Houdini the Magician

A Party and a Lover’s Quarrel

Sitting high atop the rugged hillside in the Hollywood Hills is the Gothic mansion where once the famous magician Harry Houdini lived. Unusual happenings occurred here on a full moon night in 1918. This mansion had been built by the wealthy owner of one of Hollywood’s largest furniture stores. He sold expensive furniture to actors and directors during the golden days of the movie industry. On this particular night at the mansion in Laurel Canyon guests in costumes had arrived for a Halloween party and to celebrate the 40th birthday of the host’s son. Everyone was making merry and unnoticed as the son went to the back of the house. There on one of the balconies that overlooked Laurel Canyon, he was planning to meet his lover.

Something that he had to do in secret because his lover was also a he and the two gay men couldn’t risk being exposed. It was particularly important to the heir of the furniture empire. Unfortunately, a lover’s quarrel started between the two men, and when the orchestra paused for intermission a blood-curdling scream could be heard. In a fit of rage, the birthday boy had pushed his young lover off of the balcony and now his bloodied body lay over 30 feet below in the canyon. The distressed father hired the very best attorney and even attempted to pay off the policemen, prosecutors, and the judge himself. The family name and the son were saved when it was discovered that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. After all of the expenses the mansion, the business, and the property had to be sold, and once the family vacated the premises it was rumored that they had become penniless.

A Mansion with a Curse

This was the very first tragedy that was associated with this Gothic mansion. Stories were circulating that the place had a curse upon it and anyone who occupied the mansion would have bad luck and be followed by disaster. Other strange things also occurred here over the years and they happened to the man who purchased the mansion from the furniture store owner. That man was Harry Houdini, who lived in the mansion in the 1920s. During the time that Houdini lived there, he hosted séances and participated in strange experiments. It is thought that this cursed mansion might have cost the famous magician his life bringing him bad luck.

A Desire to Be a Magician

Born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874, Harry Houdini grew up as Ehrich Weiss in the small town of Appleton, Wisconsin. His father was a rabbi who chose to move his Jewish congregation over to Milwaukee. At this time Houdini became interested in performing on stage and in magic. He was determined to become a professional magician and performed in the beer halls and theaters of New York under the name Houdini. He had chosen this name because it was associated with a famous French magician called Robert Houdini. Through the coming years, he participated in traveling shows and theaters. He was performing at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York when he met his wife Bess.

Houdini had learned a variety of new and strange stunts and had begun to create amazing and unusual escape acts. Soon he became known as the “Handcuff King” since he could easily and quickly escape from handcuffs. Once his escapes became even more daring he preferred to let police officers and various officials come up with their own challenges for him to attempt in the cities where he performed. Houdini never let them down. Soon he had become a sensation not only in the U.S. but the world over and performed to sold-out crowds. It is unfortunate that future magicians weren’t able to learn Houdini’s tricks. The magician left behind many journals and notes but these came into the possession of his brother and were destroyed after the brother died. Houdini was known to remark when asked about his escapes, that he didn’t know the secrets himself because he always had dreaded what would happen if he should fail at any time.

Obsessed by Mother’s Death

During her lifetime Houdini had become unnaturally close to his mother and became obsessed with her death. After she had passed on Houdini was observed lying face down on her grave having a conversation with his mother. It was at this time that he turned to Spiritualism. This movement based on the ability to communicate with dead spirits began in New York in 1848 and had a great revival after WW I. The means of communication were séances and would be held in darkened rooms where ghostly phenomena manifested themselves. Through séances, Houdini hoped to contact his mother.

Unfortunately, he discovered that there were more fake mediums than there were real ones. So Houdini began a crusade against these fakes to find the real ones he so desperately wanted to get. He was taking a tour of England in 1920 when he met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a spokesperson for Spiritualism. Even though these two famous people had opposing views on the supernatural they became good friends. At this time Doyle had given up writing to travel the world and lecture about Spiritualism. Meanwhile, Houdini continued to host séances in his new home in Laurel Canyon.

Involvement with the Film Industry

Houdini had the impression that he could earn a fortune by becoming involved in the film industry and invested more than $100,000 in the business. The venture was launched by his friend Arnold de Biere and Houdini starred in many of the company’s own productions. Houdini’s role in the films was that of an escape artist with a flair for the supernatural. There were such films as “The Man from Beyond”, “Terror Island”, “The Master Mystery” and some short serials. These films can be seen on YouTube. However, the films never became popular so there was no real profit and the one film that was a real disaster was “Haldane of the Secret Service”. Houdini lost most of his investment, had a bitter argument with de Biere, and the two never spoke to each other again.

Houdini and Ghostly Spirits

Houdini’s Laurel Canyon mansion fit in perfectly with his theatrical personality with all of the parapets, and battlements. and spooky towers. The foundation of the mansion beneath had many tunnels, secret passageways, and chambers. This makes me wonder why the two filmmakers didn’t consider creating horror films in the mansion. One tunnel ran beneath what today is Laurel Canyon Road. Houdini practiced his underwater escapes in a lower chamber that had a deep pool. Houdini continued séances to attempt to contact his mother and to expose the mediums who were frauds.

At these gatherings, an occasional guest was Conan Doyle however the friendship soon ended. The last time the two met was in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1922. Lady Jean Doyle was a medium and she went into a trance, producing a letter for Houdini that was written by his mother due to her gift of automatic writing. Even though Houdini was at first amazed he later dismissed it as not being real. This was what caused the rift between him and Conan Doyle. It was soon after this that Conan Doyle began telling everyone that Houdini was exposing mediums to hide the fact that he himself was a medium. It was also thought that Houdini was so great at his escapes because he had the power to “dematerialize” from the traps in which he placed himself. Dematerialize means to become free of physical substance.

Houdini’s Tricks

Houdini had gotten into a sort of fix. He could only deny the Spiritualist claims up to a certain point because he didn’t want to expose how his escapes were actually done. The magician made a pact with some of his friends that whoever died first would try and contact the others by a secret code. Houdini then came up with a plan to make Conan Doyle realize his tricks were just tricks. There were three people present at test time Houdini, Conan Doyle, and Bernard Ernst, president of the American Society of Magicians. Conan Doyle hung a slate in the middle of the room and Houdini was given five plain cork balls. He chose a ball at random and placed it in a container of white paint. Conan Doyle then took a piece of paper and was told he could walk wherever he wanted to and write a message on the paper. What Conan Doyle did was walk three blocks and turn the corner. He shielded the page, wrote a short message, and returned to the house. During this time Ernst had stayed behind in the room with Houdini.

After Conan Doyle returned Houdini told him to take the paint-soaked ball and stick it on the suspended slate. The ball rolled over the slate and spelled out the Biblical phrase – Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. Since this was exactly what Conan Doyle had written on his piece of paper what it actually did was to convince him even more strongly that Houdini had supernatural powers. Of course, the magician didn’t say how the trick was done. In 1923 Houdini joined a panel from Scientific American Magazine that offered a reward to any medium, who could prove that his psychic gifts were genuine. The panel chose one medium named Mina Crandon going by the stage name of Margery. They were prepared to give her a reward of $2,500. Not sure what to think Houdini went to Boston to witness a séance. He declared that during the séance Margery would do a number of tricks such as making noise with her feet and lifting objects which were said to have moved on their own. Due to this the award was never given.

The Death of Houdini

While performing his famous Underwater Torture escape on the night of October 11 a chain slipped and Houdini fractured his ankle. Even though a doctor in the audience told him to go straight to the hospital he finished his entire performance. Then on the afternoon of October 26 while completely preoccupied Houdini was visited by two students. He didn’t pay much attention to what they were asking of him and actually gave them the impression that it was true that he could withstand powerful blows to his stomach. Along with that, the students felt that he had agreed to let them see how he reacted to a powerful blow. So one student leaned forward and struck Houdini hard in the abdomen with a clenched fist. At first, the magician looked startled but he soon recovered.

Unfortunately during his performance the pain in his abdomen became worse. He performed in agony for the next two days. When he arrived in Detroit he was diagnosed as having acute appendicitis. Since he was ready to perform a sold-out show he refused to have an operation right away. Stepping out on stage Houdini had a raging temperature of 104 degrees. As unbelievable as it may seem the magician got through the entire performance and then collapsed. Even though doctors operated on Houdini it was hopeless. In the early morning of October 31 with his wife Bess and his brother who he called Dash by his side, the magician was close to death. He told his brother that he was tired of fighting and passed over the threshold into the next world.

Contacting Houdini from Beyond the Grave

After his death, his wife Bess got in touch with mediums and claimed that she had gotten messages from her husband Houdini from beyond the grave. She told them that he contacted her through a code that they had devised for their mind-reading act. Bess offered $100,000 to any medium who could deliver an actual message from Houdini. In 1928 when Arthur Ford told Bess he had a message for her. The message was from Houdini’s mother and stated “forgive”. Then in November, he got a message directly from the magician with the coded message “Rosabelle” translating to answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell.

After receiving this message Bess invited Ford to her home and she told him that the words were correct. Ford then asked her to remove her wedding ring and explain what the word “Rosabelle” meant. It was the word that made the message authentic. The secret had been known only to Bess and her husband. It was the title of a song popular in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York at the time they first met. The rest of the message was a series of code words that spelled out the word “believe” which was the final clue that Houdini had promised to relay from the grave. Bess continued to hold séances attempting to communicate with Houdini. The last official séance was held on Halloween in 1938. The gathering included friends, fellow magicians, and Bess gathered in Hollywood on the rooftop of the Knickerbocker Hotel. After trying to get in contact for over an hour they gave up. At this moment a violent thunderstorm started up, drenching them all and scaring them with horrific lightning and thunder. Only later did they find out that this violent storm had occurred nowhere else only on the rooftop of the hotel. Bess remained at the Laurel Canyon mansion until her death in the 1940s.

A brush fire swept through Laurel Canyon in 1959 and destroyed the Houdini mansion. Only the walls of the old building, the chauffeur’s quarters, and a part of the garage remained. The property remained abandoned and there were those who said that Houdini’s spirit roamed there. The people who have gone there on Halloween nights say they have seen a dark figure standing on the staircases or walking in the garden grotto. Many believe that this is the spirit of Houdini and I for one would not be scared to shout, “Houdini, is it you?” The magician had always said that he would have the power to return from the grave. It is now possible to see this mansion in Laurel Canyon since it has been restored. People can use the Houdini Estate for film shoots, fund-raisers, family retreats, and other special occasions. Of course, the one thing I would love best is to spend a Halloween night with Houdini himself and see what he has to say after all these years.