Houdini(4)

While touring with a medicine show in Kansas, Houdini tried a new moneymaking tactic, that of “speaking to the spirits.” Spiritualism was a growing trend, with crowds paying conjurers to speak with their dead. Houdini, recognizing the simple tricks used to deceive naïve crowds into thinking that their deceased loved ones were reaching out from beyond the grave, made money with these performances, but soon abandoned them. He felt it was wrong to take advantage of vulnerable people who were mourning the loss of family and friends.



While Houdini enjoyed periodic flashes of fame due to his escapes from police stations, and the Houdini’s performance of “Metamorphosis” was often a show-closer, he and Bess remained poor and relatively unknown. In 1898, the Houdinis returned to New York, exhausted from life on the road. While staying with his mother, Houdini, desperate to make a living that didn’t involve the beer hall circuit, created a catalog for a magic school, in which he offered to teach pupils his escape tricks. Seriously considering getting out of the magic performance business, the Houdinis went to the Chicago area in December of 1898 to fulfill some previously agreed-to contracts. While performing in a beer hall in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Houdini was discovered by Martin Beck, a powerful manager who ran a circuit of vaudeville theaters.





Houdini’s First Year of Fame




Martin Beck was a big name in the vaudeville circuit, booking for a group of major theaters known as the Orpheum Circuit. Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment for middle-class American families of the time, consisting of shows performed in nice theaters, for which tickets were somewhat costly. A show usually consisted of eight to ten novelty acts, including acrobats, comedy routines, and a variety of talent and magic demonstrations. Vaudeville was considered a classier form of entertainment than that found in beer halls and dime museums, and a tour with a vaudeville show involved staying for one to two weeks at the same theater, performing only twice a day. For Houdini and Bess, who were accustomed to constant travel and performing up to fourteen times a day, performing in vaudeville was a luxurious life.



Houdini’s brother Dash later credited Martin Beck as being the manager who made Houdini famous. Originally a German actor, Beck had become the owner of several vaudeville theaters. He excelled at recognizing not only talent but also at knowing how to present it to audiences. Beck also was able to manage Houdini’s mercurial moods and frequently unreasonable demands. As he told Houdini from the beginning, he was determined to make Houdini a big name. He recommended that Houdini ditch his card tricks and smaller illusions and focus on performing his escapes. Houdini rearranged his act to include a needle-swallowing trick, Metamorphosis, and various innovative escape tricks, including escapes from thumb-cuffs, leg irons, and double-springed handcuffs. He continued to challenge police in stations around the country to try to restrain him inside their cells and in their best cuffs, agreeing to be stripped naked, searched, and to have his mouth taped shut in order to prove that he wasn’t hiding any tools. In San Francisco he challenged local officials to place him in a straitjacket, the formidable reverse coat used to restrain criminally insane individuals. He escaped in less than ten minutes. Often Houdini’s body was left bloody and bruised from the contortions and exertions of these escapes, but Houdini’s trademark determination prevailed over these small injuries.



Beck made good on his promise to take care of Houdini. Beck steadily increased Houdini’s salary and made careful plans for the development of his fame around the country and the world. Houdini, who had been making next to nothing on the beer hall circuit, began under Beck at sixty dollars a week, advancing to almost four hundred dollars a week by the end of his first year under Beck’s management. At that time, that amount of money made Houdini a very rich man. He bought Bess extravagant gifts and sent money home to his mother, to whom he was devoted.



Houdini continued the rigorous daily practice of his tricks and hunted for new innovations. His ego also grew. He began to have serious disagreements with Martin Beck, scoffing at the percentage of profits that Beck took and complaining about lower-paying gigs that Beck had booked before Houdini achieved great fame. Beck managed Houdini’s ego well. He did not back down in the face of Houdini’s ungrateful demands. Beck planned a European tour for Houdini, followed by a return to the States, where he wanted Houdini finally to become recognized in New York City.



While in Europe, Houdini filled out a passport application, reporting that he had been born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Many biographers say that this fiction was symbolic of Harry Houdini’s goal of erasing his poverty-stricken childhood as the child of a disadvantaged immigrant family.