Harry Houdini, billed as the “Justly Celebrated Self-liberator,” died a century ago on October 31, 1926, a date now celebrated as National Magic Day. From humble beginnings in vaudeville and the dime museum circuit, Houdini became acclaimed as the “eclipsing sensation of the age” with death-defying escapes and daredevil stunts, freeing himself from chains, manacles, and handcuffs of all descriptions, and even wriggling out of a strait jacket while suspended head-down from a crane, high above Times Square.
Houdini’s final years saw him creating a new role. He believed that so-called psychic mediums, who professed to contact the spirits of departed loved ones, were nothing but hucksters. “They are frauds, all of them,” he insisted, “preying on the bereaved, with only Houdini to stand against them.”
Houdini’s anti-spiritualist crusade soured his friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and set up one of the greatest challenges of his career—a historic clash with the most notable psychic of the era, a glamorous Boston socialite known as Margery the Medium. Conan Doyle had declared Margery to be a very powerful spiritualist whose abilities were beyond question. Houdini was determined to prove otherwise.
Author Daniel Stashower explores Houdini’s life and legacy, while actors Scott Sedar and Bari Biern give voice to his career under the stage lights and in the darkness of the séance salon.
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