The Secret Life of Houdini

by William Kalush

  The end of 1916 was marked with family tragedies in the Houdini household. His brother Nat was in the process of an ugly divorce with his wife, Sadie, which might have prompted Houdini to remind Bess of his feelings toward her. “Your Love bestowed upon me is Duly Appreciated though at times I may be apparently thoughtless, my mind is compelled to carry so many things, but my heart only one on earth and that is you,” he wrote. Contrast that with his feeling toward his relatives that he expressed in a letter to Kilby, thanking him for a thoughtful Christmas present. “Your gift is far and away more welcome than you have an idea. You see I send out dozens of checks to folks in need, and all I ever get from my relatives, those that are left write saying ‘You have everything you want I dont know what to buy you.’ Mrs. H makes something for me to put on the dresser, but [as] it is made by ‘herself ’ that counts a good deal. My Sainted Mother, would send cookies and a few pair of silk socks to all parts of the world, and honestly since MOTHER has passed away Christmas (and I am the son of a Rabbi) seems somewhat empty.”

  After a bittersweet Christmas, Houdini spent a forlorn New Year’s Eve alone in Philadelphia as Bess stayed home to deal with an unknown family tragedy. His New Year Day’s letter was revelatory: “Keep up your courage, sweetheart, and bear your loss like the brave little soldier that you are, for we are all more or less an army fighting our way to our own graves, but let us do so stout of heart, smile and cheer our less fortunate brethren who are also in the trenches of life and who are not as well equipped with mates as you and I are, nor with the world’s goods.”

  The new year found Houdini’s name in papers across the globe for a compassionate gesture toward one of the world’s greatest actresses. Sarah Bernhardt, who was on a tour of the American stage, had been honored the previous December by a group of American actors who presented her with a bronze statuette depicting her in one of her most famous roles. Unfortunately, she was also presented with a bill for the cost of the sculpture by the artist’s wife. Indignant, Bernhardt returned the figurine along with the bill.

  Houdini had long been a fan of the French actress, often writing up her exploits in his Dramatic Mirror columns, and he had been especially moved by her strident advocacy for the human rights of Jews in Russia. Anxious to avoid an embarrassing scene for American actors abroad, Houdini immediately dispatched a $350 check to the sculptor’s wife, took possession of the statuette, and offered to personally present the gift anew to Madame Bernhardt. The resulting publicity kept Houdini’s clipping service working overtime—more than 3,500 articles were generated. Ironically enough, Bernhardt relished the publicity but left Houdini in possession of the statuette. The two-foot-tall sculpture eventually found a home in the living room of Houdini’s friend Quincy Kilby, who was pleased when Houdini then sent him both his telegram to Bernhardt and the canceled check for the purchase of the piece. “[This] completes the story,” Kilby crowed. “It shall be preserved in the archives.”

  Houdini, Bess, his assistants, and his parrot pose in front of the Christmas tree. Houdini’s parrot was trained to squawk, “Hip, hip, hoorah, Houdini’s home!” From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  In February, both Bernhardt and Houdini found themselves playing Boston at the same time. She invited him to visit her at her hotel, where Houdini entranced her with more than a half hour of close-up magic. The next day, she rode in a car with the magician and watched him free himself from a straitjacket while being suspended sixty feet in the air. The previous year had been rough for the French actress; ten years after a serious injury, her right leg was finally amputated and she was continuing her stage career with the assistance of a wooden leg.

  The Houdinis meet the Grand Dame Sarah Bernhardt. From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  On the way back to the hotel, the Divine Sarah suddenly embraced Houdini.

  “Houdini, you are a wonderful human being,” she purred. “You must possess some extraordinary power to perform such marvels. Won’t you use it to restore my limb for me?”

  Houdini was shocked when he realized that she was dead serious.

  “Good heavens, Madame, certainly not,” Houdini sputtered. “You know my powers are limited and you are actually asking me to do the impossible.”

  “Yes,” she said, leaning closer to him. “But you do the impossible.”

  “Are you jesting?”

  “Mais non, Houdini, j’ai jamais été plus sérieux dans ma vie.”

  Houdini’s eyes welled with tears.

  “Madame, you exaggerate my ability,” he said.

  Houdini would often brag that without the aid of any memory devices, he was able to recount the exact date of the birth of the Roman Emperor Caracalla. He could even tell you the day of the month in 1593 when dissenting clergymen were hanged in Scotland. He most likely also knew the exact day that Napoleon abdicated; the day Robert Peary reached the North Pole; and maybe even the day that Stilicho stymied the Visigoths in the Battle of Pollentia.

  Of course, the correct answer to all of these is April 6, Houdini’s adopted birth date (except for Caracalla, who unbeknownst to Houdini was actually born on April 4). On April 6, 1917, Houdini celebrated his forty-third birthday and had a new milestone to add to his list. The day before, his brother Leopold had scandalized the family by marrying Sadie Weiss, who until March 26 had been legally married to his brother Nat. Reeling from a family secret that had finally gone public, Houdini woke up to a birthday present from his friend the commander in chief. On that day, President Wilson declared war on Germany. In one fell swoop, Houdini’s midlife crisis had been solved. Escapologist, illusionist, collector, businessman, author, philanthropist—all his myriad identities suddenly paled in comparison with his new vision of himself: Houdini the Patriot.

  From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  18

  Death by Misadventure

  THE PROCESSION HAD THE AIR OF a funeral, even though the intended victim was still very much alive. A long line of Boxer warriors, the fanatical Chinese cult that believed they were magically impervious to foreigners’ bullets, slowly made their way to the site of the execution, banging gongs, mournfully beating on drums, and chanting. Two of the Boxers, who had tied red sashes over their shiny brass plate armor, were carrying what looked to be very primitive rifles for 1918. At a time when most armies had gone to automatic weaponry, these Boxer marksmen had old twelve-gauge single-barreled muzzle-loading rifles with a small ramrod tube nestled under each barrel. Each time the rifle was to be fired, the rod was pulled out of its tube and used to ram the charge into the barrel. Apparently these sharpshooters didn’t plan on having to reload.

  Suddenly the line of soldiers parted and a garish ebony-and-gold palanquin was carried in. It was set down on the ground and one of the warriors opened the door. A tall Asian man stepped out, wearing an ornamental headdress that culminated in a spike and a long studded, quilted robe. It would have been easy to mistake this man for the regiment leader—he had that air of charisma and inscrutability, even though he hadn’t said a word. But he wasn’t the leader. He wasn’t even a Boxer. In fact, he was the one who had been condemned to death.

  With the victim off to one side, the two gunmen lined up opposite him. They were joined by two British soldiers, only one of whom was in uniform. The Chinese gunmen handed the Brits their rifles for inspection. Amused at first by the antiquity of the arms, the Englishmen carefully peered into the barrels, pulled out the ramrods, and fingered the triggers. When they were satisfied that the rifles were in working order, another warrior then presented them with a large wooden box that was filled with bullets. The men were instructed to each select a bullet. The ammunition was large and round, resembling lethal lead marbles. Each soldier held his chosen bullet up in the air and then a small Chinese woman carrying a small metal cup walked up to them and signaled for them to drop the bullets inside.

  Then the man who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings sprinkled some gunpowder from a tin onto
a small tray.

  “Real gunpowder? Is it real?” he asked.

  One of the soldiers bent over and smelled the gunpowder.

  Then the Boxer touched a lit match to the powder. It exploded into a plume of white smoke, and the unmistakable smell of spent gunpowder suffused the air.

  “Yes, real powder,” the Boxer chuckled.

  He poured a measure of gunpowder into each of the rifle’s barrels. An assistant then stuffed the cotton wadding in and another pulled out the ramrod from its sheath and inserted it into the barrel. All this was done under the supervision of the British soldiers. Now all that was necessary was for the ammunition to be loaded and the percussive caps put in place. Yet throughout all of this preparation, the intended victim seemed strangely impassive, as if he had been through this before.

  Suee Seen had taken the cup that contained the bullets and walked out into the audience to find two other volunteers to mark them. When each one had a distinctive mark on it, she would return to the stage of the Wood Green Empire Theatre in north London and give the bullets to the two British soldiers, who would note the marks and then load the rifles.

  With the rifles finally ready, the funeral drumming started up again and the two British soldiers were escorted to the side of the stage so they could watch the denouement of the effect.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, silence please,” Frank Kametaro, the chief assistant, said. He pointed at two men in the audience. “Two bullets! You have seen to it that the bullets were marked.” Then he nodded toward the British soldiers. “And you have seen the guns loaded. Now silence, and watch closely. Everyone watch.”

  On cue, the two riflemen took fourteen steps toward stage left, while Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjuror, backed slowly to his spot on the far right of the stage. All that stood between him and certain death was a small porcelain plate, which had been handed to him by an assistant.

  All was ready. The drumming abruptly ceased as the riflemen took up their positions. Kametaro, who was between the victim and his executioners but well behind the line of fire, drew his sword and held it poised over his head. He looked at Soo for the signal.

  The magician lowered his head, took a deep breath, and then slowly raised the plate until it was shielding his chest. He would not merely deflect the bullets with the fragile little piece of porcelain, he would stop them in midair and, with a graceful twist of his wrists, delicately balance them on the plate, so that they could be inspected and found to be the same marked ammunition that had been loaded into the rifles.

  It took complete concentration. So with his porcelain shield held aloft, Soo repositioned his feet. The audience was so still that they could actually hear him draw another long, deep breath. Then suddenly, a man in the front row stood up and shouted something. Nobody could discern what he had said and Soo waited until the man sat down again, and then he shifted his weight on his feet, repositioned the plate, and took another deep breath. Then he quickly nodded to Kametaro.

  The assistant’s saber sliced through the air and, almost simultaneously, two loud explosions echoed throughout the theater. A second later, the porcelain shield fell to the floor and shattered on the stage.

  “Oh, my God,” Soo said, and staggered backward, toward backstage. Frank Moody, the stage manager, saw a crimson ribbon of blood illuminated in the spotlight. He rushed onstage and cradled Soo as the magician slowly slumped to the stage.

  By now the crowd had sensed that something had gone horribly wrong. The few smatterings of premature applause had morphed into screams.

  “My God, ring down the curtain, something has happened!” Soo gasped.

  Just as the curtain came down, which effectively shielded the audience from this horrific scene, Soo’s wife, the diminutive Suee Seen, rushed to her husband’s side.

  “Dot, fetch a doctor quick,” the magician said.

  Sergeant Spain, the policeman on duty, rushed to the fallen magician’s side. Soo was drifting in and out of consciousness.

  A few stagehands worked feverishly to stop the bleeding. One of them ripped down part of the border from the stage scenery and wrapped it around the wounded man to keep him warm.

  “I cannot stand it, I cannot stand it,” he mumbled.

  “Oh Will, whatever have you done?” Dot said.

  The few people witnessing this tragedy backstage were among the first to learn Soo’s secret. Actually, any attentive audience member could have been tipped off too. For as soon as that errant bullet entered his chest, pierced his heart, grazed his liver, and exited his back before shattering a mirror near manager Moody’s desk, the Asian magician who spoke not a word of English suddenly became fluent in his distress. Shortly the whole world would know that the man inside those ceremonial robes and beneath the greasepaint was not the Mysterious Chinese Conjuror Chung Ling Soo but actually William E. Robinson, the equally mysterious American mechanist who had disappeared eighteen years before. While the life was slowly ebbing from his friend who lay on an English stage, Houdini was halfway around the globe, saving the lives of young Americans.

  The mysterious Chung Ling Soo was in actuality the equally mysterious Billy Robinson. From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

  Inset from the collection of Todd Karr

  “The reason people drown on a sinking vessel is because they lose all sense of direction,” the instructor said. Houdini looked out at the fresh faces of the young recruits and, for a fleeting second, reflected on what it was like when he was their age. Life seemed so much simpler then, he thought, and for another fleeting second he envied their ability to be in a position to make the ultimate sacrifice—to give their lives for their country. He would do everything in his power to make sure that eventuality would never transpire.

  For their part, the Sammies, the appreciative name that the French gave the American soldiers, felt a mixture of apprehension and awe. In weeks, they would be crossing the ocean to fight in France alongside their counterparts in the English and French armed services. Basic training had been rigorous, but who could believe that it would have included a course on how to escape from a sinking torpedoed vessel given in a small room on the promenade floor of the enormous Hippodrome theater by none other than Harry Houdini? They all wondered if they would be able to get his autograph at the end of the session.

  “The first rule when you find yourself underwater is: do not succumb to panic. I can’t stress that enough,” Houdini lectured. “Stay calm. Use your eyes. If visibility is clouded, slowly allow your body to rise up in the water until your hands come in contact with a deck, side, or the floor of the craft.”

  Houdini picked up a length of rope. “Now, I want to teach you the basic principles of extrication from entanglements of all kinds—whether from ropes, broken pipes, beams, or wreckages. Can I have a volunteer, please?”

  Every arm in the room immediately shot up.

  When Houdini got through tying up the young soldier, he looked like a trussed turkey.

  “Now, I have restrained this young man in the same manner that I would use if I were to tie a medium to prevent him from being able to produce any physical manifestations in a séance room. I would venture to say that he’s not going anywhere.”

  The Sammies all laughed.

  “The odds are that your captors will not go to such lengths,” Houdini lectured. “They might simply tie your hands behind your backs, but even such a simple restraint would be effective if you don’t perform a subtle maneuver, which I shall show you, that will allow you to obtain some slack in the rope, and ultimately to free yourself from the bondage.”

  Houdini walked over to the table and picked up a pair of handcuffs.

  “If your captors are particularly well equipped, they might have a pair of these German handcuffs as standard issue, in which case, your escape from their restraints would be harder, but not impossible,” Houdini said. “After I show you the rope escape, we will learn a few simple, effective techniques of defeating these German irons.
And then…”

  Houdini does his bit training doughboys to escape from German handcuffs. From the collection of Kenneth M. Trombly

  He strolled over to the other side of the room, where a large iron cage had been set up.

  “This is a prison cage that has been fitted with typical German locks. As you see, this particular one can accommodate up to three prisoners in the field, but there are variations that go twenty-two feet long and can haul a dozen or more men, each securely chained to the other. As a measure of last resort, I will teach you a method to defeat the lock on the cage, so you can free yourself under cover of night. Any questions so far?”

  Houdini looked out at his audience. They seemed intimidated by the master magician.

  “I think our friend here has a question,” Houdini said, glancing at the soldier that he had tied up so expertly. “But he can’t raise his hand.”

  Houdini learned of his old friend Billy Robinson’s death when he received a cable from Joe Hyman, who for a short time had been one of the Brothers Houdini. It read: “Soo Robinson Killed Doing Bullet Trick.” The next day, March 26, 1918, Hyman sent a letter that contained some intriguing details. Hyman was currently sharing a bill with a woman named Annie Rooney, who had been on the bill at the Wood Green Empire the night Robinson died. According to Rooney, Soo had some “trouble” with one of his assistants; the argument escalated into “an open row” that ill-fated night and, between the two shows, Robinson “had it out with his chap.” Early the next morning, Robinson died. “It is known for a fact that the rifle that was used for the trick had been tampered with,” Hyman reported to Houdini. “This was discovered after the bullet had passed clean through poor Rob’s body.” After a short inquest, Robinson’s demise was deemed “death by misadventure.”