The actual members of the Brothers Houdini fluctuated. Jacob Hyman, discouraged by the lack of success of the show, quit the duo. Jacob’s brother Joe Hyman replaced him for a while, but eventually quit as well. Houdini recruited his own younger brother Theodore, whom everyone called Dash. Dash looked like a huskier version of Houdini. Houdini was decidedly the boss of the duo. Their show consisted of card tricks and sleight of hand, but the major act was a trick Houdini called “Metamorphosis.” This trick had become possible when Houdini purchased equipment from a retiring magician, after borrowing the needed money from Dash. The equipment included a trunk with a hidden escape hatch.
Performers normally used the trunk to lock themselves in, and then appear at another part of the theater. Houdini combined this trick idea with his developing ability to perform escapes. With his hands bound behind his back, Houdini was tied in a sack and put in the trunk. His assistant, Dash, drew some curtains around the trunk and announced a miracle on the count of three. Upon reaching the number three, the curtains were parted and Houdini stood outside of the trunk, untied. Inside the trunk, which Houdini now opened, was a tied sack containing Dash, whose hands were now tied behind his back.
Despite the success that other performers enjoyed with the trunk trick, the Brothers Houdini failed to draw big crowds. They usually performed as opening acts for other artists in dime museums and beer halls, making only the money that people threw into a hat. At the suggestion of a friend, Houdini tried polishing up his speech, changing the street slang he normally used to more formal, grammatically correct English. Despite not having gone to school full time as a child, Houdini had grown up with a very educated father from whom he had inherited a love of books and education. But still, the Brothers Houdini failed to have any real success.
In 1894, right around the time that his father died, Houdini met a petite, dark-haired girl named Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner. Raised in a family of German Catholic immigrants, Wilhelmina was born in Brooklyn and went by the nickname Bess. Bess was a performer who sang and danced in a group called the Floral Sisters. Dash reportedly met her first during a performance and introduced her to Houdini. Houdini and Bess married after only two or three weeks of courtship and went to Coney Island for their honeymoon. Houdini was twenty and Bess was eighteen. Bess’s mother objected to the marriage because Houdini was Jewish while Bess’s family was Catholic, and Bess and her mother became estranged. Houdini and Bess took some time to get used to each other. Houdini was horrified to learn that Bess believed in many superstitions which he regarded as nonsense, and Bess had to cope with her husband’s odd habits and intense work ethic, which allowed him to only sleep five hours a night.
Houdini quickly ejected Dash from the magic act and made Bess his partner; he and Bess became “The Houdinis.” Bess’s small size and pretty, expressive features enhanced the act, and Metamorphosis began to attract some attention. The Houdinis continued to perform in dime museums, doing up to fourteen acts a day. Houdini also tried to earn some money by selling short publications explaining various magic tricks. The Houdinis traveled around to various circuses and shows, and Houdini formed long-term friendships with other performers, individuals with physical oddities who made their living as “freaks.”
Houdini later claimed that Bess changed his luck. But the early career of the Houdinis was grueling and low paying; Houdini and Bess worked contract to contract with various performing shows, often traveling with few amenities and sleeping on cots in bunks shared with other performers. The two tried several versions of their act, including a comedy show billed under Bess’s maiden name, “The Rahners.” Houdini and Bess sometimes doubled as other actors as needed, including stints as the Wild Man and a singing clown, respectively.
Police Escape Publicity Stunts
Houdini bought a share in a burlesque show known as “the Gaiety Girls,” and Bess and Houdini traveled with the show through New York, Pennsylvania, and New England. Trying to create publicity for the shows, Houdini began showing up at local police stations and challenging police officials to find handcuffs from which he could not escape. After first attracting great attention with this performance while in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Houdini repeated it at police stations all over New England. Police would secure him with up to six pairs of handcuffs at once, and Houdini would duck into a private room and emerge with the handcuffs open in under a minute.
The burlesque company eventually went bankrupt, but Houdini continued his escape stunts to promote whatever shows with which he was performing. In New Brunswick, Canada, police cuffed Houdini with sophisticated leather cuffs used to restrain patients in insane asylums. Houdini escaped within a few minutes. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the sheriff clamped him in iron cuffs. Houdini was able to get out of them to great fanfare. In Chicago, he met challenges that he was hiding impressions of the jail’s locks by offering to strip naked for his escape. The police accepted this challenge, locking Houdini’s clothes in another cell. Houdini appeared mere moments later, fully dressed. Houdini’s name made the papers that night, and this trick became known as the Nude Cell Escape. Houdini did experience a defeat shortly afterwards in Chicago, as the handcuffs put on him had been tampered with so that they would not open. Some biographers point out that Houdini’s willingness to bare his body and the public’s fascination with this trick might point to an element of eroticism in Houdini’s appeal.