Who is Harry Houdini?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:01

Would you throw yourself over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Well, this week we're talking about the man who allegedly did just that.

ne he did on this very day in: 1907

Welcome to America, a history podcast.

I'm Niamh Heffernan, and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is today.

It's not right to say he spends every waking minute thinking about Houdini, but it is right to say John would like to spend every waking minute thinking about Houdini. This is how my guest today has been described by others.

A lifelong Houdini fan who has written extensively about him and is currently working on a definitive chronology of Houdini's life and career. So it's just as well he's on the podcast.

He also runs the website Wild About Harry, which we have linked to in the show notes, and I recommend you check that out. A huge welcome to the podcast, John Cox.

John Cox: 00:01:36

Hi, Liam. Thank you for having me.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:38

Hi, John. Yeah, it's. It's a pleasure to have you.

It was one of those subjects that I kind of penciled in and thought, I don't know if I'm going to be able to find someone to talk about this. And then lo and behold, I come across you and it was like, jackpot.

John Cox: 00:01:51

There you go. Well, if you need someone to talk Houdini, you found the right guy. I can talk your ear off.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:56

Evidently, yes. And on that note, I mean, I'd love to know when and why did your fascination with Houdini start?

John Cox: 00:02:06

Well, the why, I don't know if I can explain. I think you would probably need a psychologist to explain that, but I can tell you when it was with a movie.

ght the movie Houdini made in: 1953

Just a magnificent, Technicolor, eye popping biopic, classic Hollywood cinema and a fantastic movie. It's a movie that I later discovered for a lot of people my age, it was really sort of the gateway into Houdini or magic in general.

And I watched this movie and I thought, boy, that was quite a story. But even at 10 years old, I knew that movies weren't the facts. And I thought, I wonder what the truth about this guy is. I'm gonna go find a book.

I want to see what he really looked like. I want to find out if did he really die in the water torture cell? And so I set out on a quest to discover the truth about Houdini.

Coming up on 50 years, I am still on that quest to discover everything about Harry Houdini.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:14

Okay, we're going to try and do a bit of a whistle stop tour in the next kind of 30 plus minutes. So first of all, John, tell me about his early life and childhood. Because Harry Houdini wasn't actually his real name, was it?

John Cox: 00:03:28

,: 1874

Most people believe that he came from terrible poverty. That isn't necessarily true. His father was a lawyer, rabbinical lawyer. His mother came from a good family. She was educated.

s was all about in Hungary in: 1874

And when they immigrated to America, to Appleton, I mean, they really sort of were living an idyllic Life. At age 9, Houdini fell into poverty, which I think shaped the way that he saw the world.

But I think for the first nine years of his life, he was living. He was living a dream.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:30

If life was so wonderful for them first nine years, like, why. Why did they uproot and come to.

John Cox: 00:04:36

The U.S. the why they came to the U.S. is a little bit of a mystery. Like so much in Houdini's life, and especially his early life, family lore is that his father got into a duel. The rabbi, Rabbi Weiss, got into the.

A duel with a nobleman and killed him and had to flee.

And he went to Germany, and then he found himself in America and went to Appleton, Wisconsin, which needed a rabbi because they wanted to build a new temple. And he sent for the family. And so that's the story that Houdini would tell you. And as far as I know, that's the story.

I don't know anything other than that. And, you know, people have debated that. They think that sounds harebrained, a rabbi getting into a duel.

But apparently duels went on in Hungary at this time. It might not be as crazy as it sounds.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:31

Yeah, I mean, it sounds pretty fantastical. Like there's. There's surely an element of that that's been sort of mythicized, you know, post Houdini. Right.

John Cox: 00:05:41

That's pretty much how they told the story. And what's interesting is that isn't a story that he would tell the media.

You know, he concocted a lot of, you know, his own origin story and his own mythology for the media. This wasn't a story that was told. This is a story that was told among the family. You get this from letters, so maybe that helps the story along.

I don't know.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:02

So amongst all of this, and, you know, his rabbi dad winning duels and fleeing the country and whatnot, when did Houdini's interest in magic start?

John Cox: 00:06:14

Well, his interest in magic, again, they're different stories. It's said that his brother maybe got him a magic set for a birthday, but Houdini really clocks it.

He was 9 or 10 years old, and he saw a magician in Milwaukee. Houdini believed the magician was Dr. Lin, who was a famous English magician. It probably wasn't. It was probably a Dr. Lin imitator.

But Dr. Lin did an act called Palogenasia, in which he would invite someone on stage, and then he would cut the man's head off and his arms off and his legs off, put them all in a cabinet, and then restore the man to life. And this captivated little Eric Weiss, and suddenly magic was something that he was. That he was interested in.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:59

It's interesting because Houdini's brand of magic is, to some, not really strictly magic. You know, it's not pulling rabbits out of a hat. It's something a lot more like real life endangering. So how is it that he strayed into sort of the.

The world of escapology?

John Cox: 00:07:15

Well, his real passion in life was athletics and acrobatics. Before he saw his Milwaukee magician, he.

He had made his professional show business debut, as he called it, as a trapeze performer in a little circus. And he was a natural athlete. He was a natural competitor.

Now, magic comes into this, and he sort of creates a very unique act that molds those two things together. He also brings in elements of spiritualism, which had a lot to do with rope escapes and cabinet escapes.

And he puts it all together in this really unique specialty, and that is his challenge escape act, which initially starts with, you know, I challenge you. You know, I'll give you $50 if you can tie me up, and I can't escape.

Well, you know, we've got his competitiveness, we've got his athletics, we've got, you know, a little bit of spiritualism, a cabinet escape. And it's all couched in a larger idea that this is a magician. So he comes up with a completely kind of unique magic act, which is what you did.

Needed to do back then and today to. To stand out from. From the crowd.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:27

What kind of child was sort of young? Eric Weiss. And I asked that because I feel like magic can often be a kind of outlet for kids who maybe aren't quite as popular or cool.

Maybe it was different back then. But it's always sort of an escape from something or to something. And I just wonder what the reason was for Houdini's kind of outlet in magic.

John Cox: 00:08:50

You know, something I.

It took many, many years, decades for me to kind of land on this idea is that Houdini's act, his relationship to the audience and who he was, was much more the career of an athlete or a sports star. And his nature was much more that of an athlete.

So he wasn't, you know, a young boy kind of learning magic to find his, you know, to showcases his power and command over the universe, which is sometimes what people say. Young boys. Why young boys gravitate into magic. He was a competitor. He was competitive, and he liked to win and he liked medals.

And he was very, very outgoing and very strong. He was small, but he was unusually strong.

And also because the family did fall into poverty, his father lost his job in Appleton and they had to move to Milwaukee. And that's when they end up in the slums and the situation is desperate. And so forget school, get out there and work. And that was part of.

Also what he was all about was hard, hard work selling newspapers and anything. So he was outgoing, he was strong, he was determined. And his means of escaping their situation was hard work and becoming a champion.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:17

And I guess if he was quite an outgoing person, he probably had a sort of natural affinity for the sort of the hustler life of, you know, doing magic on the street to crowds and earning a few bob from that. Right.

John Cox: 00:10:31

That's really interesting. I've never heard of him doing any busking. You know, that's kind of street performing, although I'm sure he probably did.

What he discovered in life was, I think he got more from selling newspapers than anything. He discovered the newspaper industry. He discovered advertising. He discovered the rhythms of people.

And for him, it was getting a show and then promoting that show with newspaper, you know, via. Via newspapers, via the media of the time.

So it was bringing the people in, not so much about, I'm going to stand and hopefully people throw money in the hat. It was putting together a show and packing it, you know, packing that room.

I feel like that was a little bit more of his drive towards his early work.

Liam Heffernan: 00:11:18

Yeah, and it's interesting that you touch on that because, you know, obviously Houdini came along at a time when the communication industries, like the printing press, had been industrialized, and suddenly it was national. It was fast and it was, you know, the whole, you know, way that people were communicating from coast to coast was. Was changing and growing rapidly.

So when it comes to Houdini coming along at the right time and being able to build a name for himself, it was kind of the perfect storm of, you know, the era he was in and the sort of stuff he was doing that, you know, must have really kind of captured the attention of, you know, of the press and of the media to sort of give him that additional publicity.

John Cox: 00:11:58

Right, yeah. In his understanding of how to use this new medium, I mean, it's. His success, I think, is similar to other big stars. It's just right. They're at the.

They're the right person at the right place at the right time. Who has the mastery over what. What's. What's. What's brand new. And for Houdini, you know, he had it all going on with his act.

He put together a great act. But also it was his understanding of mass communication, particularly newspapers and how newspapers.

I don't think people even realized back then newspapers had multiple editions throughout the day. On the way to work, you would pick up a newspaper at lunch. You would get the afternoon edition.

When you go home from work, there's an evening edition. There are extras if there are breaking news. And so Houdini saw. Wait, this is what people are looking at. There's a great quote.

Houdini once said, I'm not an advertiser. I'm news. So for Houdini, it was get on that front page. That's how you advertise your show.

And it's free, but you make it a story so that the reporter will want to put it on the front page. You know, that was part of his mastery of his age. And then vaudeville also becomes the medium that he's a natural.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:10

, we're talking about this in: 2025

Was that as much of a thing back then and kind of what was the sort of wider public perception of magic?

John Cox: 00:13:30

Well, you know, magic. I'm not a magic historian, but there were very famous magicians of the era, Harry Keller, Alexander Herman, people that Houdini really looked up to.

And you know, magic as an art form was something that if you had a deck of cards, you could, you could, you could get a job in a dime museum. You know, if you had, if you had an act, you could do it. So magic probably, you know, similar today.

There were stars that you aspired to and then there was just a lot of people doing specialty acts and hustling. And at this time, there were a lot of venues popping up where they needed magicians. You had dime museums, you had circuses, you had medicine shows.

And Houdini played, played in all this. And the perception of magic was not unlikely, it is today. People love watching a good magic.

The tricks worked just as well back then as they, as they do today. And as for a young Jewish man, entertainment in general, but magic in particular was a field that was wide open.

The great magicians of that time, Alexander Herman was Jewish. Oh, gosh, I hope he was Jewish. Now I'm thinking, wait, I think Alexander Herman was Jefferson. I'm pretty sure he was.

And so Houdini could look at that and say, oh, well, there's, you know, the theater, there's no, there's no, there's, you know, there's no impediment to going into the theater.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:49

And of course, you know, back in the 20th century, especially early 20th century, it wasn't particularly uncommon that Jewish performers changed their names in order to, well, get work. I mean, you know, Bobby Darren is another example that comes immediately to mind. And there's many others as well. And.

But at what point did Houdini kind of become Houdini and what was that kind of breakthrough moment for him?

John Cox: 00:15:17

Well, Houdini set out to become a professional magician when he read the book the Memoirs of Robert Houdin, who was a famous magician, kind of the Harry Houdini of Eric Weiss's childhood was Robert Houdin and Houdini. Eric Weiss took the name Houdin, added an I, and became Houdini, and then spent the next nine years trying to make it.

And he performed in every rinky dink venue you can possibly imagine. Circuses, medicine shows, dime museums.

He aspired to get into vaudeville, which was the new emerging respectable entertainment that was, that was spreading across the country. And eventually that happened he was discovered. He was discovered by Martin Beck, who was a booker for the Orpheum vaudeville circuit.

And Beck said, hey, this guy with this weird ancuff act and the trunk trick he does with his wife, it's pretty good. Might work in vaudeville. Clean yourself up and I'll try you out in Omaha. And Houdini killed in Omaha. And he said, well, let's try out Kansas City.

Houdini kills again.

He said, okay, we're gonna give you a contract and you're gonna open in San Francisco, the big Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, which was their flagship theater.

And Houdini not only killed, but he concocted a publicity stunt in which he went to the police station in San Francisco and allowed them to strip him completely nude, search him, and then manacle him. And he escaped from the manacles.

Houdini had himself photographed, you know, in these chains, in a little loincloth, and made sure the papers had these. And so, boom, he's not only a sensation in the theater, but suddenly he's got full page newspaper coverage. And he truly takes San Francisco by storm.

So that's his breakthrough is really at that point. And then it's city by city, country by country, and everyone seems to just. He's electric.

People just are fascinated with the idea of the challenge escape artist.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:15

I think for someone like Houdini, who seems just like he was really ahead of his time in terms of his kind of understanding of how to create good PR for himself, by the time he got to those cities, his reputation must have preceded him. Right.

John Cox: 00:17:30

As much as I mean, he wanted it to. You know, most newspapers were local. So just because he had great coverage in San Francisco doesn't mean that they knew who he was in Los Angeles.

So he would have to kind of do this at every stop. It wasn't until a little bit later in his career that he did things that were so spectacular and there was.

There were now news wires and that would pick things up that his news of his escapes would begin to spread nationally, but also internationally. Some of the things he did internationally would sometimes get picked up. And, you know, he made sure that that happened. He would send. He made.

He made lots of friends with newspaper men and he would send them clippings and. And they would. They would put it. Put it in the paper.

Liam Heffernan: 00:18:15

Yeah, it's a smart guy.

But, I mean, you said that, you know, there was an element of, you know, needs must, you know, early in his life, what did his family think of him and of his career choice you know, going into magic sort of full time.

John Cox: 00:18:29

Well, I, I think they were just fine with that.

I think, you know, the story goes that his father, when he was, when he was dying and his father died when he was in his teens, that his father called him to his bedside and asked him specifically, Houdini had five other brothers, asked him specifically to always look after your mother, make sure she never wants. And that was part of Houdini's drive and, and that was part of his drive into show business. And you know, he, he was making a living.

He was able to make a living and half his earnings always went home to his mother. His brother Hardin also became a magician and, and, and escape artist and worked with Houdini when he was, when he was younger.

So I'm sure, hey, if you got a paying job, I don't think the family has any problem with that. And of course, when he became famous. Fantastic.

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:23

Yeah, well, fair enough. I mean, he always, from what you've said and, you know, from what I've read of him, he seems like a really family oriented guy at heart.

John Cox: 00:19:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a large family. It was a large, tight knit family.

You know, when he had some success and some money, he bought a new, new, big brownstone in Harlem. And that wasn't just his house. That was sort of the new Weiss family headquarters.

There was always a family home, primarily a home for his mother, but also whatever brother needed a place to live for a while, could move into this, into this brownstone. He was close with his family.

There was a little family feud between him, or not little, a big family feud between him and one of his brothers, but that goes on in families. By and large, he felt his family was important to him.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:16

And just to humor myself and any other international listeners, when you say brownstone, what do you mean specifically style of.

John Cox: 00:20:24

House associated with East Coast? It's a multi level, in Houdini's case, a five story kind of narrow house. You've seen it in movies.

It has the stairway walk up to the second floor and many, many rooms. It's one of the largest houses you can live in when you're in a city like New York or Boston.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:47

Yeah, it's very much a sort of statement of affluence at the time.

John Cox: 00:20:51

Oh yeah, yeah. And today, ironically.

ownstone in Harlem and by the: 1970

You know, the people that held onto their brownstones now have very, very valuable property in New York City.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:18

You mentioned, you know, he obviously has a big family, but you also mentioned his wife earlier. Tell me about Bess.

John Cox: 00:21:25

Bess was dynamite. She was a fellow performer. They met in Coney Island. She was a serial comic, singer and dancer. And so she. So she had her own act.

They were very similar, you know, even though he was Jewish and she was Catholic. They both had large families. In Bess's case, she had five sisters and one brother. Houdini had five brothers and one sister.

Both families were German speakers. Both were immigrant families in the sense that their parents had come from.

From different countries, and both loved to perform, and they just hit it off. If there was a romance in his life before Bess, we don't know about it.

But after 10 days, they got married and they formed their own act, the Houdinis. They had. They were a partnership for the next 33 years until. Until his death. He loved Bess. He hated being away from Bess.

I've read these wonderful letters and postcards that he would send her when he was. When he was away from her. You know, almost hourly, you know, he's writing another postcard. He's just. He's got a thought.

He just wants to get it out on a postcard and put it in the mail. He adored her, and she adored him.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:35

When we were in lockdown in: 2020

John Cox: 00:22:52

No, no. And, you know, when they're at home, they had that big house. So Bess had one entire floor, and he had a couple entire floors.

Liam Heffernan: 00:23:01

Yeah, It's a bit easier when you've got, like, old floor to yourself, isn't it? Okay, so Houdini's mother died. And from what I understand, you know, that really affected him, didn't it? Tell me about that. That period of his life.

John Cox: 00:23:16

Boy, his mother's death really affected him. And for a period of time, really, for. For a number of years, he lost kind of his. His will to work. He says, I loaf in my work.

And he never really got it back. He grieved for the rest of his life. His mother's death just knocked him out.

But he continued, you know, the Houdini biopics will sometimes tell you that he went into seclusion for years. That isn't true. He did take two months off. He had cancelled a tour when she died. But, you know, he got back at it.

But he confessed that he seemed to not have the fire in the belly. And it's almost like, why am I doing this? He seemed to lose his purpose, but he was able to refind it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:08

Yeah, I guess maybe if he didn't have Bess, maybe it could have gone another direction. But I guess he always had that incentive because he still had a wife and a family of his own to support even after his parents had died. Right.

John Cox: 00:24:21

Yeah. He still had to provide. And you know, it's interesting, he sort of redefines himself in later years.

He, you know, people would ask him, you know, what's your goal in life? And it's, and he says it's to live a life worthy of the memory of my mother. So it still stays about his mother.

Even though she's died, he's still living a life that he thinks his mother would want him to live.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:47

Yeah, and that's, that's, that's, that's lovely.

It's not, it's not the side of Houdini that really gets talked about, which is, which is a shame really because obviously we only really know Houdini for his work and his, and his, I want to say magic, but I don't know if that maybe demeans what he does a bit because actually escapology is so much more dangerous. And is Houdini really a magician? Because he puts himself in very real danger and it's not about, you know, a sleight of hand or a trick of the eye.

This is, this is real kind of life and death stuff that he does, isn't it?

John Cox: 00:25:21

Yeah. Magic was always part of his act. It was always a little bit of a warm up. And he always considered himself to be part of the magic fraternity.

Although his primary act was this new thing, an escape artist, a challenge escape artist. I can escape from anything anyone can come up with. But he loved magic and he would occasionally, you know, roll out a magic effect.

He tried a few times in: 1914

But, you know, people wanted Houdini the escape artist. There's plenty of magicians, but there was only one Houdini the escape artist. So he kind of kept going back to that.

But he had a few notable magic spectaculars. Walking through a brick wall was something that, that we still talk about today. Even though he only did that trick for one week in one theater.

And his vanishing elephant was a true magic spectacular. Primarily, you know, people wanted Houdini, the escape artist.

Liam Heffernan: 00:26:31

Yeah.

And do you think that as, you know, his reputation became the escapology and as people wanted more, that he felt a pressure to do more dangerous and more potentially life threatening things?

John Cox: 00:26:47

I don't think he got that pressure or felt that pressure on the part of the audience. One thing that happened was that he became so enormously famous that part of the appeal of seeing Houdini was just seeing Houdini.

You know, it's sort of like, sort of like a musician, like a rock star after a while. The Rolling Stones don't need to create a new hit. You're just going to see the Rolling Stones play their old hits and that's.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:11

The greatest hits are fine. Right? That's what you want.

John Cox: 00:27:13

Cell, which he brings out in: 1912

And he does that for the rest of his career. And people are fine to go and see Houdini, you know, do the classics.

And then of course, he's doing his street stunts like the suspended straightjacket escape, which is probably more dangerous looking than it. Than it actually is. I think Houdini got very good at creating escapes that looked more dangerous than they really were.

He seemed to satisfy his audience. I don't think he felt a pressure to up the odds.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:54

What is it about what Houdini does that just fascinates people so much? Because it's lasted to this day.

If someone goes out there and does something and says, if I don't escape from this box in like 60 seconds, I'm gonna fall like 100 foot to my almost certain death. You know, there's something really voyeuristic about the fact that we all love watching that, isn't there?

John Cox: 00:28:20

Yeah. Houdini said people don't want to see other people die, but they do love to be on the spot when it happens. So he understood.

He understood that, you know what's interesting about, about Houdini and boy, have people, do people miss this. And modern performers don't get this at all. He rarely emphasized the danger. He would emphasize the safety.

He would come out and say, okay, so what we're going to do tonight, we're taking every precaution here, the fire department is over here, and we have tested this. And he would talk about all the precautions we're taking so that what I'm about to do is as safe as we can possibly make it.

I assure you, everything is being done. And the more he talked about safety, the more people said, I think this is kind of dangerous.

What he's about to do that is, you know, the only people that get that is our Penn and Teller. It's like when they do the bullet kit, they don't come and say, I'm about to do the most dangerous thing that's ever been done on a stage.

You just say, you know, bullshit. But when you come out and you say, okay, we're going to have a live gun on this stage. We're going to, you know, oh, here's all the rules.

This is what you do.

The more you emphasize that what we are about to do is, you know, I assure everyone in here that what we're about to do, we're taking every precaution against accidents or danger. You emphasize safety, and it seems dangerous. And Houdini did that all the time. He.

He would, you know, the day before he did a suspended straightjacket escape, the fire department would come out and test the lines, and the next day, the front page of the paper would be, fire department test Houdini riggings and what have you. This is how we convinced people it was dangerous was by emphasizing the safety. In reality, it was very safe. He was. He was a professional.

He was not reckless. He did not do reckless things. He wanted to have a nice, long career. And he wasn't necessarily an adrenaline junkie or a thrill seeker.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:10

Building on everything we've talked about so far, I fail to believe that there weren't other very talented magicians or even very talented escapologists. But it feels like what Houdini really had over anyone else was this really acute understanding of how to build hype and how to.

How to sell something without overselling it. You know, I mean, you made that comparison between, you know, the way Houdini emphasized safety and sort of how Penn and Teller do the same.

I mean, that's not something that was sort of tried and tested, you know, over 100 years ago that, you know, Houdini was really ahead of his time in. In. In how he. In how he sold himself, surely.

John Cox: 00:30:49

Yeah. And he. He just. He had great instincts, and I think a lot of that came from that. He had.

Did have long, struggling years of working many, many, many shows a day for all kinds of semi interested audiences. And he learned, especially in venues like dime museums where people could just move along, he learned how to grab people and what worked.

So he learned his craft by doing it.

So by the time he's in front of a proper vaudeville audience, he's got, he's honed it, you know, and as far as we talked about this before, as far as advertising, he understood where people get their information and he knew how to plug into that and he knew how to attract newspaper men to certain things as well. So no, he understood his art, he understood how to promote himself and he understood how to build a legacy. That's for sure.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:45

Houdini, as we touched on, changed his name. But was he ever deliberately secretive about his Hungarian, you know, family and origin, or did he embrace that and make that part of his identity?

John Cox: 00:32:01

Well, that's really interesting because in the beginning, when he's touring or not touring, when he's traveling around the United States performing, and even in his early vaudeville tours, he promoted himself as the Hungarian magician because that was exotic. You wanted to associate yourself with, with, with, with, you know, he's, he's this exotic being from Europe.

When he goes to Europe, when he goes to England, being an American is what's exotic. So he becomes the, the, the, the elusive American. And that's where he really begins to get his international fame.

And that's when he decides, you know what, I'm an American. I'm gonna lock in on that, not just professionally, but also I'm gonna change my passport to show that I was born in America.

And so he said, he, he decides, that's my identity. He decides. I was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm a product of America. I'm this new creature called a first born American.

He always said, you know, my parents came from Hungary. He always acknowledged that Hungary was his lineage.

But he, at a certain point,: 1900

But if you look in these early advertising and newspaper articles, they all say he's a, some of them call him an Austrian, some call him a Hungarian, some say he's Austrian. At that time, Hungary was still part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Some make a mistake and call him an Australian. I think it was all fine with him.

Your job is to be an exotic creature.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:34

And I guess actually, you know, selling itself particularly to the British and you know, to Europeans. America even at that point, I imagine, had this reputation for everything had to be bigger and bolder and grander.

You know, America even then saw themselves as the greatest country in the world.

You know, and I guess actually by, by presenting himself as this American, maybe the connotations associated with that kind of made people expect something bigger and more spectacular. And you know, that kind of has a knock on effect then on the sort of preconceived expectations.

Before people even see Houdini, they're expecting something big. And then it's kind of self validating when they see something that is even.

John Cox: 00:34:13

Just all right, something big, something new, something exotic. I think there was an appetite for American entertainers. You think about, you know, Buffalo Bills, Wild west show.

Liam Heffernan: 00:34:23

Yeah.

John Cox: 00:34:24

Would go over gangbusters in Europe. And so, yeah, I think, I think it was just in the same way that American audiences liked this exotic person from, from, from, from Europe.

Oh, he's a master of mystical things. Think, hey, who is, oh, this is one of these Americans. And what, he escapes from jails, he escapes from handcuffs. Let's see if this is on the level.

And then sure enough, there's this very likable American. There's also Houdini is frequently mischaracterized as being brash. And he stands up and God himself could not hold me.

He would never in a million years do that. You go again, you go out in front of an audience and you boast like that, they're going to turn against you.

He would come out and he would always kind of couch the situation. He was always the underdog. It was always, you know, there would be a police officer on stage, you know, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

And Houdini would be very. Well, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this, but I'm assure all of you, I'm going to give it my best.

So there was always a point of authority that he was, that he was being challenged by. He would make himself the underdog. And he had a certain humility, at least on stage about, about what he was doing.

He would, he knew how to get people on his side again. I'm sure it comes from the rough and tumble early years of performing in medicine shows. You know, you got it.

You got to get these cowboys on your side.

Liam Heffernan: 00:35:48

The stuff that he did was objectively incredibly dangerous and incredibly daring. And yet. So there's an irony in the fact that his death was actually incredibly angry, unglamorous, wasn't it?

John Cox: 00:36:02

Yeah, yeah, but you know, that's, that's, that's maybe part of the legend, you know, isn't that how T.E. lawrence, you know, has this incredible life, and then he dies in a motorcycle accident on the back English road?

And for Houdini, yeah, his death, I'll make it. I'll make it short. But essentially what happened was he was on tour. He was performing in Montreal.

He invited some students from McGill University backstage.

While they were talking, one of the students, J. Gordon Whitehead, asked him, is it true that you're in such incredible physical condition, you can be punched in the stomach and it can have no effect? And Houdini said, yes, that's true.

It's not entirely clear what happened next, if he was unprepared or he was in the process of standing or if he just remained laying on his couch. But Whitehead took this as an invitation, came flying in, hit him several times very hard in the stomach. It hurt.

Houdini went on to his next stop in Detroit, and the pain just got worse and worse and worse. He was looked at by a doctor who said, you should probably go to the hospital. But the theater was sold out. The show must go on.

And Houdini performed that night with 106 degree temperature. He was brought to the hospital afterwards, and they operated, and they discovered that he had had appendicitis and his appendix had ruptured.

Now, did the punch caused this? That's open for debate, and people love to debate it.

it for a week until Halloween: 1926

So at least he waited for Halloween. He knew how to make an exit.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:50

But I read on your website, actually, that his last words were, I'm tired of fighting. Which is, if it was such a sad note to end on, why do.

John Cox: 00:38:01

You think he said that it is sad. It's possible he's just talking about that week. He fought that infection for a week and finally decided he was tired of fighting.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:13

Yeah, it just feels like such a. For such a showman and for someone that was known for such incredible performances, just feels like such an undignified way to go, doesn't it?

John Cox: 00:38:26

And so sudden. I mean, it always strikes me whenever I'm working on something in which I'm kind of working my way through his incredibly dynamic life.

And then in a week, it's over, and it and it's shocking. And you can feel what audiences must have felt at the time because he was such a dynamic person. He was such a part of their everyday.

And all of a sudden, oh, my gosh, Houdini. Houdini died. That just. It didn't seem possible.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:52

And there's this sense of invincibility that surrounded a guy that was able to do such incredible things when he dies in. In such a normal way. It must make you at the time, really reflect on your own mortality.

John Cox: 00:39:09

Yeah, I'm sure it did. And, you know, Valentino had died a month earlier from an ulcer, but also from. From. From. From infection, which was a shocker.

You know, the young and vibrant superstar Valentino.

Liam Heffernan: 00:39:21

Boom.

John Cox: 00:39:22

Gone. And then suddenly the dynamic, the. Yeah. The invincible Houdini a month later, gone. Yeah, I think. I think probably it did. It would have.

It does shape people. I mean, it still happens today when a. When a celebrity that we've come to know and love dies suddenly.

Liam Heffernan: 00:39:39

Let's quickly touch on his legacy, because over a hundred years after some of his biggest headlines, we're still talking about Houdini. And he still is very much a guy that I think even people who don't know a lot about magic would think of if you ask them to name a magician.

So how has his legacy endured so long?

John Cox: 00:40:00

Well, that's the big question, isn't it?

And I don't have a great answer, except that, you know, his art still works in the sense that we still know who Beethoven or Mozart is, because his music still works for us, and Houdini still amazes us.

When someone tells a story of how Houdini escaped from the United States jail and switched all the prisoners from one cell to the next, people still say, wow.

So part of it is that his story still continues to amaze us, but he has just sort of stepped into that place in our culture and in our language that the name Houdini represents everything that is mysterious and miraculous and impossible. And that hold seems to be everlasting.

Liam Heffernan: 00:40:52

Yeah. And I think when your name becomes an adjective, you know, you've made it, right.

John Cox: 00:40:59

Yeah. Yeah. I think. I think Houdini would be amazed, actually, that he is as famous today as he was in his own lifetime.

Liam Heffernan: 00:41:09

And is it just because we're both, you know, Westerners ourselves, or is it just an American thing that when we think of magicians, we always think of these big showmen like Houdini and even more modern day, like Penn and Teller and Criss angel and these people that you know, really find. Find their home in, like, Vegas. Is that brand of magic an American thing?

John Cox: 00:41:33

Oh, it's. That's a good question. I think off the top of my head, I feel like it is uniquely American and very. And very much Houdini to turn the art of magic.

You think of European magicians that preceded Houdini and, you know, parlor magicians and dressed in their tuxedos and they are doing miracles. But as far as I know, Houdini was the magician who did these spectacular outdoor stunts.

He brought that idea, I think, to the world of magic and, of course, his oversized magic effects. So it might be. I think that might be uniquely American.

Liam Heffernan: 00:42:18

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we've only really just scratched the surface of what is decades of work on your part about Houdini.

But if anyone is listening to this and does want to continue reading about Houdini and learn more, what resources could you recommend?

John Cox: 00:42:35

Well, goodness, there is no shortages of places to get information about Houdini, although a lot of it is a little sketchy. There's a lot of Houdini mythology out there. You know, for me, it's still all about books.

And there's one biography that I think stands head and shoulders over them all. It's called the Career of Eric Weiss by Kenneth Silverman. And it's just a terrific biography if you want to take on, you know, a proper biography.

There's a lot of other books written about Houdini that are very specialized. I've just written a book in which I've annotated his early travel diary. So it's all about his early struggles and how he became success.

So a lot of specialty work out there. I would turn to books.

And, you know, hey, if you just want to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, then go to my blog, wildbouthoudini.com because I have. My God, for 15 years now, almost every day. Have written something about Houdini.

Liam Heffernan: 00:43:40

Yeah, I mean, I think underselling the website there, John. It's a fantastic resource. So. Absolutely. Check that out. And links are in the show notes. And.

And on that note, John Cox, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. It's been a really fun one to do. And as I mentioned, anything that we've talked about in this episode will be in the show notes.

For anyone listening, John, if anyone wants to connect with you, where can they do that?

John Cox: 00:44:05

You know, go to my website, wildabouthoudini.com from there, you can branch out and follow me on whatever social media you like to use. But you know, the website is sort of the hub.

I have a Patreon as well connected to it if you really want to get into to the secrets of Houdini and also kind of what I'm working on now. But yeah, go to my website and from there you can branch out and follow me in whatever way you want.

Liam Heffernan: 00:44:34

Excellent. Thank you, John. And if you enjoy listening to this podcast, do make sure that you leave us a rating and a review.

And if you give us a follow as well so that all future episodes just appear in your feed. And if you follow the links in the show notes, you can also support the show.

It helps us keep the lights on and keep making awesome content for you all. And you can do that from as little as $1. So if you're feeling generous, please go and do that again. Thank you, John Cox, for joining me.

Thank you all so much for listening. We're going to record a quick bonus episode as well, so look out for that on your feed a few days after this. And goodbye.