505201
Harry Houdini
Scroll down to see images of the item below the description
Harry Houdini, 1874-1926. Scarce Typed Letter Signed, Houdini, one page, 5½” x 7”, April 4, 1922, on personal stationery.
Houdini cordially invites a New York Daily News cartoonist to be his guest at Houdini’s birthday performance—and perhaps does a bit of marketing for his show. In full: “I have a birthday Thursday, April 6, and would like to celebrate it by inviting my friends among the cartoonists to the Times Square Theatre and if you can be present Thursday evening I would be ever so much obliged to you. / Please give me a ring Bryant 5519 or use the enclosed envelope for as many seats as you would like. Don’t be afraid to ask. I will consider it a compliment for the favors you have shown me in the past.”
This letter highlights an intriguing issue about Houdini’s birthday. Houdini claimed that he was born April 6, 1874, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Instead, he was born Ehrich Weiss on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. His parents, a Jewish rabbi and his wife, moved to Appleton with their family when Houdini was a toddler.
In Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls (1959), author William Lindsay Gresham recounts that Hungarian synagogue records described the birth of a boy, Ehrich, to Mayer Samuel Weiss on March 24, 1874. The book reprints a letter dated November 22, 1913, in which Houdini wrote to his younger brother, Theo, that because his mother always wrote him on April 6, that would be his adopted birthday. The letter was part of the collection of Theo’s protégé, Sidney Radner. Theo was himself a vaudeville performer and escape artist who entertained under the name “Hardeen.” Houdini had told Theo to burn his papers, but Theo instead passed them along to Radner in the 1930’s.
Young Ehrich Weiss went to work at age 8 to help support his family, which was poor. At age 12, he hopped a freight car and ran away from home. A year later, he rejoined has parents in New York City, where they had gone in search of a better life. He worked at several jobs, including messenger, necktie cutter, and photographer’s assistant.
During this time, both Ehrich and Theo became interested in magic. Ehrich’s idol was the great French magician Robert-Houdin (1805-1871). It was after Robert-Houdin that Ehrich adopted the name “Houdini” when he began to perform. The name “Harry” is likely an Americanized version of his childhood nickname, “Ehrie.”
Over the years, Houdini perfected his act and became an international celebrity. Among the stunts performed to publicize his American appearances, Houdini escaped from the prison cell that held the assassin of President James Garfield, squirmed from a straitjacket while hanging upside down, and broke free from a packing crate that had been nailed shut and immersed. His show featured magic and escapes, including an escape from a coffin. One of Houdini’s most famous stunts was the escape from a Chinese water torture, during which his hands and feet were bound and he was lowered, upside down, into a glass tank filled with water, which was then securely closed.
Houdini kept himself in excellent physical and mental condition. To develop his capacity for holding his breath, he installed an oversize bathtub in his house so that he could practice regularly. He trained himself to be ambidextrous. While casually chatting with friends, he would perform card and coin tricks without looking at his hands and would tie and untie knots in pieces of rope with his feet. Houdini refined techniques that he had already mastered and continually developed new and more daring escapes.
Following his mother’s death, Houdini renewed an early interest in spiritualism, the so-called ability to communicate with the dead. Houdini wanted to believe that such communication was possible, but his years of performing magic taught him the methods that phony spiritualists used to fool the public. Houdini unmasked the fraud, using many of the spiritualists’ tricks in his act and detailing their deceptions in a best-selling book, A Magician Among the Spirits.
In late October 1926, Houdini let an amateur boxer test his ability to withstand blows to his body. The boxer punched him three times in the stomach before he could tighten his abdominal muscles, though, rupturing Houdini’s appendix. Houdini refused treatment and continued to perform for several days before he finally allowed doctors to operate. The ruptured appendix caused peritonitis, a usually fatal disease in the days before antibiotics. Houdini died on the afternoon of Halloween, October 31, 1926.
Before he died, Houdini reportedly shared a secret message with his wife, Bess, to be used as proof that he was communicating with her from beyond the grave. She would know it was really him if she heard the words “Rosabelle, believe.” For many years Bess tried to contact Houdini through a séance on the anniversary of his death, but she died in 1943 without succeeding. After Bess died, Sidney Radner continued the séances.
The letter is in very good condition, with a fine signature, which Houdini has penned in black. The fold does not touch the signature. The letter is evenly toned, with some mounting traces showing through from the back. A piece of the letter is missing in the upper right corner, but another irregularly shaped piece has been glued to the back of the letter in an apparent attempt to repair it. The bottom of the letter has been removed, and judging from the color of the paper and what should have been the size of the stationery, it appears that the owner may have used the bottom of the sheet for the repair. The irregular shape of the backing piece could be matted out of this were framed.
Given the scarcity of Houdini’s letters, which are becoming more difficult to find, this is a quite desirable letter despite the imperfections in it.
Unframed. Please ask us about custom framing this piece.
|
