WEBVTT - Harry Houdini: The great escape - Part 2 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:06.000 I know and quite worked out Harry did it. 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.799 He would be put into a very large milk can 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.840 full of water, and the top would be secured and 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.080 it would be changed put around it, and the crowd 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:15.840 will be told, try and hold your breath and see 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:17.480 if you can hold it for as long as your dani. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.720 I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.800 In Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.840 forgotten characters. Welcome back to part two of the story 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.199 of Harry Houdini and the final episode of the In 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.480 Black and White podcast. Make sure you listen to part 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.120 one first. We'll have some special thank you messages at 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.280 the end of this episode. We're speaking again with Andrew McConville, 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.760 reference librarian at State Library Victoria. Now, we talked briefly 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.280 earlier about the first powered flight, which was also just 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.200 outside of Melbourne. Tell us about the significance of that 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.680 and the preparation that Houdini had done for that. 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.360 He decided that he was going to be I mean, 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.400 flight was obviously a brand new thing. So you know, 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:11.000 the Right brothers had only just made their fights not 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.600 many years before, and so he decided that he would 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.920 get onto this brand new phenomenon of flying. So he 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.160 had learned how to fly. I think in Germany he 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.040 had someone who taught him how to fly. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:22.959 He had a mechanic. 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.600 He bought a particular aeroplane of whats in aeroplane that 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.280 he brought to Australia. So that would have been quite 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.480 an expensive process to bring a plane. And he did 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.200 that partly because he knew that at that stage there 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.520 didn't appear to have been any genuine successful flights in Australia, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:42.280 so he wanted to be the first to do that, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.080 and he did do that at Digger's Rest on the 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.120 adenth of March. There were a couple of other claimants 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.000 to that. A few days before. In fact, someone in 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.600 South Australia had claimed to make a fight, although it 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.880 appears as though they crashed rather than landed, and there 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.240 was not really much documentation of that. One thing who 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.280 doing he was very careful of was to ensure that 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.440 there were a number of witnesses who would sign that 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.040 he had made that flight. And so he did do 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.320 a few flights, not always successful, but he did do 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.880 one fight that was about three and a half minutes 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:14.639 and he traveled about thirty meters, so it doesn't say 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.040 that big a deal nowadays, but that was in the 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.480 infancy of flying, so that did become and is considered 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.640 the first a controlled flight in Australia, and again another 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.200 a great amount of publicity for him. I think there's 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.560 still a plaque at Digger's Rest to commemorate that, and 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.600 it does stand still despite there being some disputes from 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.560 other flights a little bit earlier, that this was the 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.760 first recorded controlled flight and documented controlled flight, so he 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.400 does hold that record, and again, you know, it's a 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.280 great I guess it's partly a publicity thing, but it's 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.240 also an enormous daredevil thing to be flying. I mean, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.720 he was taught how to fly in Germany, so that 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.040 was very dangerous and he flying was very dangerous, and 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:55.840 yet he took that on. 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:56.959 So I think you're right about. 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.520 Him being a bit of a adrenaline junkie, because certainly 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.360 that was a pretty dangerous practice back in those days. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.520 And there are some photos of this first powered flight 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.000 in the State Library collection. Can you tell us about those? 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.160 Yes, well, they're probably not quite as clear as they 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:19.359 might be, but there's still fantastic records of his first flight. Yeah, 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.880 so it's a photo of a plane actually, and as 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:23.520 I say, it looks nothing, looks like a whole lot 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:24.440 of boxes put together. 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:25.600 Actually it's a biplane. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.519 You can see it there, just traveling barely above the trees. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:31.840 And there's a horse there as well too, so that 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:33.840 kept out away for the landing. And there's about four 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.560 men sort of standing staring at the flight. So he 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.520 was always, as I say, very careful to make sure 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.400 he had reliable witnesses there to ensure that he had 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.040 it well documented. And it does look like it hasn't 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:46.560 got all that far off the ground, which you would 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.200 expect it didn't get that far off the ground. But 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.680 that is a great recording of what was the earliest 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.320 considered the earliest controlled flight in Australian history. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.280 Now what else did he get up to in Melbourne 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.160 while he was here, Well, it. 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:02.920 Was mainly just the shows. I mean, he did those 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.000 challenges where various people would challenge him to you know, 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.480 their time in not stay clock him in boxes etc. 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:10.120 And he'd be able to get out. 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.920 Mainly, as I say, he also did the dive into 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.679 the Era, which is a big publicity stunt, but mainly 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.880 he was just appearing at the what was then called 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.039 the Opera House in his show over quite. 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:23.840 A number of weeks. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.080 I don't think he did anything else particularly remarkable in Melbourne. 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.200 He was probably pretty busy actually, because he did appear, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.120 you know, on stage each night, so that would have 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.200 been and his performances, even though they were fairly short, 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.799 they would have been quite demanding really, I mean getting 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.640 out of a straight check it would be pretty physically 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.720 demanding and tiring, so he would have been pretty tired 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.119 even after a fairly short show. 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.719 I think now the Melbourne Opera House. But where was 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:48.760 that and how many seats were in that venue? 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.120 Well, I think there was a few thousand seats in 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.680 the venue. I think it existed from the nineteenth century, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.599 but there was a few different opera houses because they 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.320 were burned out at times, and then it became thea 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.680 Tivoli Theater, so it it was a very popular place. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.359 I think it held several thousand people, so it was 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:08.919 a big venue. So it was a big venue that 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.320 would have been filled for Hudini and the tickets for 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.040 who Deani were you know anywhere from depending on where 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.960 you were three shillings or two shillings or one shilling, 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.839 and there was a premium if you booked your tickets beforehand, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.600 and there was general admission tickets where you could get 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.480 there earlier. So yeah, so it was in Burke Street, 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.640 and as I say, it was a very beautiful building, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.200 but at various times it did get rebuilt. But it 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.360 did hold quite a number of people. I think it 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.200 was several thousand people could fit into the theater, so 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.680 you would have had big crowds every night, okay. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.320 And then from there he's headed straight up to Sydney. 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.520 He has He's headed up to Sydney and done very 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.400 similar to what he did in Melbourne. I mean, doing 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.760 that the shows, taking on the various challenges that the 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:54.880 public put before him. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.479 He did do a dive. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.680 He was actually scared of the ocean. So he was 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.160 never that keen in diving into the ocean. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.359 How fascinating. He shouldn't be scared of anything. He's Houdini. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.240 Well, the other thing was that he was a terrible sailor. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.200 He got dreadfully seasick, and so you know, even coming 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.120 to Australia would have won a great ordeal for him 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.320 to come that far and in fact, once he got 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.640 to Adelaide, he caught a train, so yeah, but he 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.039 he was a terrible sailor and he did sort of 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.160 say to the first reporter we spoke to that he 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.240 wouldn't dive into the water at Framel because he was 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.680 scared of sharks, and he did dive in Sydney. 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.160 He dived into the. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.200 Domain Bars at the edge of Wormlou Bay, so didn't 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.760 dive into the ocean. He dived into the into a 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:41.760 bar's there, which I and I think the main thing 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.840 was that he wanted murky water because he didn't want 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.400 to see anybody. He didn't wan anybody to see what 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.360 he was doing, so he certainly would have had plenty 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.640 of murky water in the era. I think that Domain 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:51.640 Mars were likely just sort of a big dive. They 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.719 weren't actually proper swimming pool as such, so he'd go 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.640 down very deep and then he just appeared with his handcuffs. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.240 So he did pretty much the same thing. He did 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.120 do some flights in Sydney, but he'd obviously obviously done 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.599 the first fight in Australia, and he did take on 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.120 challenges from the public and he was very successful there. Again, 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.240 I mean I think the other trick that he did 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.240 do none of the first night in Melbourne, but that 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.640 he did do in Australia, which was one of his 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:19.000 famous ones, which was the milk called the milk can trick, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.680 which was all the milkcam mystery. But that was there 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.000 was something quite a bizarre story to that in that 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.760 when he arrived he complained that, according to his words, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.880 a Sydney pugilist had stolen his milk can trick. And 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.840 that turned out not just to be any boxer. It 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.560 turned out to be the very famous Canadian world champion 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.640 Tommy Burns, who'd been in Australia in the Seminine hundred 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.800 and eight. He'd been in one of the huge fights 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.679 of the century against the African American fighter Jack Johnson, 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.360 and Tommy Burns got badly beaten, but it was a 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.200 huge sporting event and Tommy Burns stayed on and then 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:54.960 had this sort of odd stage show where he would 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.360 talk about his fights and his brother in law would 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.320 do this milk can trick and who done was very 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.960 annoyed at that, but he did do it himself. And 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.040 I mean that was again a trick that no one 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:06.800 quite worked out how he did it, he would be 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.400 put into a very large milk can full of water, 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.240 and the top would be secured and there would be 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.680 chains put around it, and there would just be a 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.600 screen put across the front, and the crowd will be 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.720 told that, you know, try and hold your breath and 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:22.120 see if you can hold it for as long as 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.640 your janey, and then who Doney when people were wondering 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.760 whether he drowned, Who Daney would appear dripping wet, and 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.000 you know, I think there were some tricks to that 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.599 as well. Apparently the rivets in the top of the 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.120 milk can were false, and if he pushed it in 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.440 a certain way he would get out. But still I 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.920 think that would be many people's worst nightmare to be 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.680 enclosed in a body of water like that with a 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.360 lid put on, and then to be able to get 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.200 out of that. So again, that was a very dramatic 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.240 trick that he did for quite a few years afterwards. 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:53.040 But I mean one of the things he did that 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.680 was quite interesting too. Because often he was so famous, 0:08:55.720 --> 0:09:00.680 people were always trying to steal his tricks. He didn't 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.079 want to patent them because that would involve giving details 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:05.520 of exactly how they were done. 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.200 You know, have to patent every part of the apparatus. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.880 So instead of that, he would sometimes hold performances for 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.880 a single person and that would be he would say, 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.120 that would copyright the trick because he'd done a public 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:19.720 the first public performance of it. 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.520 So that was one way he had of protecting his tricks. 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.800 But yes, he was very annoyed at Tommy Burns for 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.600 stealing his milkcan trick and climbing it as his own. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.920 We'll be back soon to hear what happened to hu 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:40.200 Deini next, So stay with us, So tell us what 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:41.640 happened after his Australian tour. 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.880 Well, he continued to greater and greater fame. He continued 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.160 to tour in the United States and tour in Europe. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.000 He was very popular in Europe and he did bigger 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.600 and bigger tricks. He's one of his most famous tricks 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.920 was in nineteen eighteen he at the Hippodrome in New York. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.960 He had a very di soile elephant who's variously known 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.880 as Jenny or Fanny, but the name possibly lost their history. 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.880 But he had a huge box on stage and the 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.040 elephant was led into that and he made the elephant disappear, 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.160 and I think people, I mean other people had done 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.719 similar tricks. I think he purchased it from somebody, the 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.040 trick from somebody who'd made a donkey disappear, but he 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.240 went bigger and better. There's still discussion about how he 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.320 actually did that, whether it was mirrors or some sort 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.640 of false side. That must have made a pretty big 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.120 false side to hide an elephant, But anyway, he managed 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.920 to do that trick once on stage and make an 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:37.280 elephant disappear, which again created great interest in his performances. 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.360 But later on in life, like by the nine and twenties, 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.160 he did become very skeptical with spiritualism, and that became 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:48.480 a bit of a campaign of his up until his death. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.400 I mean, in his early career he had tried many things, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.240 card tricks, all sorts of tricks, and for a while 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.640 he and his wife were promoting themselves as spiritualists. That was, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.480 you know, they had various tricks to do that. She 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.400 was he was Professor Houdini and she was the psychometric Madam. 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.400 And some of the tricks they'd used would be they 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.400 might have codes so that if she took a dollar 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.400 bill and was one side of the stage, and he 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.880 had to guess what the serial number was. They'd have 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.360 bland words that would need numbers. So if she said 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.720 something like, you know, tell me the number, tell my 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.439 maan one and then it might be have you guessed 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.800 at guests might man two? So he do go through 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.760 his whole performance. And they did that for a short time, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:31.040 and they thought it was a bit of a ark. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.160 But HERDONI was particularly attached to his mother, enormously attached 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.920 to his mother, and he was absolutely distressed when she died, 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.040 and after that he began to see spiritualism as a 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.480 fairly mean trick, and particularly after the First World War 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.560 when spiritualism became huge because so many people were trying 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:48.880 to connect with. 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.280 Dead sons and brothers and loved ones. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.440 And he sort of spoke about how when he was young, 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.880 he didn't understand the seriousness of trifling with such sacred 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.480 sentimentality and the bineful results which inevitably followed. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:04.640 To me, it was a lark. 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.280 And then he talks about how he realizes that he 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.760 feels quite guilty about being so frivolous about that, because 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.240 it is all a trick and it does give people 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.440 false hope when you shouldn't be doing that, And so 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:18.880 he did go on to say gladly, I would embrace 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.760 spiritualism if it could prove its claims, but I'm not 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.079 willing to be deluded by the fraudulent impositions of so 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.520 called psychics or accepted sacred reality any evidence that has 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.000 been placed before me thus far. And it was around 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:33.800 about this time, a little bit before that, he became 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.240 a great friend of Conan Doyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, the 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.400 creator of Shelock Holmes, and Conan Doyle was a great 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.960 believer in spiritualism, and so that sort of placed a 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.719 little bit of a challenge to their friendship. And there 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.920 was also an occasion where he went to a sort 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.640 of quasi seance with Conan Doyle, and Conan Doyle's wife 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.080 supposedly did automatic writings, so she was getting messages from 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:02.560 beyond the grave, and she supposedly was right from Harry 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.400 Hoo Doney's mother, and that was a very sensitive thing 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.040 for Harry who Doney, and he was pretty offended by 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.320 that because it was clearly false, and that really put 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.040 a great challenge to their friendship, and their friendship. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.640 Was never as warm again, and he did. 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:21.240 Spend a lot of time unmasking what he considered to 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.839 be Charlotte and Spiritualism and to expose their tricks. And 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.920 so that was something that he wrote a book about, actually, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.720 and he assumed the spiritualists quite a bit in later 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:34.440 in life. And part of it was, as I say, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.360 that he was I think offended by this idea that 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.840 it could connect with people who had already died. Although 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.240 ironically he made an agreement with his wife that when 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.000 one of them died, the other would attempt to hold 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.640 a salance each year to connect and that would give 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.240 of them a proof that it either didn't work or 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.240 did work. And Beatrice did do that for ten years 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.720 after who Doney died but didn't make connection. So after 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.559 ten years decided that that would be the last annual 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:58.640 saliance she would hold. 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.800 The other thing that you mentioned briefly before is his 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:06.040 film career that it wasn't very successful. Tell us about that, well, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:06.640 it was sort of. 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.640 I think he was a natural for film companies to 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.400 come to get him such a big star, such a 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.280 big name. He wasn't the world's greatest actor, I don't 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.280 think so. His performances were apparently very wooden, but he 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.880 did do quite a number of films over about a 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.360 ten or fifteen years period. The first ones were fairly successful, 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.360 but as film became more sophisticated, it became a bit 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.160 more obvious that with film you could pretty much do 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.080 any trick you wanted to. You could make anybody do 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.920 anything just with the tricks of film. So his great 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.400 escapes didn't see him as real because they weren't in person, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.720 because you know, a lot of people could perform an 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.240 escape like that if you are cutting the film here there, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.400 and you didn't no one was checking the particular apparatus, etc. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.640 He did also fund some of his own films later on, 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.240 and they weren't successful, so he did actually waste a 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.960 fair bit of money doing that. But you can see 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.560 some of his films on YouTube and they're pretty wonky 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.800 old films. And he's probably he's not a natural actor, really, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.880 and I guess that's one of the things he wasn't. 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.480 He didn't have that natural acting ability that a lot 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:16.440 of stage magicians have. He was more doing death deifying things, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.920 so he was often very serious on stage, and he 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:23.080 wasn't sort of doing the sort of the amusing pattern 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:24.640 or doing the type of things that you might do 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.040 if you're a capable actor. So I don't think his 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.120 film career ended very well, and I think he lost 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.640 quite a bit of money by pursuing it with his 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:34.800 own money later on in the nine and twenties. 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.480 What was his personality like then? Was he quite serious? 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:39.120 It's interesting. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.680 I mean, I think he obviously was a child of 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.560 great poverty and missed out on a lot in childhood. 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.640 He was very divided to his mother. He could hold 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.560 a grudge though, I mean quite remarkably, having modeled himself 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:55.160 on Robert Hudan and being so enamored with him. Some 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.440 years later he wrote a book supposedly debunking you know, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.000 the tricks of Robert who Dan, And that was apparently because, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.240 I mean, Robert hoo Dan had died in eighteen seventy one, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.080 so when done he was famous. He went to France 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.120 and he contacted various family members because he wanted to 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.280 put flowers on the grave, and they basically said, well, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.320 anybody can go and put flowers on the grave, and 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.480 they didn't make a great fuss of him, so he 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.280 did seem to bear a grudge against them. And that 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.560 was one of the things was he did tend to 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.600 bear a bit of a grudge against some other magicians. 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.480 His youngest brother, Leonard, he bore a grudge against him, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.280 to the point where some of the family photos had 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.480 Lenard airbrushed out of it. He and his wife weren't 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.800 party two who done his will. So he could be 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.880 pretty tough like that, and perhaps a little bit temperamental. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.000 But for a performer, that's not unusual. Particularly, you know, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.800 you would be very highly strung before a dangerous performance. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:44.960 Things have to work really well. But he did have 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.720 a loyal crew with him, so he and his wife 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.520 did never have children, but they remained married for the 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:52.600 term of his life. Having married it, you know, she 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.040 was aiding and he was only twenty and they spent 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:56.400 a lot of time on the road, so they would 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.600 have had a tough life at various times. He was 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.240 an interesting character. I think, yeah, probably very much a 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:04.679 product of his childhood. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.160 So you mentioned earlier on that Hudini only took on 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.200 tricks and challenges that he felt that he could do. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.760 Did he ever have any failures or disasters or major injuries. 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.239 I think he had injuries, and he would continue on. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:19.880 And that's one of the things, isn't it. I mean, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.359 you've got to continue on. 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:22.359 The show must go on. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.399 So and with such a physical show as his, he 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:25.320 would have had injuries. 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.880 I mean, I think he's getting out of straight jackets. 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.000 You know, there was I'm not sure if he was 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:31.800 ever proven, but there was a theory that he could 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.320 dislocate his shoulders. But you know, if you do those 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.040 sort of things, and I think if you look at 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.160 later photos of him, he understandably he looks older because 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.679 he years older, but he obviously isn't the same physical 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.480 specimen as he was, and obviously some of those tricks 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.960 would have been much more demanding as he moved into 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.760 his forties or later. The main problem that he had 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.440 with any of those challenges was this one in nineteen 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.199 hundred and four when he did have a blacksmith had 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.720 spent years making these impossible to escape handcuffs and who 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.960 and he possibly hadn't looked at them closely enough before 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.359 he accepted the challenge, and that did take him an 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.639 hour and a half really to get out of those handcuffs, 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:11.760 and when he came out, he was very he was 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:13.760 very disturbed, and his hands were all bloody, So I 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.560 think after that he made sure that he checked the 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.000 various conditions of the challenges in order to ensure that he. 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.200 Would be able to get out. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.919 And look, it's hard to know whether perhaps he had 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:26.959 a little bit of help behind the screen from some 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.000 of his assistants, but they were fairly genuine and genuinely 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:31.680 he was pretty good at getting out of things. But 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.920 I would imagine that as time went on he would 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.280 have taken on less of those challenges. They were really 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.119 something that he did as a younger man when he 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.359 was becoming famous, and so they really enhanced his fame. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.280 But I'm sure he did carry various injuries through him, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:49.320 and of course when he died that was partly caused 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.040 by the fact that he didn't get attention for what 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.880 was clearly appendicitis and went on and performed and by 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:57.920 the time they removed his appendix it was too late. 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.680 So how old was he when he was fifty two? 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.800