Wave Wire Services
HOLLYWOOD — Escape artist Houdini II performed a high-rise escape Oct. 30 above the Magic Castle, a day before the 100th anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death.
Houdini II was suspended about nine stories above the ground and escaped from a straightjacket without an airbag or protective landing system below.
“One leg. That’s never been done,” Houdini II told NBC4. “Now you’re talking about making history. Every escape artist in the world uses two legs, right? One leg on that one. I’m the bad boy in magic.”
Organizers described the event as the first live escape by a Black escape artist in front of the Magic Castle.
Houdini II’s past stunts include jumping from Miami’s MacArthur Bridge into Biscayne Bay while bound with ropes and chains, and escaping from a submerged, coffin-like wooden box before reappearing behind the audience, organizers said.
Harry Houdini, born Erik Weisz in Budapest. By his teens, he was a professional magician and by age 30 an international celebrity known for his astounding ability to break out of handcuffs, shackles and other restraints. He also was an author, a movie actor and a spoken word recording artist whose audio archive was purchased by magician David Copperfield.
He died in Detroit on Oct. 31, 1926, at age 52, from peritonitis.
His legacy was debated at numerous Houdini events over the weekend, from a “Grand Houdini Centenarium” in his hometown of Budapest to an auction of memorabilia in Hollywood, to seances in cities he visited such as Chicago and Frederick, Maryland. His burial site, at Machpelah Cemetery in New York City, has long been a Halloween gathering place.
“I’m not sure many of the people who know the name ‘Houdini’ could pick him out of a lineup, specify when he lived, or say what he actually did in his performances. But, they know that ‘Houdini’ is synonymous with magic, an ability to do the impossible, or get out of a tight spot,” said Matthew Solomon, a film history professor at the University of Michigan and author of “Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century,” which came out in 2010.“For those who know a little more, he’s the epitome of the self-made man and immigrant success story. The fact that he (reportedly) died on Halloween certainly enhanced his mystique,” Solomon added.
Eric Colleary, whose book “Houdini’s Library” came out in September, says that Houdini had a deep interest in other magicians, to the point of visiting their graves and even personally paying to have the graves maintained. The magicians’ families would in turn give him scrapbooks, playbills and other items “so that he could keep their memories alive,” says Colleary, the curator of Theatre and Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Houdini II recently completed a 10-month tour promoting his documentary, “Houdini II: A Beautiful Day to Die,” with screenings in Berlin, London and several U.S. states. The tour concluded at Brooklyn’s Bushwick Film Festival, according to organizers.
He also incorporates magic into his work as a keynote and motivational speaker.
City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
