by Sesh Heri
I continued delivering messages for Mr. Tesla up until the early fall of 1888. At that time my father began working at H. Richter & Sons as a neck-tie cutter, and soon afterwards he told me that another cutter position had opened up. I went down there to the shop on Broadway and found a line of about fifty young men stretched out along the sidewalk waiting to get in to the neck-tie factory to apply for that one job. A sign hung on the door that read: “Assistant Necktie Cutter Wanted.”
I went up to the door like I worked at the place, removed the sign, and said, “Thank you for waiting, but I regret to inform you that this position has been filled.”
The trick with a ruse like this is to never “look ‘em in the eye,” but to glance past them with no expression, and then move at a steady pace like you’re on the time-clock. This I did, and all the boys in that line bought it and dispersed every which way, while I walked right through the door and took the job, being the only applicant that day.
After that, I didn’t have time to visit Mr. Tesla, but every once in a while I would read about him in a newspaper article. A lot of people were taking an interest in what he was doing. Everyone knew that Mr. Tesla and Thomas Edison were in direct competition, and this was what I was always reading about in the newspapers— which one was going to come out on top with their electrical inventions? And to think that I knew Mr. Tesla! Why had he taken such an interest in me? Years later, I asked Mr. Tesla that very question and he replied to me: “You had a certain light in your eyes— a light fired by a mind! How seldom have I ever seen that light! When I see it, I always take an interest.”
It was in that same year of 1888 that my brother Theodore Deszo (who I nicknamed “Dash” and later stage-named “Hardeen”) learned some coin tricks from his employer who was a photographer. This revived an interest we had had in magic going back to our boyhood days in Wisconsin. In Appleton I had performed as an acrobat for Jack Hoeffler’s 5-Cent Circus, and later in Milwaukee I performed a magic act on amateur nights at the Litt Museum. I had been inspired at that time by Dr. Linn who did the astonishing act of dismembering a human being and then putting him back together again. My father had taken me to see Dr. Linn, and often during those days he would reminisce about another magician who he had seen perform, the great Compars Hermann, who was a first cousin to my father through his marriage to his first wife, the mother of my half-brother, Herman. So my interest in magic, which had lain dormant as I struggled to make a living in this hard world, now came alive again while I worked longer hours than ever at the neck-tie factory.
Now I began doing some coin and card tricks at the factory, and one of my coworkers, Jacob Hyman, told me that he was doing a little magic act at parties and actually making money at it! I immediately saw the possibilities— most especially a way to eventually get out of working long hours at the neck-tie factory! Jacob and I began practicing together and talking about creating a professional magic act of our own. Soon I was performing magic before audiences for various clubs and associations, like the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Pastime Athletic Club. The boys at Pastime knew me only as a foot-racer who beat them too often, but now they were wildly enthusiastic when they discovered that I knew how to do magic tricks. I felt I had discovered something important.
When I found a book one day at a second-hand book stall, bought it, and sat up all night reading it— I knew I had discovered something important— very important. The book was Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, Ambassador, Author, Conjurer, Written by Himself. In Robert-Houdin I found a hero and guide for my own life, and I instantly made the decision to become a magician; for, to my unsophisticated mind, his ‘Memoirs’ gave to the profession a dignity worth attaining at the cost of earnest, life-long effort. It is ironic in the utmost that the very man who so inspired me to become a mysterious entertainer would later so disillusion me when I uncovered the facts of his life. I would later write a book exposing those facts entitled The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin. But at the time I read his autobiography, I considered Robert-Houdin a hero.
I told my friends Jacob Hyman and Joe Rinn all about my new-found discovery.
“And I’m going to name myself after him!” I declared to the other boys.
“You can’t do that!” Jacob declared with authority. “It’s not done. You must have your own stage name.”
“But I’m going to be just like Robert Houdin!” I said, not knowing that Robert-Houdin was a compound surname. “I’m going to carry on the tradition!”
“That’s fine,” Jacob said. “But you still can’t use his name. If you want to be associated in the people’s minds with Houdin, you’ll have to change the name a bit. You want to be like Houdin, so…why don’t you add an ‘i’ to the end of the name? That’s how it’s done in France. Adding the ‘i’ to the end of a name means ‘like’ in the French language, and you say Houdin was French, right?”
“That’s true,” I said.
“Then, why not call yourself Houdin-i? He who is like Houdin?”
“Who-den-ee,” I pronounced slowly. “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t quite trip off the tongue easily.”
“You should stretch out the middle syllable,” Joe Rinn said. “Pronounce it deen instead of den— Who-deen-ee.”
“That’s it!” I shouted. “That’s it! That’s what I’ll call myself— Who-deen-ee! Houdini, the Master of Mystery!”
Jacob said, “Sounds better than Hoo-doo, Master of Who-Cares?”
“I cares,” I said swinging my fist in the air at Jacob. “And don’t ever monkey with the name of Houdini again!”
Joe and Jacob laughed, and then I started laughing. It didn’t take much to get us to laughing back then.
Jacob Hyman and I formed a partnership, performing as “The Brothers Houdini,” and on April 3rd, 1891, I tendered my resignation to H. Richter, and, in turn, received a letter of recommendation from them.
Jacob and I started off with an act made up of cheap odds and ends: silks, paper flowers, cards, and coins. Our one major investment, which I paid for entirely out of my own pocket, was in a secondhand trunk that had a gimmicked panel. We used this in our closing effect, “Metamorphosis.” I would have my hands tied, then be put in a cloth sack and its opening would be tied, then, with me inside this tied-up sack, I would be locked in the trunk, then the trunk would be tied with rope, and then around the trunk Jacob would pull a “cabinet” (a frame draped on three sides with a sliding curtain in front). Jacob would close off the curtain so that the audience couldn’t see the trunk, and he would stand behind the curtain with only his head protruding, and count: “One! Two!” And then Jacob’s head would suddenly retract behind the curtain and instantly be replaced by my head saying: “Three!” I’d pull back the curtain, unlock and untie the trunk, open the trunk, untie the sack, and out would pop Jacob with his hands tied by the same rope that had tied mine! It was our big close, and it began to get us bookings.
It got us a spot on the bill at Huber’s Museum on Fourteenth Street. Other dime museums followed. All during this time my father continued to work at the neck-tie factory, until one day he came home sick. He never returned to work. Something was wrong with his throat, and it would not get better. Finally the doctor pronounced the diagnosis: cancer. My father knew it was a death sentence. He drew me close and made me promise to always take care of the family; I would now truly become what my mother had always called me— Tataley, “Little Papa.”
Jacob and I continued working the dime museums in New York. Sometimes I would double as the barker, the outside talker. I was on the barker’s platform ballyhooing a show at a dime museum one day when a little boy came running up to me. I recognized him as the son of one of our neighbors.
“Hey Mr. Magician!” the little boy shouted. “You gotta come home right now!”
I knelt down to the little fellow. His face was flushed from running.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Your father,“ he said, taking
a breath. “He’s dying.”
I went and threw on my clothes, borrowed some money for a cab ride uptown, and rushed home. I went into my father’s room.
“Papa,” I said, “It’s Ehrich.”
“My Ehrich,” my father said in a faint whisper. “You must never forget your promise.”
“I’ll never forget, Papa,” I said. “I’ll always take care of the family.”
My father’s eyes closed, and the lines of pain in his face relaxed. He drifted off into sleep, breathing heavily. He slept for about two hours, my mother and I sitting there all the while watching him, and then his breathing slowed, the spaces between breaths lengthened, and then stopped altogether. I placed a mirror in front of his mouth and it remained clear. I could only force myself to cry out: “Mama! Mama!”
My mother let out a long wail and collapsed over on to the side of the bed, clutching my father’s hand. And then she looked up at him, and cried out: “Weiss, Weiss, du hast mich verlasen mit deiner keinder!!! Wast hast du gethan?” (“Weiss, Weiss, you’ve left me with your children!!! What have you done?”)
I took my mother out of the room, and had her lie down on my sister’s bed. A little later the doctor who had been summoned came in, pronounced my father dead, and pulled the sheet over his head. It was October 5th, 1892.
Now I had to make good in the show business. Jacob and I struck out across the country, playing dime museums, and I would send back home every single penny that I could spare. Sometimes I would go without eating for a day or two, just so I could send money home. In the Midwest we hit a stroke of luck and got a contract to play the Middleton chain. This would take us all the way to Chicago and the World’s Fair that was just about to be held in that city.
Our show did well, but our partnership did not. Jacob and I could never agree upon who was the senior partner. He thought he was and I thought I was, and so arguments inevitably followed. Things finally came to a head when we reached Chicago. It all started with an idea I had.
I had been looking for a way to get our names in the paper, and upon arriving in Chicago I hit upon the notion that I could do a “Brody” by leaping into the Chicago River while wearing a pair of handcuffs. My escape from such a predicament could generate terrific publicity. I went to Mr. Hedges, the manager of the dime museum, and told him my idea. He was all for it, but said the only problem was that we would have to obtain a special permit. This he said, though, might not be a problem, as he thought he could “square it” with the police. So he sent me over with a note to see one Lieutenant Andrew Rohan of the Chicago Police Department. I went over there to the police station and they led me to Lieutenant Rohan who was sitting at his desk. He was a big, fat man with a walrus mustache, but he was very powerful with a good deal of muscle in his fat, and he had mean, little eyes that looked at you without blinking. Rohan read Mr. Hedge’s note and then looked up at me and said:
“Are you crazy? You’ll kill yourself with a stunt like this.”
“No I won’t,” I said. “I’ve done it dozens of times before.” (Not true.)
“Where?”
“In New York’s East River. In the Fox River. In the Ohio and in the Mississippi. And look at all the medals I’ve won doing it. See?”
I took a bunch of medals out of my pocket and spread them out across his desk. Some of them I had won for Pastime track events; the others I had purchased at a pawn shop.
Rohan glanced at the medals, picked one up, looked at it, and then tossed it back on his desk with contempt. He took a pair of handcuffs out of the drawer of his roll-top desk, reached over and locked them around my wrists.
“If you can’t get out of those here,” he said, “how the hell do you expect to get out of them down there in the muck of that river?”
I turned around, slipped the cuffs, turned back, and tossed the cuffs on to Rohan’s desk.
“Like that,” I said.
Rohan stared at the cuffs.
“All right,” he finally said. “So you can do something. But have you taken a look at that river? It’s not a river, son. It’s a sewer.”
“It’s no worse than the Mississippi,” I replied.
“The Mississippi won’t give you the typhus,” Rohan said.
“I can jump into that river with or without a permit,” I said.
“Oh, no, you can’t,” Rohan said, and he looked at me like he was going to kill me. “Don’t you get high-handed with me, sonny. We have ways of dealing with youngsters who don’t respect the law.”
“Well,” I said, “what do you care whether I drown or not?”
Rohan said, “I don’t give a damn about that, sonny. It’s the city fathers. They don’t want kids drowning or getting sick out of the river and making a commotion, not with the fair here and every eye in the world on this city. If something happens to you, they’ll knock me back to detective, or maybe walking a beat. Now take your junk and get out.”
He shoved all my medals across his desk with the back of his hand.
I didn’t take the medals, but said, “You don’t seem to understand that I’m a part of the fair and a professional artiste— Houdini the Great!”
Rohan laughed in my face. I kept looking at him as he laughed, and now I didn’t blink. I kept looking at him until he stopped laughing. His eyes hardened, but I just kept looking at him.
“You crazy little…” Rohan said under his breath. “You really believe you’re great, don’t you? Well, sonny, I don’t believe you’re great. I don’t believe you’re anything. I think you’re nothing but a stupid kid who’s out to get his self killed.”
I said nothing, but just kept looking at Rohan.
“Why, you’re going to jump into that damn muck hole no matter what I say or do, aren’t you? No matter if it kills you. No matter if I kill you. No matter what. Aren’t you?”
Still I said nothing.
Rohan suddenly stood up and bent down in front of me to scream in my face: “I can break your back right across this desk!”
Rohan had very bad breath laced with whiskey, but I didn’t move or blink. My stillness seemed to strike some kind of unearthly terror into the big man. His face went pale, and he sucked in air shakily. He moved back and away from me, stepped back, looking at me all the while, keeping his little unblinking eyes fixed on me. Then Rohan smiled; he seemed to be laughing, perhaps laughing at me and his own self at the same time.
Rohan then sat back down in his chair. He kept looking at me. His eyelids started to droop, and then he finally said, “Why, I think you just might be crazy enough to pull off a stunt like that.”
“I’ll pull it off,” I said.
Rohan opened another drawer and pulled out a printed form, and pushed it across his desk.
“Don’t waste my time reading it,” Rohan said. “Sign it.”
My eyes traced over the surface of the form; it was to release the city from any liability in the case that my activities resulted in my injury or death. I picked up the pen on Rohan’s desk and scratched my name on the line at the bottom.
Rohan snatched the form away and pulled out another one. To this one he quickly signed his name, and then pushed it toward me.
“Your permit,” Rohan said. “I’ll ding Hedges for the fee. Be at the south end of the State Street Bridge at eleven-thirty Friday morning. I’ll have two officers there to close the bridge. Give them the permit.”
I took the permit, collected my medals, and started for the door.
“Oh, sonny,” Rohan said. “If I were you, I’d stuff my nose and ears with cotton before I’d jump in that muck hole. And I’d keep my eyes and mouth shut, too. I would, if I was crazy. But I’m not crazy. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that damn sewer.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I said, and went out.
I next went to the offices of the Record, one of Chicago’s leading newspapers. I got in to see the city editor and told him what I was going to do.
“You need to talk with our man who is covering the
fair, George Ade,” the editor said.
He took me into a large room with several desks and went up to a man seated behind one of them. This man was George Ade, the same George Ade who would later become famous as a novelist and playwright and make such a fortune that he would retire to his estate in Indiana at the age of 44. Now he was just becoming known as one of the top newspaper reporters in Chicago. I told my story all over again to Mr. Ade. He sat there listening with a faint smile on his face. When I finished, he said:
“Well, we have a lot of things going on in this big city, and I can’t promise you anything. But I’ll try to make it down to the bridge on Friday. All right?”
I stood there, nodding. I expected that he was going to jump at the chance for This Big Story, but he was already flipping through a pad of yellow paper that had writing on it in pencil.
I started to go out, but then turned and said, “Don’t think I’ll do it, huh?”
Mr. Ade looked up at me and then back down at his yellow pad.
“I’ve no idea,” Mr. Ade said absently; his mind was already far away to something else. This indifference of Ade’s was more jarring to me than Rohan’s belligerence. No matter, I thought, I’m going to show them all.
Well, Friday morning Jacob and I were there on the bridge, and so were the two policemen, just like Rohan had said they would be. I gave one of them the permit, and the two officers split up, one going to the south end of the bridge and the other to the north. They stopped all the carriage traffic. This was a drawbridge, so people probably thought they were going to raise the bridge. Instead, Jacob started running from carriage to carriage on the south side of the bridge, handing out flyers for Kohl and Middleton’s Dime Museum and shouting, “Exhibition on the bridge! Houdini the magician will jump from the bridge! Free Exhibition on the bridge!”