Rechtopstaande houdini biography for kids

Positive Role Models. Content Advisory. Talk it Over! More for You. Houdini was true to his word and loved and treated his mother with the utmost respect for the rest of her life. Even when Houdini was struggling financially, he made sure to provide for his mother and make her comfortable in his home. He demonstrated determination, persistence, and a natural knack for self-marketing!

Emet truth is an elusive concept when dealing with magic and illusion. Is it ever okay to tell a lie? Although it took a few tries for Houdini to convince any stage managers to allow him to perform in their theaters, eventually he was able to interview with the manager of the Alhambra Theater. After a demonstration of his escape act from handcuffs at Scotland Yard, Houdini was booked at the Alhambra for six months.

For the next twenty years Houdini would go on to perform all over Great Britain. He performed his escape acts, as well as card tricks, illusions, and outdoor stunts. In Russia, Houdini even escaped from a prison transport van. Houdini also spent a lot of time performing in the United States. Many times he would perform for street audiences, and he escaped from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes, and straitjackets.

Around , Houdini switched from escaping from handcuffs to escaping from other, more exciting traps, such as a locked, water-filled milk can. He even went so far as to challenge his audiences to come up with contraptions to try and hold him. Some examples are: nailed packing crates both in and out of water , riveted boilers, wet sheets, mailbags, and even the belly of a whale that had washed ashore in Boston!

During the performance, he was suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet that was filled with water, requiring Houdini to hold his breath for over three minutes. This act was performed by Houdini for the rest of his life. Houdini wrote a book for the magic brotherhood his fellow performers and magicians explaining some of his tricks.

The book was called Handcuff Secrets , and he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with applied force or shoestrings. Houdini also discussed how he sometimes carried concealed lockpicks and keys. When he was tied down in ropes and straitjackets, he would gain room for his body by expanding his shoulders and chest and holding his arms slightly away from his body.

In , Houdini travelled to Europe to perform. By the time he returned in , he had become a sensation. Throughout the s and s , Houdini performed with great success in the United States. He would free himself from handcuffs, chains, ropes and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope or suspended in water, sometimes in plain sight of the audience.

In , he introduced perhaps his most famous act, the Chinese Water Torture Cell[? He explained some of his tricks in books written in the s. Many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. Other times, he carried concealed knives or keys. He was able to escape from a milk can which had its top fastened to its collar because the collar could be separated from the rest of the can from the inside.

When tied down in ropes or straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, and moving his arms slightly away from his body, and then dislocating his shoulders. In this book he attacked his former idol Robert-Houdin as a liar and a fraud for having claimed the invention of automata and effects such as aerial suspension, which had been in existence for many years.

Many of the allegations in the book were dismissed by magicians and researchers who defended Robert-Houdin. Magician Jean Hugard would later write a full rebuttal to Houdini's book. He was suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, holding his breath for more than three minutes. He would go on performing this escape for the rest of his life.

During his career, Houdini explained some of his tricks in books written for the magic brotherhood. In Handcuff Secrets , he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. Other times, he carried concealed lockpicks or keys. When tied down in ropes or straitjackets , he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, moving his arms slightly away from his body.

His straitjacket escape was originally performed behind curtains, with him popping out free at the end. Houdini's brother who was also an escape artist, billing himself as Theodore Hardeen discovered that audiences were more impressed when the curtains were eliminated so they could watch him struggle to get out. On more than one occasion, they both performed straitjacket escapes while dangling upside-down from the roof of a building in the same city.

For most of his career, Houdini was a headline act in vaudeville. For many years, he was the highest-paid performer in American vaudeville. One of Houdini's most notable non-escape stage illusions was performed at the New York Hippodrome, when he vanished a full-grown elephant from the stage. He had purchased this trick from the magician Charles Morritt.

The business is still in operation today. He also served as president of the Society of American Magicians a. Founded on May 10, , in the back room of Martinka's magic shop in New York, the Society expanded under the leadership of Harry Houdini during his term as national president from to Houdini was magic's greatest visionary. He sought to create a large, unified national network of professional and amateur magicians.

Wherever he traveled, he gave a lengthy formal address to the local magic club, made speeches, and usually threw a banquet for the members at his own expense. He said "The Magicians Clubs as a rule are small: they are weak Members would find a welcome wherever they happened to be and, conversely, the safeguard of a city-to-city hotline to track exposers and other undesirables".

Rechtopstaande houdini biography for kids

For most of , while on his vaudeville tour, Houdini had been recruiting — at his own expense — local magic clubs to join the S. As had happened in London, he persuaded magicians to join. The Buffalo club joined as the first branch, later assembly of the Society. Chicago Assembly No. In , he signed Assembly Number Three's charter into existence, and that charter and this club continue to provide Chicago magicians with a connection to each other and to their past.

Houdini dined with, addressed, and got pledges from similar clubs in Detroit, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and elsewhere. This was the biggest movement ever in the history of magic. In places where no clubs existed, he rounded up individual magicians, introduced them to each other, and urged them into the fold. By the end of , magicians' clubs in San Francisco and other cities that Houdini had not visited were offering to become assemblies.

He had created the richest and longest-surviving organization of magicians in the world. It now embraces almost 6, dues-paying members and almost assemblies worldwide. Every other president has only served for one year. He also was President of the Magicians' Club of London. In , the London Daily Mirror newspaper challenged Houdini to escape from special handcuffs that it claimed had taken Nathaniel Hart, a locksmith from Birmingham , five years to make.

It was reported that people and more than journalists turned out for the much-hyped event. The escape attempt dragged on for over an hour, during which Houdini emerged from his "ghost house" a small screen used to conceal the method of his escape several times. At one point he asked if the cuffs could be removed so he could take off his coat.

The Mirror representative, Frank Parker, refused, saying Houdini could gain an advantage if he saw how the cuffs were unlocked. Houdini promptly took out a penknife and, holding it in his teeth, used it to cut his coat from his body. Some 56 minutes later, Houdini's wife appeared on stage and gave him a kiss. Many thought that in her mouth was the key to unlock the special handcuffs.

However, it has since been suggested that Bess did not in fact enter the stage at all, and that this theory is unlikely due to the size of the six-inch key. Houdini then went back behind the curtain. After an hour and ten minutes, Houdini emerged free. As he was paraded on the shoulders of the cheering crowd, he broke down and wept.

At the time, Houdini said it had been one of the most difficult escapes of his career. After Houdini's death, his friend Martin Beck was quoted in Will Goldston's book, Sensational Tales of Mystery Men , admitting that Houdini was tested that day and had appealed to his wife, Bess, for help. Goldston goes on to claim that Bess begged the key from the Mirror representative, then slipped it to Houdini in a glass of water.

It was stated in the book The Secret Life of Houdini that the key required to open the specially designed Mirror handcuffs was six inches long, and could not have been smuggled to Houdini in a glass of water. Goldston offered no proof of his account, and many modern biographers have found evidence notably in the custom design of the handcuffs that the Mirror challenge may have been arranged by Houdini and that his long struggle to escape was pure showmanship.

James Randi believes that the only way the handcuffs could have been opened was by using their key, and speculates that it would have been viewed "distasteful" to both the Mirror and to Houdini if Houdini had failed the escape. This escape was discussed in depth on the Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum in an interview with Houdini expert, magician and escape artist Dorothy Dietrich of Scranton's Houdini Museum.

A full-sized construction of the same Mirror Handcuffs, as well as a replica of the Bramah style key for them, are on display to the public at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This set of cuffs is believed to be one of only six in the world, some of which are not on display. In , Houdini introduced his own original act, the Milk Can Escape.

In this act, Houdini was handcuffed and sealed inside an oversized milk can filled with water and made his escape behind a curtain. As part of the effect, Houdini invited members of the audience to hold their breath along with him while he was inside the can. Advertised with dramatic posters, the escape proved to be a sensation. Houdini soon modified the escape to include the milk can being locked inside a wooden chest, being chained or padlocked.

Houdini performed the milk can escape as a regular part of his act for only four years, but it has remained one of the acts most associated with him. Houdini's brother, Theodore Hardeen, continued to perform the milk can escape and its wooden chest variant into the s. The American Museum of Magic has the milk can and overboard box used by Houdini.

After other magicians proposed variations on the Milk Can Escape, Houdini claimed that the act was protected by copyright and in , brought a case against John Clempert, one of the most persistent imitators. The matter was settled out of court and Clempert agreed to publish an apology. One of Houdini's most popular publicity stunts was to have himself strapped into a regulation straitjacket and suspended by his ankles from a tall building or crane.

Houdini would then make his escape in full view of the assembled crowd. In many cases, Houdini drew tens of thousands of onlookers who brought city traffic to a halt. Houdini would sometimes ensure press coverage by performing the escape from the office building of a local newspaper. In New York City, Houdini performed the suspended straitjacket escape from a crane being used to build the subway.

After flinging his body in the air, he escaped from the straitjacket. Starting from when he was hoisted up in the air by the crane, to when the straitjacket was completely off, it took him two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.