Houdini Round-Up: Magicians Who Duplicate Their Icon

Houdini is quite possibly one of the most famous magicians that ever lived. His life has inspired books and movies, and his death still fascinates mystery-seekers. Hell, even now his remains are being squabbled over in the courts.

But Harry Houdini's legacy, not surprisingly, is one that many magicians today endeavor to match or to at least invoke- his level of performance set a benchmark for magicians everywhere.

I try to keep my ear to the ground on what's happening in the magic industry (I can't claim to be grossly involved, but I do enjoy reading about it) and I've noticed an interesting trend. Houdini stunts are a bit of a boon for current magicians, who get a thrill from mastering his stunts, and from the ensuing publicity. Which is why I'd like to share a few examples I've come across of magicians doing tribute to their icon.

But first, a little bit of history:

Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1874 as Eric Weisz, and immigrated to America at the age of 4 with his family. As a child, he worked as a locksmith's apprentice, and at 10 was a talented trapeze artist. He eventually started out in magic doing card tricks, and even managed to vanish a full-grown elephant. But, as we all know, he found his true calling with escape acts. His initial specialty was handcuffs, but showman Martin Beck convinced him to focus more on his escape stunts.

He quickly became known as the "The Handcuff King" throughout Europe, and became adept at escaping shackles, prisons, straitjackets, and more, within plain sight of his audience. Eventually, he moved up to more death-defying stunts, such as escaping from a water-filled milk can or the Chinese Water Torture Cell, which involved being suspended upside down in a locked glass and steel cabinet that was overflowing with water. He could pick locks and regurgitate keys, and often did a stunt that involved dangling upside down from a cable with his legs shackled, while strapped into a straitjacket.

A few things to note about that particular stunt- one of the dangers of hanging upside down is that blood can run to one's head, causing dizziness, clouded judgment, and eventually loss of consciousness. Also, wearing a straitjacket for long periods of time can cause blood to pool in the elbows or numbness in the hands. Muscles can become stiff and extremely painful. However, it has been noted that hanging upside down made it easier for Houdini to get his arms up over his head, one of his techniques for quickly escaping a straitjacket.

For instance, this month, twenty-something Magician/ventriloquist Spencer Horsman hung himself upside down 50 feet in the air and in TWO straitjackets, near Illusions Magic Bar & Lounge in South Baltimore. The bar is owned and operated by his father Ken Horsman, a former clown and circus professional.

Criss Angel did a similar stunt in 2003, suspended 100ft above the Miller Brewing Co. (but in only one straitjacket) as a promotion for Miller Lite.
But by far, my favorite Houdini tribute news-bite is this one:

Illusionist Phil Dalton, while doing a show for an elementary school in Cincinnati, didn't have such good luck. He tried Houdini's famous straitjacket stunt- he was suspended 90ft in the air, with his legs shackled, but with one major exception. The ropes had been soaked in Diesel fuel and set on fire.

Despite the fact that he had gone to great lengths to test the burning time of the ropes beforehand, a slight pick up in wind sped up the incineration as he was attempting to escape. He still managed to escape within 2 minutes and 44 seconds, but not before one of the three ropes had burned all of the way through, and a second most of the way through, leaving him dangling precariously on a single rope. Dalton, who does a variety of other types of stunts such as sawing himself in half or pulling snakes out of hats, doesn't intend to do that particular stunt again any time soon.

But it's not just the straitjacket stunts either; some are even taking a crack at the milk can.

One stunt that Harry Houdini FAILED to pull off was escaping from a milk can filled with Tetley's bitter (a type of ale)- he was overcome by CO2 fumes, and his assistants had to drag him out before he completed the stunt. However, 37 year old Paul Cheesbrough from Todmorden, England claims to have trumped Houdini with his own escape from a Milk can filled with cold water. Much like Houdini, the milk churn was padlocked from the outside, and his hands and feet were bound on the inside. The article that ran in Yorkshire Post about it runs under the headline "Great Escape Act Outdoes Houdini". However, Houdini routinely escaped from a padlocked Milk can filled with water. Cheesbrough is undoubtedly a larger man than Houdini (who was quite small), which adds to the relative difficulty- this particular stunt requires flexibility and the ability to hold one's breath for long periods of time. The point, (despite the headline) is that Houdini was challenged by Joshua Tetley and Son in the Empire Theatre in Brigate, Leeds in 1911. Cheesbrough was challenged to do his stunt by the Leeds Magical Association, for their 10th annual day of Magic. The stunt itself was a difficult one, as the displacement of the water inside the can eliminated his air supply. He did, however, manage to escape within 90 seconds, which is impressive.

All of these just go to show that imitation is indeed the greatest form of flattery. In writing, we have something called the 'anxiety of influence', which can translate to a lot of different artforms, magic included. TS Eliot, in "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is much quoted as saying "Some one said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know."