He began to give speeches, telling how the mediums were fooling people. He easily discovered that these mediums were using some kind of trick just to make money. STEVE EMBER: Harry Houdini knew it was all false. Often, the medium would charge money in order to try to contact the spirits. Sometimes they asked the spirit to speak to them, or to make some kind of sound. The leader of the group, called a medium, would speak out and ask a spirit to come into the room. They held meetings, or séances, to try to communicate with the “other world.” Usually, people would sit around a table in a darkened room and hold hands. Magician Harry Houdini was also well known for his card tricks.īARBARA KLEIN: But many other people thought Houdini was wrong. He decided that no one could talk with the dead. But after years of trying, he realized that he was wasting his time. After she died, he tried to talk with her spirit. STEVE EMBER: During Houdini’s lifetime, some people thought it was possible to talk with or somehow communicate with dead people. Houdini would be standing next to the box, free and unharmed.Īudiences around the world loved this trick so much, Houdini performed it for the rest of his career. He is dying!”īARBARA KLEIN: But, of course, he was not dying. The audience feared that the Great Houdini was drowning. Houdini’s helpers on stage acted as if something were wrong. A curtain was placed in front of the box so the audience could not see how the trick was done. Then he was lowered, upside down, into a glass box filled with water. STEVE EMBER: But Houdini’s most famous escape was called “The Chinese Water Torture.” First, his feet were locked together. No one ever found a pair of handcuffs that would hold him. He escaped from the strongest jails in the United States. He once escaped from a straightjacket while hanging high in the air, upside down, from a crane. At other times, he wore a straightjacket, like the kind used in mental hospitals to restrain patients. Sometimes chains would be wrapped around his body and locked. Most of the time, his wrists would be held together by handcuffs. He soon became famous for being able to free himself from danger. But the audience seemed to like it best when Houdini performed an escape. For a while, he worked in a traveling circus.īARBARA KLEIN: At first, Houdini performed regular magic tricks, using cards, coins, and other objects that he would make disappear. He took his act to many places in New York State. He then began learning magic tricks, and called himself Harry Houdini. Erich took Houdin’s last name, changed the pronunciation and added and “i” at the end. He was “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air.” Then he read about a famous French magician named Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. STEVE EMBER: When he was nine years old, he performed a trapeze act on a swing high above the audience. But he really wanted to be in show business. Young Ehrich worked at many different jobs to help earn money for his poor family. His family moved to the United States two years later. His father was a rabbi, a Jewish religious leader. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in eighteen seventy-four. Harry Houdini prepares to be closed in the crate and lowered into the New York Harbor.īARBARA KLEIN: Harry Houdini’s real name was Ehrich Weisz. Scientific American magazine later wrote it was “one of the most remarkable tricks ever performed.” The man who had just escaped death was named Harry Houdini. When the box was pulled to the surface, it was still nailed shut and the ropes were still wrapped around it. The man swam to the surface, his arms and legs free. But suddenly, there were bubbles in the water. The crowd was sure the man would soon be dead. STEVE EMBER: Time seemed to go by slowly. More than ninety kilograms of lead weight were put on top. The man was put into a wooden box on a tugboat near the riverbank. They were there to watch a man whose hands and legs had been locked together. A huge crowd gathered near New York City’s East River. Today we tell about Harry Houdini, the great escape artist and magician.īARBARA KLEIN: It was a hot July day in nineteen twelve. STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link)
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