Weird if true
“The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero” (William Kalush, Larry Sloman)
Was Houdini a British spy? :2 biographers suggest escape artist spied on anarchists, hunted counterfeiters and was slain by spiritualists.
Eighty years after his death, a new biography of legendary performer Harry Houdini suggests that he worked as a spy for Scotland Yard, monitored Russian anarchists and chased counterfeiters for the U.S. Secret Service--all before he was possibly murdered.“The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero” is being released on Halloween -- the anniversary of Houdini's death at age 52. Chasing new information on the great escape artist eventually led authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman to create a database of more than 700,000 pages.
...
No less a Houdini enthusiast than Teller--the mute half of Penn and Teller-- suspects the link between the escape artist and the authorities is no leap.“Law enforcement is about bureaucracy and cronyism,” Teller said. “So they're going to let some entertainer walk in and escape from their jail cells? That suggests to me that [the authors] are on the right track.”
Houdini, the son of immigrants from Hungary, was a relentless self-promoter in the style of P.T. Barnum, although he didn't play his audience for suckers. The biography recounts one 1902 escape, in Blackburn, England, in which Houdini refused to surrender despite the use of plugged locks that made his freedom almost impossible.
After two hours, Houdini escaped to a standing ovation. The next day his arms were “hideously blue and swollen, with large chunks of flesh torn out,” the book recounts.
The biography also suggests that Houdini's relentless debunking of the spiritualist movement, whose proponents included “Sherlock Holmes” author Arthur Conan Doyle, led to his death. Members of the movement believed they could contact the dead; Houdini believed they were frauds and worked to expose phony mediums much as he'd once exposed copycat escape artists.
“I like the way that Houdini comes off as a real tough guy, which is no doubt true,” Teller said. “He's not afraid to show up at somebody else's performance and scream, `This is my act you're doing. Why don't you try this trick?'
”That's a rough and tumble thing you'll never see a modern magician do.“ Teller said.
The authors recount two October 1926 incidents in which Houdini was punched in the stomach, once by a college student in his dressing room and later by a stranger in a hotel lobby.
Houdini--the book suggests the spiritualists may have arranged the attacks--died days later in Room 401 at Grace Hospital in Detroit.
Hmmm, so in other words, Dennis Miller, former comedian, could be employed by the White House? Stranger things have occurred.
Technorati Tags: magic
