Speaker 1: I know and quite worked out Harry did it.
Speaker 2: He would be put into a very large milk can
Speaker 2: full of water, and the top would be secured and
Speaker 2: it would be changed put around it, and the crowd
Speaker 2: will be told, try and hold your breath and see
Speaker 2: if you can hold it for as long as your dani.
Speaker 3: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is
Speaker 3: In Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 3: forgotten characters. Welcome back to part two of the story
Speaker 3: of Harry Houdini and the final episode of the In
Speaker 3: Black and White podcast. Make sure you listen to part
Speaker 3: one first. We'll have some special thank you messages at
Speaker 3: the end of this episode. We're speaking again with Andrew McConville,
Speaker 3: reference librarian at State Library Victoria. Now, we talked briefly
Speaker 3: earlier about the first powered flight, which was also just
Speaker 3: outside of Melbourne. Tell us about the significance of that
Speaker 3: and the preparation that Houdini had done for that.
Speaker 2: He decided that he was going to be I mean,
Speaker 2: flight was obviously a brand new thing. So you know,
Speaker 2: the Right brothers had only just made their fights not
Speaker 2: many years before, and so he decided that he would
Speaker 2: get onto this brand new phenomenon of flying. So he
Speaker 2: had learned how to fly. I think in Germany he
Speaker 2: had someone who taught him how to fly.
Speaker 1: He had a mechanic.
Speaker 2: He bought a particular aeroplane of whats in aeroplane that
Speaker 2: he brought to Australia. So that would have been quite
Speaker 2: an expensive process to bring a plane. And he did
Speaker 2: that partly because he knew that at that stage there
Speaker 2: didn't appear to have been any genuine successful flights in Australia,
Speaker 2: so he wanted to be the first to do that,
Speaker 2: and he did do that at Digger's Rest on the
Speaker 2: adenth of March. There were a couple of other claimants
Speaker 2: to that. A few days before. In fact, someone in
Speaker 2: South Australia had claimed to make a fight, although it
Speaker 2: appears as though they crashed rather than landed, and there
Speaker 2: was not really much documentation of that. One thing who
Speaker 2: doing he was very careful of was to ensure that
Speaker 2: there were a number of witnesses who would sign that
Speaker 2: he had made that flight. And so he did do
Speaker 2: a few flights, not always successful, but he did do
Speaker 2: one fight that was about three and a half minutes
Speaker 2: and he traveled about thirty meters, so it doesn't say
Speaker 2: that big a deal nowadays, but that was in the
Speaker 2: infancy of flying, so that did become and is considered
Speaker 2: the first a controlled flight in Australia, and again another
Speaker 2: a great amount of publicity for him. I think there's
Speaker 2: still a plaque at Digger's Rest to commemorate that, and
Speaker 2: it does stand still despite there being some disputes from
Speaker 2: other flights a little bit earlier, that this was the
Speaker 2: first recorded controlled flight and documented controlled flight, so he
Speaker 2: does hold that record, and again, you know, it's a
Speaker 2: great I guess it's partly a publicity thing, but it's
Speaker 2: also an enormous daredevil thing to be flying. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was taught how to fly in Germany, so that
Speaker 2: was very dangerous and he flying was very dangerous, and
Speaker 2: yet he took that on.
Speaker 1: So I think you're right about.
Speaker 2: Him being a bit of a adrenaline junkie, because certainly
Speaker 2: that was a pretty dangerous practice back in those days.
Speaker 3: And there are some photos of this first powered flight
Speaker 3: in the State Library collection. Can you tell us about those?
Speaker 2: Yes, well, they're probably not quite as clear as they
Speaker 2: might be, but there's still fantastic records of his first flight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's a photo of a plane actually, and as
Speaker 2: I say, it looks nothing, looks like a whole lot
Speaker 2: of boxes put together.
Speaker 1: Actually it's a biplane.
Speaker 2: You can see it there, just traveling barely above the trees.
Speaker 2: And there's a horse there as well too, so that
Speaker 2: kept out away for the landing. And there's about four
Speaker 2: men sort of standing staring at the flight. So he
Speaker 2: was always, as I say, very careful to make sure
Speaker 2: he had reliable witnesses there to ensure that he had
Speaker 2: it well documented. And it does look like it hasn't
Speaker 2: got all that far off the ground, which you would
Speaker 2: expect it didn't get that far off the ground. But
Speaker 2: that is a great recording of what was the earliest
Speaker 2: considered the earliest controlled flight in Australian history.
Speaker 3: Now what else did he get up to in Melbourne
Speaker 3: while he was here, Well, it.
Speaker 2: Was mainly just the shows. I mean, he did those
Speaker 2: challenges where various people would challenge him to you know,
Speaker 2: their time in not stay clock him in boxes etc.
Speaker 1: And he'd be able to get out.
Speaker 2: Mainly, as I say, he also did the dive into
Speaker 2: the Era, which is a big publicity stunt, but mainly
Speaker 2: he was just appearing at the what was then called
Speaker 2: the Opera House in his show over quite.
Speaker 1: A number of weeks.
Speaker 2: I don't think he did anything else particularly remarkable in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: He was probably pretty busy actually, because he did appear,
Speaker 2: you know, on stage each night, so that would have
Speaker 2: been and his performances, even though they were fairly short,
Speaker 2: they would have been quite demanding really, I mean getting
Speaker 2: out of a straight check it would be pretty physically
Speaker 2: demanding and tiring, so he would have been pretty tired
Speaker 2: even after a fairly short show.
Speaker 3: I think now the Melbourne Opera House. But where was
Speaker 3: that and how many seats were in that venue?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there was a few thousand seats in
Speaker 2: the venue. I think it existed from the nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: but there was a few different opera houses because they
Speaker 2: were burned out at times, and then it became thea
Speaker 2: Tivoli Theater, so it it was a very popular place.
Speaker 2: I think it held several thousand people, so it was
Speaker 2: a big venue. So it was a big venue that
Speaker 2: would have been filled for Hudini and the tickets for
Speaker 2: who Deani were you know anywhere from depending on where
Speaker 2: you were three shillings or two shillings or one shilling,
Speaker 2: and there was a premium if you booked your tickets beforehand,
Speaker 2: and there was general admission tickets where you could get
Speaker 2: there earlier. So yeah, so it was in Burke Street,
Speaker 2: and as I say, it was a very beautiful building,
Speaker 2: but at various times it did get rebuilt. But it
Speaker 2: did hold quite a number of people. I think it
Speaker 2: was several thousand people could fit into the theater, so
Speaker 2: you would have had big crowds every night, okay.
Speaker 3: And then from there he's headed straight up to Sydney.
Speaker 2: He has He's headed up to Sydney and done very
Speaker 2: similar to what he did in Melbourne. I mean, doing
Speaker 2: that the shows, taking on the various challenges that the
Speaker 2: public put before him.
Speaker 1: He did do a dive.
Speaker 2: He was actually scared of the ocean. So he was
Speaker 2: never that keen in diving into the ocean.
Speaker 3: How fascinating. He shouldn't be scared of anything. He's Houdini.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing was that he was a terrible sailor.
Speaker 2: He got dreadfully seasick, and so you know, even coming
Speaker 2: to Australia would have won a great ordeal for him
Speaker 2: to come that far and in fact, once he got
Speaker 2: to Adelaide, he caught a train, so yeah, but he
Speaker 2: he was a terrible sailor and he did sort of
Speaker 2: say to the first reporter we spoke to that he
Speaker 2: wouldn't dive into the water at Framel because he was
Speaker 2: scared of sharks, and he did dive in Sydney.
Speaker 1: He dived into the.
Speaker 2: Domain Bars at the edge of Wormlou Bay, so didn't
Speaker 2: dive into the ocean. He dived into the into a
Speaker 2: bar's there, which I and I think the main thing
Speaker 2: was that he wanted murky water because he didn't want
Speaker 2: to see anybody. He didn't wan anybody to see what
Speaker 2: he was doing, so he certainly would have had plenty
Speaker 2: of murky water in the era. I think that Domain
Speaker 2: Mars were likely just sort of a big dive. They
Speaker 2: weren't actually proper swimming pool as such, so he'd go
Speaker 2: down very deep and then he just appeared with his handcuffs.
Speaker 2: So he did pretty much the same thing. He did
Speaker 2: do some flights in Sydney, but he'd obviously obviously done
Speaker 2: the first fight in Australia, and he did take on
Speaker 2: challenges from the public and he was very successful there. Again,
Speaker 2: I mean I think the other trick that he did
Speaker 2: do none of the first night in Melbourne, but that
Speaker 2: he did do in Australia, which was one of his
Speaker 2: famous ones, which was the milk called the milk can trick,
Speaker 2: which was all the milkcam mystery. But that was there
Speaker 2: was something quite a bizarre story to that in that
Speaker 2: when he arrived he complained that, according to his words,
Speaker 2: a Sydney pugilist had stolen his milk can trick. And
Speaker 2: that turned out not just to be any boxer. It
Speaker 2: turned out to be the very famous Canadian world champion
Speaker 2: Tommy Burns, who'd been in Australia in the Seminine hundred
Speaker 2: and eight. He'd been in one of the huge fights
Speaker 2: of the century against the African American fighter Jack Johnson,
Speaker 2: and Tommy Burns got badly beaten, but it was a
Speaker 2: huge sporting event and Tommy Burns stayed on and then
Speaker 2: had this sort of odd stage show where he would
Speaker 2: talk about his fights and his brother in law would
Speaker 2: do this milk can trick and who done was very
Speaker 2: annoyed at that, but he did do it himself. And
Speaker 2: I mean that was again a trick that no one
Speaker 2: quite worked out how he did it, he would be
Speaker 2: put into a very large milk can full of water,
Speaker 2: and the top would be secured and there would be
Speaker 2: chains put around it, and there would just be a
Speaker 2: screen put across the front, and the crowd will be
Speaker 2: told that, you know, try and hold your breath and
Speaker 2: see if you can hold it for as long as
Speaker 2: your janey, and then who Doney when people were wondering
Speaker 2: whether he drowned, Who Daney would appear dripping wet, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think there were some tricks to that
Speaker 2: as well. Apparently the rivets in the top of the
Speaker 2: milk can were false, and if he pushed it in
Speaker 2: a certain way he would get out. But still I
Speaker 2: think that would be many people's worst nightmare to be
Speaker 2: enclosed in a body of water like that with a
Speaker 2: lid put on, and then to be able to get
Speaker 2: out of that. So again, that was a very dramatic
Speaker 2: trick that he did for quite a few years afterwards.
Speaker 2: But I mean one of the things he did that
Speaker 2: was quite interesting too. Because often he was so famous,
Speaker 2: people were always trying to steal his tricks. He didn't
Speaker 2: want to patent them because that would involve giving details
Speaker 2: of exactly how they were done.
Speaker 1: You know, have to patent every part of the apparatus.
Speaker 2: So instead of that, he would sometimes hold performances for
Speaker 2: a single person and that would be he would say,
Speaker 2: that would copyright the trick because he'd done a public
Speaker 2: the first public performance of it.
Speaker 1: So that was one way he had of protecting his tricks.
Speaker 2: But yes, he was very annoyed at Tommy Burns for
Speaker 2: stealing his milkcan trick and climbing it as his own.
Speaker 3: We'll be back soon to hear what happened to hu
Speaker 3: Deini next, So stay with us, So tell us what
Speaker 3: happened after his Australian tour.
Speaker 2: Well, he continued to greater and greater fame. He continued
Speaker 2: to tour in the United States and tour in Europe.
Speaker 2: He was very popular in Europe and he did bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger tricks. He's one of his most famous tricks
Speaker 2: was in nineteen eighteen he at the Hippodrome in New York.
Speaker 2: He had a very di soile elephant who's variously known
Speaker 2: as Jenny or Fanny, but the name possibly lost their history.
Speaker 2: But he had a huge box on stage and the
Speaker 2: elephant was led into that and he made the elephant disappear,
Speaker 2: and I think people, I mean other people had done
Speaker 2: similar tricks. I think he purchased it from somebody, the
Speaker 2: trick from somebody who'd made a donkey disappear, but he
Speaker 2: went bigger and better. There's still discussion about how he
Speaker 2: actually did that, whether it was mirrors or some sort
Speaker 2: of false side. That must have made a pretty big
Speaker 2: false side to hide an elephant, But anyway, he managed
Speaker 2: to do that trick once on stage and make an
Speaker 2: elephant disappear, which again created great interest in his performances.
Speaker 2: But later on in life, like by the nine and twenties,
Speaker 2: he did become very skeptical with spiritualism, and that became
Speaker 2: a bit of a campaign of his up until his death.
Speaker 2: I mean, in his early career he had tried many things,
Speaker 2: card tricks, all sorts of tricks, and for a while
Speaker 2: he and his wife were promoting themselves as spiritualists. That was,
Speaker 2: you know, they had various tricks to do that. She
Speaker 2: was he was Professor Houdini and she was the psychometric Madam.
Speaker 2: And some of the tricks they'd used would be they
Speaker 2: might have codes so that if she took a dollar
Speaker 2: bill and was one side of the stage, and he
Speaker 2: had to guess what the serial number was. They'd have
Speaker 2: bland words that would need numbers. So if she said
Speaker 2: something like, you know, tell me the number, tell my
Speaker 2: maan one and then it might be have you guessed
Speaker 2: at guests might man two? So he do go through
Speaker 2: his whole performance. And they did that for a short time,
Speaker 2: and they thought it was a bit of a ark.
Speaker 2: But HERDONI was particularly attached to his mother, enormously attached
Speaker 2: to his mother, and he was absolutely distressed when she died,
Speaker 2: and after that he began to see spiritualism as a
Speaker 2: fairly mean trick, and particularly after the First World War
Speaker 2: when spiritualism became huge because so many people were trying
Speaker 2: to connect with.
Speaker 1: Dead sons and brothers and loved ones.
Speaker 2: And he sort of spoke about how when he was young,
Speaker 2: he didn't understand the seriousness of trifling with such sacred
Speaker 2: sentimentality and the bineful results which inevitably followed.
Speaker 1: To me, it was a lark.
Speaker 2: And then he talks about how he realizes that he
Speaker 2: feels quite guilty about being so frivolous about that, because
Speaker 2: it is all a trick and it does give people
Speaker 2: false hope when you shouldn't be doing that, And so
Speaker 2: he did go on to say gladly, I would embrace
Speaker 2: spiritualism if it could prove its claims, but I'm not
Speaker 2: willing to be deluded by the fraudulent impositions of so
Speaker 2: called psychics or accepted sacred reality any evidence that has
Speaker 2: been placed before me thus far. And it was around
Speaker 2: about this time, a little bit before that, he became
Speaker 2: a great friend of Conan Doyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, the
Speaker 2: creator of Shelock Holmes, and Conan Doyle was a great
Speaker 2: believer in spiritualism, and so that sort of placed a
Speaker 2: little bit of a challenge to their friendship. And there
Speaker 2: was also an occasion where he went to a sort
Speaker 2: of quasi seance with Conan Doyle, and Conan Doyle's wife
Speaker 2: supposedly did automatic writings, so she was getting messages from
Speaker 2: beyond the grave, and she supposedly was right from Harry
Speaker 2: Hoo Doney's mother, and that was a very sensitive thing
Speaker 2: for Harry who Doney, and he was pretty offended by
Speaker 2: that because it was clearly false, and that really put
Speaker 2: a great challenge to their friendship, and their friendship.
Speaker 1: Was never as warm again, and he did.
Speaker 2: Spend a lot of time unmasking what he considered to
Speaker 2: be Charlotte and Spiritualism and to expose their tricks. And
Speaker 2: so that was something that he wrote a book about, actually,
Speaker 2: and he assumed the spiritualists quite a bit in later
Speaker 2: in life. And part of it was, as I say,
Speaker 2: that he was I think offended by this idea that
Speaker 2: it could connect with people who had already died. Although
Speaker 2: ironically he made an agreement with his wife that when
Speaker 2: one of them died, the other would attempt to hold
Speaker 2: a salance each year to connect and that would give
Speaker 2: of them a proof that it either didn't work or
Speaker 2: did work. And Beatrice did do that for ten years
Speaker 2: after who Doney died but didn't make connection. So after
Speaker 2: ten years decided that that would be the last annual
Speaker 2: saliance she would hold.
Speaker 3: The other thing that you mentioned briefly before is his
Speaker 3: film career that it wasn't very successful. Tell us about that, well,
Speaker 3: it was sort of.
Speaker 2: I think he was a natural for film companies to
Speaker 2: come to get him such a big star, such a
Speaker 2: big name. He wasn't the world's greatest actor, I don't
Speaker 2: think so. His performances were apparently very wooden, but he
Speaker 2: did do quite a number of films over about a
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen years period. The first ones were fairly successful,
Speaker 2: but as film became more sophisticated, it became a bit
Speaker 2: more obvious that with film you could pretty much do
Speaker 2: any trick you wanted to. You could make anybody do
Speaker 2: anything just with the tricks of film. So his great
Speaker 2: escapes didn't see him as real because they weren't in person,
Speaker 2: because you know, a lot of people could perform an
Speaker 2: escape like that if you are cutting the film here there,
Speaker 2: and you didn't no one was checking the particular apparatus, etc.
Speaker 2: He did also fund some of his own films later on,
Speaker 2: and they weren't successful, so he did actually waste a
Speaker 2: fair bit of money doing that. But you can see
Speaker 2: some of his films on YouTube and they're pretty wonky
Speaker 2: old films. And he's probably he's not a natural actor, really,
Speaker 2: and I guess that's one of the things he wasn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't have that natural acting ability that a lot
Speaker 2: of stage magicians have. He was more doing death deifying things,
Speaker 2: so he was often very serious on stage, and he
Speaker 2: wasn't sort of doing the sort of the amusing pattern
Speaker 2: or doing the type of things that you might do
Speaker 2: if you're a capable actor. So I don't think his
Speaker 2: film career ended very well, and I think he lost
Speaker 2: quite a bit of money by pursuing it with his
Speaker 2: own money later on in the nine and twenties.
Speaker 3: What was his personality like then? Was he quite serious?
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he obviously was a child of
Speaker 2: great poverty and missed out on a lot in childhood.
Speaker 2: He was very divided to his mother. He could hold
Speaker 2: a grudge though, I mean quite remarkably, having modeled himself
Speaker 2: on Robert Hudan and being so enamored with him. Some
Speaker 2: years later he wrote a book supposedly debunking you know,
Speaker 2: the tricks of Robert who Dan, And that was apparently because,
Speaker 2: I mean, Robert hoo Dan had died in eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 2: so when done he was famous. He went to France
Speaker 2: and he contacted various family members because he wanted to
Speaker 2: put flowers on the grave, and they basically said, well,
Speaker 2: anybody can go and put flowers on the grave, and
Speaker 2: they didn't make a great fuss of him, so he
Speaker 2: did seem to bear a grudge against them. And that
Speaker 2: was one of the things was he did tend to
Speaker 2: bear a bit of a grudge against some other magicians.
Speaker 2: His youngest brother, Leonard, he bore a grudge against him,
Speaker 2: to the point where some of the family photos had
Speaker 2: Lenard airbrushed out of it. He and his wife weren't
Speaker 2: party two who done his will. So he could be
Speaker 2: pretty tough like that, and perhaps a little bit temperamental.
Speaker 2: But for a performer, that's not unusual. Particularly, you know,
Speaker 2: you would be very highly strung before a dangerous performance.
Speaker 2: Things have to work really well. But he did have
Speaker 2: a loyal crew with him, so he and his wife
Speaker 2: did never have children, but they remained married for the
Speaker 2: term of his life. Having married it, you know, she
Speaker 2: was aiding and he was only twenty and they spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time on the road, so they would
Speaker 2: have had a tough life at various times. He was
Speaker 2: an interesting character. I think, yeah, probably very much a
Speaker 2: product of his childhood.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned earlier on that Hudini only took on
Speaker 3: tricks and challenges that he felt that he could do.
Speaker 3: Did he ever have any failures or disasters or major injuries.
Speaker 2: I think he had injuries, and he would continue on.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the things, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 2: you've got to continue on.
Speaker 1: The show must go on.
Speaker 2: So and with such a physical show as his, he
Speaker 2: would have had injuries.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's getting out of straight jackets.
Speaker 2: You know, there was I'm not sure if he was
Speaker 2: ever proven, but there was a theory that he could
Speaker 2: dislocate his shoulders. But you know, if you do those
Speaker 2: sort of things, and I think if you look at
Speaker 2: later photos of him, he understandably he looks older because
Speaker 2: he years older, but he obviously isn't the same physical
Speaker 2: specimen as he was, and obviously some of those tricks
Speaker 2: would have been much more demanding as he moved into
Speaker 2: his forties or later. The main problem that he had
Speaker 2: with any of those challenges was this one in nineteen
Speaker 2: hundred and four when he did have a blacksmith had
Speaker 2: spent years making these impossible to escape handcuffs and who
Speaker 2: and he possibly hadn't looked at them closely enough before
Speaker 2: he accepted the challenge, and that did take him an
Speaker 2: hour and a half really to get out of those handcuffs,
Speaker 2: and when he came out, he was very he was
Speaker 2: very disturbed, and his hands were all bloody, So I
Speaker 2: think after that he made sure that he checked the
Speaker 2: various conditions of the challenges in order to ensure that he.
Speaker 1: Would be able to get out.
Speaker 2: And look, it's hard to know whether perhaps he had
Speaker 2: a little bit of help behind the screen from some
Speaker 2: of his assistants, but they were fairly genuine and genuinely
Speaker 2: he was pretty good at getting out of things. But
Speaker 2: I would imagine that as time went on he would
Speaker 2: have taken on less of those challenges. They were really
Speaker 2: something that he did as a younger man when he
Speaker 2: was becoming famous, and so they really enhanced his fame.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure he did carry various injuries through him,
Speaker 2: and of course when he died that was partly caused
Speaker 2: by the fact that he didn't get attention for what
Speaker 2: was clearly appendicitis and went on and performed and by
Speaker 2: the time they removed his appendix it was too late.
Speaker 3: So how old was he when he was fifty two?
Speaker 2: And I mean there was a story that he put
Speaker 2: on a show and he always used to be very
Speaker 2: proud of his physique, even as a man in his fifties,
Speaker 2: And a young student came in and said, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: can you take a punch, and he said, of course
Speaker 2: he could, and the student then punched him, you know,
Speaker 2: three or four times, really hard without who Doney been
Speaker 2: embraced for it. So there is one theory that perhaps
Speaker 2: that caused the appendicitis, although genuinely it's considered that that
Speaker 2: wouldn't cause the appendicitis. But he did have to be
Speaker 2: pains after that, and he was diagnosed by a doctor
Speaker 2: that should go straight to a hospital, but he had
Speaker 2: a big show that night, so he didn't end up
Speaker 2: getting to the hospital for a couple of days. And
Speaker 2: by that stage the appendix a burst and while they
Speaker 2: were removed, he did die of that. So it was
Speaker 2: a fairly tragic end. And if he'd only had the
Speaker 2: treatment when he was advised to, he quite possibly would
Speaker 2: have lived on and.
Speaker 3: Andrew, I believe that you've got a review of his
Speaker 3: first stage show here in Melbourne. Can you tell us
Speaker 3: about that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yes, see the Argust gave quite a lengthy review.
Speaker 2: So the first start shows I think on the about
Speaker 2: the ninth of February nine hundred and ten at the
Speaker 2: Opera House, so a big you know, several thousand people there.
Speaker 2: What they did say is that he was built as
Speaker 2: a handcuff king, although not so much in Australia. In
Speaker 2: Australia he tended to be built as a great mystery
Speaker 2: arch and they talked about the most undoubtedly the greatest
Speaker 2: and most sensational act that had ever been engaged for
Speaker 2: Australia by any manager. But he had been personally known
Speaker 2: as the handcuff king. But they do remark that there
Speaker 2: wasn't one solitary handcuff in sight. They do then go
Speaker 2: on to describe the show, and they talk about him
Speaker 2: taking eleven minutes of wrenching with the strait jacket to
Speaker 2: get out to get sufficient play, and they talk about
Speaker 2: how he had invited a gentleman from the audience to
Speaker 2: come up and time in knots, and.
Speaker 1: He got out of those very easily.
Speaker 2: But one of the things I do say is that
Speaker 2: the audience was warmly inclined, but seemed to think that
Speaker 2: an encore trick should have been added. Had Whodini's shown
Speaker 2: them some simple handcuff trick, they would no doubt have
Speaker 2: been satisfied. The turn is an excellent one and should
Speaker 2: draw full houses. So that was the first show, and
Speaker 2: it might have been a little bit shorter than the
Speaker 2: later shows because later on, of course, he was asking
Speaker 2: for people to come up with tricks that might misterfin
Speaker 2: him and mystify the audience, and so that would have
Speaker 2: extended the shows. So he had tricks as a say,
Speaker 2: like being secured in a box by carpenters but secured
Speaker 2: by ropes by sailors. You know, we're using sailor knots.
Speaker 2: He did have some absurd things suggested to him that,
Speaker 2: of course he didn't do. Somebody wrote in and suggested
Speaker 2: that he should put a gun in his mouth and
Speaker 2: fire the bullet and then somehow escape.
Speaker 1: So quite clearly he wasn't going to do that.
Speaker 2: But I think his shows were probably more extended as
Speaker 2: he went on with the Australian tour, as he took
Speaker 2: on some of these quite interesting challenges that were thrown
Speaker 2: at him.
Speaker 1: As I say, later in life.
Speaker 2: His shows went for much longer as he went back
Speaker 2: to incorporating magic tricks and card tricks. But in this
Speaker 2: show in Melbourne he had quite a few people who
Speaker 2: were supporting him. There is the Australian Datos, who I
Speaker 2: think were sort of an acrobatic trick, and the will
Speaker 2: Brothers who were apparently the most sensational acrobatic act in
Speaker 2: the world, and they had Fred Curran, the quaint comedian,
Speaker 2: who was an English comedian who was in Australia, so he.
Speaker 1: Had a number of other performers supporting him.
Speaker 2: So even though he was only on stage for twenty
Speaker 2: minutes or so, it would have been a performance that
Speaker 2: went for, you know, well over an hour. I would
Speaker 2: think possibly two hours, and.
Speaker 3: I suppose just to finish it off. I guess when
Speaker 3: you consider that today's kids know the name Hudini, and
Speaker 3: he's so famous among today's children, and when you realize
Speaker 3: that the word Hudini is just used as a word,
Speaker 3: you know, as in he's done a Houdini. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: can be pretty confident that in another fifty years or
Speaker 3: one hundred years he's still going to be just as
Speaker 3: famous as he is today.
Speaker 1: I think. So.
Speaker 2: I think his words in his names in the dictionary now.
Speaker 2: So I think it's just you know, you could look
Speaker 2: up any paper. I mean, I did a thing on
Speaker 2: one of our databases that has papers small over the world,
Speaker 2: but there are for the last three or six months
Speaker 2: or so, and there was like fifty thousand hits for
Speaker 2: the word who DONI, and a lot of them are
Speaker 2: to do with somebody you know, might be a prisoner escaping.
Speaker 2: It might be somebody escaping from a fire or something
Speaker 2: like that. Often it's to do with a great comeback
Speaker 2: in football. There's often sporting references to it where someone,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the Matilda's today actually came back
Speaker 2: from three goals to kneel down to win four to
Speaker 2: three in the Olympics. And I suspect that there will
Speaker 2: be who DONI mentioned in some of the reports of
Speaker 2: that that they've done a who DONI act to escape
Speaker 2: from such a perilous situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing the story of
Speaker 3: who Deni with us today and particularly who Deanie's time
Speaker 3: in Australia and those incredible, those incredible feats in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Thanks for sharing your time with us today as well, Andrew.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much.
Speaker 2: Jen, it's been a lot of fun and he was
Speaker 2: certainly a really fascinating character.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the very last episode of In
Speaker 3: Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters,
Speaker 3: written and hosted by me Jen Kelly. While it's sad
Speaker 3: to say goodbye, it's been a huge privilege to host
Speaker 3: this podcast for the past five years and almost two
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty episodes. We feel immensely proud to have
Speaker 3: been able to bring to life hidden stories from Australia's past.
Speaker 3: A few thank yous now to the podcast's producer, John
Speaker 3: ty Burton, who has guided it from day one with
Speaker 3: his loving care and endless wisdom. To my great friend
Speaker 3: and former colleague Alissa Hunt for the original idea which
Speaker 3: was only ever supposed to be a four episode mini
Speaker 3: series until it became an instant hit. To our talented
Speaker 3: editors Harry Hughes and his predecessors, To all the wonderful historians, authors,
Speaker 3: tour guides and experts who have shared their wealth of
Speaker 3: knowledge and proved that history education need never be dull,
Speaker 3: and most of all, sincere thanks to you the listeners
Speaker 3: for tuning in, especially those who've left a rating or
Speaker 3: a review. Your kind words are greatly appreciated and we
Speaker 3: feel so proud that this podcast has maintained such strong
Speaker 3: and consistent ratings for five years. You'll continue to find
Speaker 3: all the stories and photos associated with our episodes at
Speaker 3: Heraldsun dot com dot au. Slashaw and I hope you'll
Speaker 3: continue to enjoy the back catalog for years to come.
Speaker 3: As for me, after hosting the podcast for five years
Speaker 3: and editing the In Black and White column for nine years,
Speaker 3: I've decided to leave The Herald Sun after twenty six
Speaker 3: years in search of new challenges, but hosting In Black
Speaker 3: and White has been one of the highlights of my career.
Speaker 3: So I thank you from the bottom of my heart
Speaker 3: and wish you all the best.