Weisz arrived in the United States in 1878, aboard the SS Frisia, with his pregnant mother and his four brothers. The family, renamed “Weiss,” lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Weiss’ father served as rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. Appleton Street, where the family lived in 1880, is now known as Houdini Plaza. In 1882, Rabbi Weiss lost his job at Zion, and the family moved to Milwaukee and fell into poverty. Rabbi Weiss and Erik moved to New York City in 1887, and lived in a boarding house. The rest of the family came to New York once they found permanent housing.
As a child, Weiss took several jobs, making his public debut at 9 years old as a trapeze artist under the title, “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air.” As a teenager, Weiss was coached by magician Joseph Rinn at the Pastime Athletic Club.
By 1891, Weiss had taken on the name “Harry Houdini,” as he began to perform magic; he had read Robert-Houdin’s autobiography the previous year. Houdini found little success initially. He performed in dime museums and sideshows, even doubling as “The Wild Man” at a circus. Initially, Houdini focused on traditional card tricks. He performed with his brother “Dash” (Theodore) as “The Brothers Houdini,” at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Some professional magicians came to view Houdini as a competent sleight-of-hand artist, but lacking the finesse to achieve excellence. Houdini shifted focus and began experimenting with escape acts.
In 1894, Houdini met performer Wilhelmina Beatrice “Bess” Rahner. Dash initially courted Bess, but she fell in love with Harry and married him. Bess replaced Dash in the act, which became known as “The Houdinis.” Bess would be Houdini’s stage assistant for the rest of his career.
In 1899, Houdini’s big break came when he met manager Martin Beck in St. Paul, Minnesota. Beck was impressed by Houdini’s handcuffs act, and encouraged Houdini to concentrate on escape acts. Beck booked Houdini on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, and within months Houdini was performing at the top vaudeville houses in the country.
In 1900, Houdini began to tour Europe. Houdini gave a demonstration of escape from handcuffs at Scotland Yard, and succeeded in baffling the police so effectively that he was booked at the Alhambra Theatre in London for six months. He was making $300 a week ($11,400 in 2024).
From 1900 to 1920, Houdini performed escape acts, illusions, card tricks, and outdoor stunts throughout Great Britain, and became one of the world’s highest-paid entertainers. Houdini also toured the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Russia, and became widely renowned as “The Handcuff King” and Harry “Handcuff” Houdini. In each city, Houdini challenged local police to search his body, then restrain him with shackles, and lock him in the jail, from which he would then escape.
In 1904, the London Daily Mirror challenged Houdini to escape from special handcuffs that the paper claimed had taken locksmith Nathaniel Hart five years to make. More than 4000 people and over 100 journalists came to see the escape, which took an hour and ten minutes.
Houdini also performed throughout the United States, freeing himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, and ropes. He also freed himself from straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope in front of street audiences. Because of imitators, Houdini retired his handcuff act in 1908, and began escaping from a locked, water-filled milk can; during his lifetime, no one would figure out how he performed this escape. Houdini also invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him, such as packing crates, riveted boilers, mail bags, and even the belly of a whale that washed ashore in Boston.
Houdini introduced the Chinese Water Torture Cell at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, in 1912. 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. Houdini would perform this escape for the rest of his life. Houdini also regularly performed escapes from inside a crate nailed shut, roped, and lowered into water. He also performed at least three variations on a buried alive stunt.
Houdini became fascinated with aviation, and completed one of the first powered aeroplane flights in Australia.
For many years, Houdini was the highest-paid performer in American vaudeville. One of Houdini’s most famous illusions was to disappear an elephant from the stage at the New York Hippodrome. In 1923, Houdini became president of Martinka & Co., America’s oldest magic company. He also served as president of the Society of American Magicians from 1917 until his death, seeking to create a large, unified national network of professional and amateur magicians.
In the 1920s, Houdini began to debunk psychics and mediums to demonstrate how they were taking advantage of the bereaved. He was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to a medium who could successfully demonstrate supernatural abilities, but the prize was never collected. His debunking activities compromised his friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed in spiritualism, and the two men became public antagonists. Famously, before Houdini died, he and his wife agreed that if Houdini could communicate from beyond the grave, he would relay the message “Rosabelle believe,” a secret code that they agreed. Bess held annual séances for 10 years after Houdini’s death. In 1936, her last unsuccessful séance was held on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, and she then put out a candle that she had kept lit next to a photo of Houdini since his death. The tradition of holding séances for Houdini has continued, and they are held by magicians throughout the world.
Houdini died on October 31, 1926 at the age of 52 from peritonitis. More than 2000 people attended his funeral. He was interred at Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale, Queens. Bess died of a heart attack on February 11, 1943, and was buried 35 miles from Houdini, in Westchester, because her Catholic family refused to allow her to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.