One student, Joselyn Gordon Whitehead asked if he could take a punch and immediately Houdini nodded an assent. A few days earlier, Houdini had lectured at McGill about his work in exposing fake mediums and spiritualists. 22, 1926, after his matinee show at the Princess Theatre in Montreal. On the other hand, he was proud enough of his superb musculature and toned body to allow the audience to feel his biceps or punch him in his ripped abdomen.Īs the story goes, a few medical students from McGill University visited Houdini in his dressing room at 5 p.m.
Houdini never told anyone, save his wife and assistant, Bess, the secret of his great escapes. He may have escaped those dangerous feats, yet his death has remained a source of conjecture among both magicians and surgeons. Soon enough, Houdini got out of jail free.īy 1908, Houdini had graduated to far more daring escapes from air tight vessels filled with water as well as being completely tied up and chained, while hanging off of a skyscraper or being thrown from a bridge into an icy river, always reappearing unrestricted within minutes. 2 of the Washington, D.C., federal prison, the same cell that once housed Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President James Garfield. In 1902, he had himself locked into cell no. In 1900, he made his first European tour and conducted sensational escapes from Scotland Yard and dozens of other famous prisons. Billed as “the Handcuff King,” he performed at vaudeville houses across the nation.Įver the scintillating showman, Houdini kept developing new tricks and escape techniques beyond merely wiggling out of a cop’s manacles. He emerged sans shackles and was soon riding the rails. As the New York Times reported in its obituary of Houdini, one night in Coffeyville, Kansas, the local sheriff baited him with his handcuffs, bellowing to the audience, “If I put these on, you’ll never get loose.” It was a challenge that changed the young performer’s life. The climax of his act in these early days of his remarkable career was when he invited anyone in the audience to tie him up and he would free himself, inside a locked cabinet. Ever the scintillating showman, Houdini kept developing new tricks and escape techniques beyond merely wiggling out of a cop’s manacles.
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