sack is then placed into a large box which is padlocked and tied with more ropes. The audience shouts, “One, two, three!” The curtain parts and Harry is standing next to the box. He smiles broadly as they begin to applaud, softly at first, then more energetically. “I'm on my way to the top,” he thinks.
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Working Non-Stop
Houdini joined a small vaudeville troupe and traveled from city to city performing 10 shows a day for $12 a week. To augment his meager income, he began selling toothpaste, soap, and other toiletries to his fellow performers. But the magician was slowly sinking into a deep depression. After eight years of working nonstop, he was no closer to his goal of stardom than when he began.
Houdini sailed to London in 1900, hoping to cash in on Europe’s craze for American performers. When the lawmen at Scotland Yard proclaimed him an authentic escape artist, Houdini was given a 12-week engagement at the city’s prestigious Alhambra theater. After garnering rave reviews in Britain, he set out for Germany, where his handcuff escapes repeatedly brought audiences to their feet. In 1903, he accepted a challenge from the Moscow police that nearly killed him. Stripped naked to prevent concealment of keys or picks, he was locked in a prison wagon bound for Siberia. Despite the subzero temperature, Houdini was able to escape from the wagon several miles from the prison, making his way back to the station on foot.
Within the year, Harry Houdini was the highest paid performer in Europe with offers to appear for another 10 years. But America was now beckoning, and Houdini accepted gladly accepted a phenomenal salary from the RKO Orpheum entertainment circuit.
Although he was now a superstar attraction, Houdini did not perform in Milwaukee again until April 1912 when he headlined six days of vaudeville. Always the consummate showman, Houdini saved the most sensational escape for the end of his performances.
The evening performance at the Majestic theater is sold out. Houdini knows the electric undercurrent in the auditorium means the audience has come to see him cheat death. They cheer as the infamous steel can from the advertisements is brought onstage. Houdini strips down to a bathing suit and allows himself to be placed inside.
Gallons of water are poured into the can until the liquid rises over his head. Then the lid is slammed down and padlocked. Inside the can, Houdini goes to work. The clock on the stage shows that over two minutes have elapsed, and Houdini's assistant is standing over the can with a fire ax in his hands, ready to smash the padlocks if necessary. The audience becomes uneasy and a woman in the front row screams. Then, at precisely the three-minute mark, a dripping wet Houdini emerges unsteadily from the can while the crowd roars its approval.
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Houdini's Childhood Home on 7th and Highland
Houdini's Childhood Home on 7th and Highland
Boyhood Haunts
Houdini courted the press, granting numerous interviews and conducting tours of his boyhood haunts. He recalled selling the Milwaukee Sentinel on a corner at Third and Wisconsin. His best sales were papers with articles on the disastrous Newhall House fire in 1883. He also showed reporters the place on the Milwaukee River where he learned to swim.
As Houdini's fame increased, he continued to add new thrills to his shows. The Chinese water torture cell, walking through walls, and making an elephant disappear on stage were but a few. He became a movie star, appearing in a dozen silent films based on his fantastic escapes. He also waged war on phony spirit mediums and exposed their fraudulent practices. His morbid fascination with death led him to attempt the ultimate escape from a box buried six feet underground. His audiences watched him defy death by drowning and suffocation before their very eyes in a series of increasingly hazardous illusions. It was this aura of danger and unpredictability within his act that set him apart from all other performers of that time.
Houdini returned to Milwaukee for an engagement at the Palace Orpheum theater on Sept. 30, 1923. At the age of 49, his once-elastic physique began to show signs of wearing out. Nevertheless, he demonstrated surprising agility and speed onstage. The highlight of his week-long engagement was the Friday evening show in which he answered a challenge from Sheriff Philip C. Westphal.
For the show’s finale, Westphal’s deputies, John Christie and Walter McCaigue, strap Houdini in a straitjacket that encases him from shoulders to ankles. They securely bind his ankles, thighs, and arms with heavy rope. Turning his back to the audience, no one sees the grimace of pain on Harry’s face as he dislocates first one shoulder and then the other. Within seconds he sheds the first set of ropes, and then the straitjacket. Just as he did twenty-six years earlier, Harry confounds another group of Milwaukee lawmen. Sheriff Westphal shakes the magician’s hand as the crowd rises in a standing ovation. It is the last time Harry Houdini will perform in Milwaukee.
Houdini died on Oct. 31, 1926, in a Detroit, Michigan, hospital. “When I pass on, I would rather have one line in the press than a $100 wreath,” he once said. Nearly 100 years after his death, the name Houdini remains synonymous with magic, mystery, and the occult. His debunking of mediums and spiritualists and his escapes from straitjackets and handcuffs are legendary. Houdini's ties to Wisconsin and Milwaukee remain an important link to one of history's most fascinating personalities.
