The famous American illusionist Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, under the name Eric Weiss. His parents, Hungarian Jews, emigrated to America on July 3, 1878, when Erik was four years old. The arrival of a circus in the city changed the usual boyhood days in Appleton, Wisconsin. Amazed by the strange world he saw, Harry wanted to be a part of it. At the age of nine, at the table, he introduced himself to the audience for the first time as "Prince of the Air". While for some they meant prison, for Houdini handcuffs meant glory.
The future "fox king" tried to help his family by doing various small chores, but, thanks to one of them, he came across a completely different solution. The place of the locksmith's apprentice and the first unlocked handcuffs led him to applause and the desire to repeat the story.
Harry was obsessed with magic, especially the work of the then very famous French magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin. When he himself began his magic career in the 1990s, he paid tribute to his hero by adding an "i" to his last name to create the stage name "Harry Houdini".
Success was getting closer. In addition to the numerous minor tricks he practiced, the idea of developing the "art of escape" kept his attention the most. Collecting all the types of foxes that were produced at that time and studying their mechanism, Houdini found a way to free himself from any shackles in a few minutes at most.
Chained, he was thrown into cold water while a mob of open mouths awaited the outcome, equally ready for applause and tears.
Minutes passed, but Houdini successfully escaped, with the famous sentence: “Ladies and gentlemen… I am not dead! ”
The drama of his performances attracted incredible attention and soon it was not questioned who was the most respected and greatest magician.
After one performance, Harry meets the beautiful Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner and soon their relationship becomes the most real magic of Houdini's life. Houdini was only 19 years old when he got married, he was still making a career, and Bes helped him, not only as a wife but also as a partner on stage. Their marriage was unbreakable, even though they had no children.
"I use muscle strength, horsehair and miniature keys to unlock the locks. While they would chain me. I would spread my shoulders as much as possible and move my arms slightly away from my body, which would help me release," he wrote in the book "Handcuff Secrets".
Houdini died on October 31, 1926.
After freeing himself from the chains and coming out of the suitcase with the water in which he was locked, Houdini knelt and then fainted. After the doctors regained consciousness, they warned him that he needed to go to surgery urgently, but Houdini decided to continue performing tricks. Although he performed magic tricks with less pain, he was by no means ready for the surprising blow to the stomach prepared for him by a 1926 McGill University student. just before his performance in Montreal. After he was taken to the hospital, it was determined that Harry Houdini died during the appendix removal operation, although it is still suspected to this day whether strong blows to the abdomen caused appendicitis.
I'm tired of fighting- was his last words. He was buried in Makpelah Jewish Cemetery in New York
His steely will made him famous, and his genius legendary, and whether he cheated on his tricks or not, one thing is for sure - Harry Houdini was and is the greatest magician this world has ever seen.
Phenomenal Eric Weiss! Those scenes of liberation from impossible situations when he is tied up are truly his best scenes