Houdini(2)

Mayer Weiss died in New York City in 1892 following complications from surgery performed to treat tongue cancer. Houdini later reported that as Mayer lay dying, he made Ehrich promise to provide for his mother for the rest of her life.





Origins of Interest in Magic




When Ehrich was very young, he saw a trapeze artist in Appleton, Wisconsin and became obsessed. At the age of nine, Ehrich put on red stockings and performed his own trapeze act in his backyard, charging five cents and calling himself Eric, Prince of the Air. In this act, he hung from a trapeze and picked up pins from the ground with his teeth.



Ehrich was obsessed with physical abilities and taught himself how to do acrobatics and contortionist stunts. As a teenager in New York City, Ehrich became an avid runner and joined the Pastime Athletic Club. He reportedly trained by running ten miles a day in Central Park. He won a race organized by the Amateur Athletic union   even though he was not technically old enough to have entered. A famous picture of young Houdini shows him in his running uniform, his top covered with medals, some of them actually earned, and some of them put there by Ehrich for show. At seventeen, Ehrich was already as tall as he would ever become, only five feet four inches, with a muscular, stocky build.



Ehrich met his friend Jacob Hyman while working at the clothing factory in New York. Jacob was a young coworker and also an amateur magician, and he began to show Ehrich some of his tricks. Around that time, Ehrich bought a cheap copy of the biography of the famous French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. According to Houdini’s later writings, Ehrich was fascinated with Robert-Houdin, whom he then regarded as his hero.





Know More About: Houdini’s Names




Although he eventually settled on “Houdini” alone, the King of Handcuffs had a plethora of names, not just a stage name and a birth name.



As a young child he was Ehrich Weisz. There are other spellings of this name: Erich Weisz and Erik Weiss. Erik is the name on his Hungarian birth certificate, but the name he and his family used while he was growing up was Ehrich.



When he moved to America his last name, and the name of his entire family, became Weiss. His nickname amongst friends and family was Ehrie. Ehrie then changed to Harry when he became Harry Houdini. Later he dropped the “Harry” and became Houdini.



He wasn’t just Houdini on stage, either. Houdini’s name changes were often all encompassing, and friends and family had to adapt to the different names in his personal life as well as his professional one.





In Houdini’s Words




In The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin, Houdini remembers his early love of Robert-Houdin and describes it to the reader.



When it became necessary for me to take a stage-name, and a fellow-player, possessing a veneer of culture, told me that if I would add the letter “i” to Houdin’s name, it would mean, in the French language, “like Houdin,” I adopted the suggestion with enthusiasm. I asked nothing more of life than to become in my profession “like Robert-Houdin.”





II. Houdini, the Struggling Magician





Read It and Know It




After reading this chapter, you will know more about



The Brothers Houdini: Houdini and his friend Jacob Hyman performed together in an early magic act with this name, although more than one person would partner with Houdini in the act.



Houdini’s early tricks: “Metamorphosis” was an early escape trick of the type that would later make Houdini famous.



Houdini’s wife: Bess and the struggling magician married after only a few weeks of courtship.



The first hint of fame: A savvy manager named Martin Beck gave Houdini some good advice and his first big break.





Around 1891, when Ehrich was seventeen years old, he quit his main job at the clothing factory to dedicate himself full-time to his career in magic. Ehrich joined with his friend Jacob Hyman to form a duo of magicians they called “The Brothers Houdini.” The name Houdini came from an alteration of Ehrich’s hero, the French magician Robert-Houdin. Ehrich, whose nickname was “Ehrie,” morphed his first name into Harry. Harry Houdini was born.



Some biographers speculate that Ehrich invented the persona of Harry Houdini as an alter ego that had the power to escape from the terrible poverty and anti-Jewish rhetoric that had filled his childhood. They believe that he was driven to develop an omnipotent character that couldn’t be contained by any force because of this deep urge to escape the powerlessness he experienced as a child. Whatever the real reasons, Ehrich, now Harry Houdini, began practicing his magic tricks several hours a day. He bought and read every book about magic that he could find. He learned that all handcuffs could be opened with a small number of keys and started practicing escaping from ropes with the help of a knowledgeable friend.