Harry Houdini was born as Ehrich Weisz (or Weiss) on March 24^th, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary; however, Houdini always claimed to be born on April 6^th in the small town of Appleton, Wisconsin, and indeed, his family moved to Appleton when he was a small child.  Harry’s mother may have been the reason Harry’s birth date was two weeks off because that is when she always celebrated it.  (Go figure.) 

The family struggled through hard times and moved often.  When Harry was nine his father took him to see a traveling magician and the spell of performing magic on stage was cast.  Nine year old “Ehrich, The Prince of the Air” made his professional debut on October 28^th, 1883 as a contortionist and trapeze performer.  Three years later magician “Eric the Great” ran away from home with dreams of making money with the circus.  He returned home to his family (then in New York) a year later no richer and no less stage struck.

The turning point in young Harry/Erich’s life was when he read the autobiography of French-born magician Jean Robert-Houdin.  Erich wanted to be just like Robert-Houdin so he changed his last name to Houdini (which translates to “Houdin-like”).  I’m not quite sure when he changed his first name from Ehrich to Harry but it obviously did the trick in changing his destiny from a “who?” to “Houdini! That’s who!”… and the rest if history… if you will.

Houdini’s most famous stunt was his hand-cuff escape.   One of Harry’s early jobs was as  an apprentice blacksmith.  One day the police brought in a young man whom they had handcuffed and who had tried to unlock the cuffs with a key he owned.  The key broke in the lock and the crook was stuck.  The master blacksmith started working at trying to open the handcuff in question but left the task undone to take his dinner break (we have our priorities, you know) leaving Harry to carry on.  After several attempts and broken saw blades Harry decided to pick the lock and succeeded.  (I wonder if Fred and George have studied Houdini’s methods?)   He continued to use the basic principle of lock picking to open handcuffs around the world and was dubbed the “Handcuff King”.

Harry wasn’t an overnight success and there were many years of empty pockets and empty stomachs, but in 1900 he and his wife, Bess, sailed for Europe where Houdini’s performances became sold-out box office triumphs.  During their five-year tour Harry performed incredible escapes from a pair of handcuffs at Scotland Yard and from the chilling depths of the Seine River in Paris.  His other escapes included freeing himself from sunken packing cases, coffins, burglar-proof safes, padded cells and straight jackets, a roll-top desk, a preserved giant squid (possibly a relation of the one in the Hogwarts lake?), a U.S. mail pouch and a plate glass box, just to name a few.

One time he climbed inside a safe that he was supposed to be working on and locked himself inside.  Panic and pandemonium erupted in the shop because nobody knew the combination and all thought Harry was a goner.  However, a few minutes later  the safe door swung open and out came Harry completely safe and unscathed.  He had opened it from the inside.  He apparently commented that "Safes are designed to keep people out, not  in." 

This amazing man dazzled his audiences for several years with this charm, athletic skills, head-scratching illusions and thrilling escapes.  However the aura of his invincibility seems to have ironically led to his tragic end.   On October 22, 1926, before his scheduled performance at the Princess Theater in Montreal, Houdini was entertaining several students from McGill University in his dressing room.  One of the students asked him if he really could take a punch to the stomach without it hurting him.  Normally this was so but Houdini needed time to prepare for it by tightening his stomach muscles.  The student didn’t wait and hit him three times.  Houdini went on with his show and several others but became ill not long after.  His appendix had burst as a result of the punches.  He died 9 days later... on Halloween. 

At his funeral one of the pall bearers allegedly remarked to a fellow pall bearer as they were carrying Houdini's casket, "Do you think he is still inside?"

Houdini also became famous as a debunker of fake spiritualists.  Being a master illusionist himself he easily recognized the tell-tale signs of imposter mediums who claimed they could contact the spirit world but were nothing more than greedy charlatans.  After Harry Houdini’s death Bess held séances every Halloween for the next ten years in an attempt to contact her husband on the other side, hoping to receive a message including a secret code they had devised before Houdini’s death.  She never did hear the message.  (Maybe she should have asked Professor Trelawney to come to one of her séances.)