Houdini Halloween Countdown: Death-defying Escapes
What drove Houdini to death-defying escapes?
Houdini grew up as Ehrich Weiss, son of a Jewish rabbi that could not keep a job because he spoke no English. When Ehrich turned twelve, his father called him to his bedside. “I am poor in this world’s goods, but rich in the wonderful woman God gave me as my wife and your mother. Promise me that after I am gone your dear Mother will never want for anything.” Young Ehrich put his hand on his father’s holy book. “I promise with all my heart and soul.” His father died of cancer, and Ehrich worked as a messenger boy, cutting neckties, boxing giving all of his money to his mother, Cecilia.
At seventeen, he changed his name to Houdini and performed magic at Coney Island, married Bess Houdini and traveled the vaudeville circuit for a decade, but it wasn’t enough to do magic. He wanted to use his sharp intellect and powerful body to do things that had never been done.
His need to push for excellence and provide for his mother and entire family, as his father never could, drove Houdini to perform such dangerous stunts:
1. Belly of a Whale Escape: In 1911, while Houdini was performing in Boston, ten prominent businessmen challenged him to escape from the carcass of a whale. They stipulated Houdini had to be shackled in handcuffs and leg-irons supplied by police and sewn up inside the whale’s belly. With Houdini manacled inside, the carcass of a beached whale was tightly laced and completely wrapped in chains. Fifteen minutes later, the great magician emerged smiling, and audiences had no idea that he nearly suffocated on arsenic fumes – the chemical used to embalm the whale.
2. East Indian Needle Trick: Houdini could swallow 100 needles and 20 yards of thread with nothing more than a drink of water. After showing his empty mouth to the audience, he reached inside his mouth and pulled out every single needle, fully threaded together and often spanning the length of the stage.
3. Milk Can Escape: Handcuffed and sealed inside an over-sized milk can filled with water, failure to escape meant drowning. The milk can was locked inside a padlocked wooden chest. Adding to the suspense, Houdini invited members of the audience to hold their breath along with him.
4. The Overboard Box Escape: Within 57 seconds, Houdini escaped from a packing crate weighed down by two hundred pounds of lead in New York’s East River. He had been handcuffed and leg-ironed, and a crate nailed shut. Observers found the crate intact with Houdini’s discarded manacles inside.
5. Buried Alive Stunt: The first time Houdini performed a buried alive stunt it very nearly killed him. Buried six feet under without a casket, Houdini struggled to dig his way to the surface and panicked when overcome by exhaustion. He cried for help and had to be pulled unconscious from the grave by his assistant. Houdini went on to perform two other variations. One required him to be sealed in a coffin while submerged underwater for one and a half hours. Another had him strapped in a straitjacket, sealed in a casket and buried in a large tank filled with sand.
6. Escape from Murderer’s Row: In 1906, Houdini escaped from Murderer’s Row, the south wing of Washington, D.C.’s Old Jail. The guards stripped Houdini of all his clothes and handcuffed Houdini before locking him inside a cell. While it only took him two minutes to escape, he used the last nineteen minutes of his act to open eight other locked cells, switch the prisoners around and lock them inside again. Would love to know how the inmates felt about that.
7. Suspended Straitjacket Escape: Strapped in a standard regulation straitjacket and suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane, Houdini made his escapes in full view of his audience crowding on the streets below. It would only take him three minutes to break free. Still, what a head rush and terrifying reminder of one’s own mortality.
8. Chinese Water Torture Cell a.k.a. the “Houdini Upside Down”: A combination of his suspended straitjacket and milk can escape stunts, this was his most famous and daring trick yet. Locked in stocks by the feet, Houdini was lowered upside down into a tank filled with water. If he couldn’t escape within two minutes, an assistant stood by with an axe ready to break the glass. One can only be so die hard.
Courtesy of Parcast.com
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The Secret Life of Mrs. London was named by WIKI: Marvelous Novels of the 20th century https://wiki.ezvid.com/m/kNkCn2l8yxVIl
and 2018 BEST FIRST NOVEL nominee, Center for Fiction
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072KRP7MN
Houdini grew up as Ehrich Weiss, son of a Jewish rabbi that could not keep a job because he spoke no English. When Ehrich turned twelve, his father called him to his bedside. “I am poor in this world’s goods, but rich in the wonderful woman God gave me as my wife and your mother. Promise me that after I am gone your dear Mother will never want for anything.” Young Ehrich put his hand on his father’s holy book. “I promise with all my heart and soul.” His father died of cancer, and Ehrich worked as a messenger boy, cutting neckties, boxing giving all of his money to his mother, Cecilia.
At seventeen, he changed his name to Houdini and performed magic at Coney Island, married Bess Houdini and traveled the vaudeville circuit for a decade, but it wasn’t enough to do magic. He wanted to use his sharp intellect and powerful body to do things that had never been done.
His need to push for excellence and provide for his mother and entire family, as his father never could, drove Houdini to perform such dangerous stunts:
1. Belly of a Whale Escape: In 1911, while Houdini was performing in Boston, ten prominent businessmen challenged him to escape from the carcass of a whale. They stipulated Houdini had to be shackled in handcuffs and leg-irons supplied by police and sewn up inside the whale’s belly. With Houdini manacled inside, the carcass of a beached whale was tightly laced and completely wrapped in chains. Fifteen minutes later, the great magician emerged smiling, and audiences had no idea that he nearly suffocated on arsenic fumes – the chemical used to embalm the whale.
2. East Indian Needle Trick: Houdini could swallow 100 needles and 20 yards of thread with nothing more than a drink of water. After showing his empty mouth to the audience, he reached inside his mouth and pulled out every single needle, fully threaded together and often spanning the length of the stage.
3. Milk Can Escape: Handcuffed and sealed inside an over-sized milk can filled with water, failure to escape meant drowning. The milk can was locked inside a padlocked wooden chest. Adding to the suspense, Houdini invited members of the audience to hold their breath along with him.
4. The Overboard Box Escape: Within 57 seconds, Houdini escaped from a packing crate weighed down by two hundred pounds of lead in New York’s East River. He had been handcuffed and leg-ironed, and a crate nailed shut. Observers found the crate intact with Houdini’s discarded manacles inside.
5. Buried Alive Stunt: The first time Houdini performed a buried alive stunt it very nearly killed him. Buried six feet under without a casket, Houdini struggled to dig his way to the surface and panicked when overcome by exhaustion. He cried for help and had to be pulled unconscious from the grave by his assistant. Houdini went on to perform two other variations. One required him to be sealed in a coffin while submerged underwater for one and a half hours. Another had him strapped in a straitjacket, sealed in a casket and buried in a large tank filled with sand.
6. Escape from Murderer’s Row: In 1906, Houdini escaped from Murderer’s Row, the south wing of Washington, D.C.’s Old Jail. The guards stripped Houdini of all his clothes and handcuffed Houdini before locking him inside a cell. While it only took him two minutes to escape, he used the last nineteen minutes of his act to open eight other locked cells, switch the prisoners around and lock them inside again. Would love to know how the inmates felt about that.
7. Suspended Straitjacket Escape: Strapped in a standard regulation straitjacket and suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane, Houdini made his escapes in full view of his audience crowding on the streets below. It would only take him three minutes to break free. Still, what a head rush and terrifying reminder of one’s own mortality.
8. Chinese Water Torture Cell a.k.a. the “Houdini Upside Down”: A combination of his suspended straitjacket and milk can escape stunts, this was his most famous and daring trick yet. Locked in stocks by the feet, Houdini was lowered upside down into a tank filled with water. If he couldn’t escape within two minutes, an assistant stood by with an axe ready to break the glass. One can only be so die hard.
Courtesy of Parcast.com
FOLLOW https://www.facebook.com/rebeccarosen...
The Secret Life of Mrs. London was named by WIKI: Marvelous Novels of the 20th century https://wiki.ezvid.com/m/kNkCn2l8yxVIl
and 2018 BEST FIRST NOVEL nominee, Center for Fiction
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072KRP7MN
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