Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as \”Harry ‘Handcuff’ Houdni\” on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London’s Daily Mirror, keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface.
About Harry Houdini in brief
Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as \”Harry ‘Handcuff’ Houdni\” on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London’s Daily Mirror, keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state of near-breakdown. As President of the Society of American Magicians, he was keen to uphold professional standards and expose fraudulent artists. He made several movies but quit acting when it failed to bring in money. He was also a keen aviator and aimed to become the first man to fly a plane in Australia. In 1894 he met a fellow performer, Wilhela Beatrice Bess, at Coney Island, while performing with his brother, The Brothers Houdess. For the rest of Houdinis’s performing career, Bess replaced Dash in the act, which became known as ‘The Houdins’ He was married to Beatrice in 1899, but she died in a car accident in 1901. He died in 1953, aged 87. He is buried in Mount Sinai, New York City, with his wife and three children. He also had a son, David, who was born in 1953 and died in 2007.
He had a daughter, Victoria, who died in 2008. He has a son and a daughter with his second wife, who is also a magician. He and his wife had a child with another woman, who later died of cancer. He later had two children with a third woman, a daughter-in-law, and a son with a fourth child. He lived in New York with his family until his death in 1981. He left New York to live in California with his daughter and his son. He then moved to California to live with his son and his daughter- in-law. He never returned to the U.S. after his wife died in 1986. He passed away in 1989. He wrote a book about his experiences called ‘The Great Escape’ about his time in Europe and America. The book was published by Simon & Schuster, with a foreword written by his son David Houdin, who went on to become one of the world’s most famous illusionists. The first part of his new name, Harry, was an homage to Harry Kellar, whom he also admired, though it was more likely adapted from ‘Ehri’, a nickname for ‘Ehrich’, which is how he was known to his family. He called himself ‘Harry’ after the French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin after reading his autobiography in 1890. He incorrectly believed that an i at the end of a name meant ‘like’ in French. He claimed to be the ‘King of Cards’
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This page is based on the article Harry Houdini published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
