DETROIT — Harry Houdini, the escape artist who freed himself from handcuffs, jail cells and straitjackets, died 100 years ago today, on Halloween 1926, in Detroit, NPR reported.
Houdini performed in Detroit 19 times, from the early days of his career in 1894 to the final show of his life in 1926, according to NPR. Over those years he rose from a bottom-of-the-bill act to one of the most famous entertainers in the world.
He built his fame by declaring that no handcuffs or jail cell could hold him. He dangled upside down from office buildings in straitjackets, sometimes from buildings that housed local newspapers, ensuring free publicity for his shows.
In 1906, Houdini jumped about two dozen feet from Detroit’s Belle Isle Bridge into the river below, bound with two sets of police handcuffs, and surfaced unharmed. Later legend held that he leaped through a hole in the ice and survived on air pockets, but reports from the time show the river was not frozen, NPR reported. Movies decades later still showed it that way.
As imitators copied his escapes, Houdini kept raising the stakes. By 1914 he had unveiled his signature stunt, the Water Torture Cell, a coffin-sized box filled with water, NPR reported.
A century after his death, the anniversary falls on the holiday most tied to his legend, and Detroit’s connections to the magician still draw fans of magic and the macabre.
Sources: NPR. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Kaldari / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
