Speaker 1: You know, he would actually strip down, sometimes apparently completely naked,
Speaker 1: or sometimes to his underwear, his closed to be placed
Speaker 1: outside a cell. He'd be locked in a cell in handcuffs,
Speaker 1: and the commissioner and various boys will go into another
Speaker 1: room and sit down for a cup of tea, and then,
Speaker 1: you know, ten minutes later, fifteen minutes later, he would
Speaker 1: appear fully dressed.
Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from The Herald Son and this is
Speaker 2: In Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's
Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Welcome to the very last in Black and
Speaker 2: White episode after five years and almost two hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty episodes. I'm immensely proud to have been able to
Speaker 2: bring you a little slice of Australian history every week
Speaker 2: for so long. I'll share some special messages at the
Speaker 2: end of this final two part episode. Today's final episode
Speaker 2: is fittingly enough with one of our most regular guests,
Speaker 2: the brilliant Andrew McConville from State Library, Victoria, whose wealth
Speaker 2: of knowledge of Australian history seems to be limitless, and
Speaker 2: today he's sharing the story of none other than the
Speaker 2: great Harry Houdini, the escape artist and illusionist. Hoodini certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't Australian, but he caused a sensation on his Australian
Speaker 2: tour with his spectacular stunts, including a death defying dive
Speaker 2: in handcuffs into the Arrow River in Melbourne and the
Speaker 2: historic first powered flight in Australia. Here's Andrew now with
Speaker 2: part one. Come back tomorrow for part two. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to the podcast, Andrew.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much. Janet's great to be here now.
Speaker 2: Obviously, we can without doubt say that Houdini was the
Speaker 2: world's most famous entertainer in his era. But one of
Speaker 2: the interesting things about Hoodini is that he's still incredibly
Speaker 2: famous today. And just out of interest, I've got four
Speaker 2: kids of my own, their age from twelve to seventeen. Obviously,
Speaker 2: in this modern age of video games and YouTubers and influencers,
Speaker 2: they have very a very different set of people that
Speaker 2: they consider to be famous. But I checked with them
Speaker 2: and they all instantly knew who Whodini.
Speaker 3: Was and what he did.
Speaker 2: And I just thought that was extraordinary that the name
Speaker 2: Whodini is still so well known today.
Speaker 1: Well, it is amazing, isn't it. And it has become
Speaker 1: I mean, very few people have their name become part
Speaker 1: of the language, really, but he is certainly someone, and
Speaker 1: you can look up any newspaper every period of time
Speaker 1: and there'll be some reference to Whodni, which will normally
Speaker 1: be to do with escapes. And I mean obviously at
Speaker 1: the time he was working, there were very famous illusionists,
Speaker 1: very famous magicians, but their names haven't lived on to
Speaker 1: the same extent. I think part of it might be
Speaker 1: that his was genuinely death defying. I mean, while he
Speaker 1: had tricks, he still was putting himself in very dangerous
Speaker 1: situations and situations that people could right to. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's terrified of drowning, so that sort of thing would
Speaker 1: have been very resonant, I think. But also he did
Speaker 1: huge public performances and that probably enhanced his fame and
Speaker 1: meant that it lived on, and probably because he was
Speaker 1: pretty original, I mean that idea. There were other escopologists,
Speaker 1: and there has been subsequently, but he probably was doing
Speaker 1: something that he made really famous. So it wasn't that
Speaker 1: he was carrying on a long tradition. He really made
Speaker 1: it very famous. But it's hard to put an exact
Speaker 1: finger on but really it's probably an element of the
Speaker 1: fact that what he was doing was quite unique, and
Speaker 1: the big public spectacles he was putting on were quite unique,
Speaker 1: and so they have resonated well beyond his lifetime and
Speaker 1: as I say, have become part of the normal language.
Speaker 1: And you see, his name would appear somewhere in the
Speaker 1: world every day, I would think, And.
Speaker 2: Even though he is still so famous, there are a
Speaker 2: couple of incredibly spectacular and daring feats that he pulled
Speaker 2: off while he was here in Melbourne during his Australian tour,
Speaker 2: and I feel like those things have really been forgotten
Speaker 2: over time, and that's why we've decided to do this
Speaker 2: episode today. So excited that we're going to tell those
Speaker 2: stories a little bit later in this episode. But let's
Speaker 2: begin with his early life, because it's interesting that, like
Speaker 2: so many great achievers, he came from great poverty.
Speaker 1: He certainly did. He was born in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 1: in Hungary and came over to America with his family
Speaker 1: when he was only four, but they lived in pretty
Speaker 1: much dire poverty. At one stage. He was quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: we lived in New York, or rather I should say
Speaker 1: we starved in New York. So they moved around quite
Speaker 1: a bit. His father was a rabbi and his work
Speaker 1: was really to establish a congregation that would then support him,
Speaker 1: but he was pretty unsuccessful of that and the congregation
Speaker 1: in effect fired him, so he was not bringing in
Speaker 1: virtually any money, and young well Eric Weiss as he
Speaker 1: was originally known Harrahudoni, he ran away from home when
Speaker 1: he was eleven and just worked at odd jobs, and
Speaker 1: he had.
Speaker 3: Very little education.
Speaker 1: He was a very intelligent man and really created an
Speaker 1: enormous library over his lifetime, but he had very little
Speaker 1: formal education. And when he was very young, about thirteen
Speaker 1: or fourteen, he was working as a messenger boy. And
Speaker 1: then his only real job outside of show business, and
Speaker 1: he lasted any time at all, was as a cutter
Speaker 1: in a tie factory, so he did that for a
Speaker 1: short time, but he basically headed off on the road
Speaker 1: when he was about seventeen to be a performer. And
Speaker 1: even in those early days as a performer, it was
Speaker 1: a very very hand of mouth existence, and he had
Speaker 1: to take on any sort of work that he could.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're often, you know, what might be called
Speaker 1: dime shows or little itinerant circuses, and at that stage
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing the capology he was trying his hand
Speaker 1: as very magic tricks.
Speaker 3: And one of the dime circuses.
Speaker 1: He was working at they advertised a wild man that
Speaker 1: they didn't actually have. Supposedly someone rescued from the deepest jungle.
Speaker 1: So Harry put on oin cloth and put his hair
Speaker 1: out in all directions and grunted and raved and raw
Speaker 1: meat for the entertainment of the public. So he was
Speaker 1: sort of willing to do anything. And he and his
Speaker 1: wife he married very young. They married when he was
Speaker 1: only about twenty and his wife was eighteen, and they
Speaker 1: then performed together, but often they'd struggle to find anywhere
Speaker 1: to stay. They often went without food. It was a
Speaker 1: very tough existence, to the point where early in his
Speaker 1: career he was almost ready to give up and try
Speaker 1: something else.
Speaker 2: And when and where did he get his first taste
Speaker 2: of fame, Well.
Speaker 3: It's really he started to experiment.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things about him was he
Speaker 1: had a very as I say, he had a very
Speaker 1: good mind, and he was very interested in working out
Speaker 1: how things were done and how things worked. And he
Speaker 1: would do that when he talks about and sometimes what
Speaker 1: he says about his early life can be questioned because
Speaker 1: he was in show business, and he did like a
Speaker 1: good story.
Speaker 3: But he did talk about.
Speaker 1: Saying when he was very young seeing a magician in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: and what he was concentrating on was how the tricks
Speaker 1: were done, working out what was behind the trick, and
Speaker 1: he became quite a depth at working locks, and so
Speaker 1: he incorporated handcuffs into his stage show in ninety five,
Speaker 1: and he still wasn't that successful. He was doing other
Speaker 1: tricks and as a standard magician doing card tricks, he
Speaker 1: called himself the King of Cards, and at one stage
Speaker 1: he and his wife Beatrice were acting as spiritualists. I
Speaker 1: think he was professor who Doney at that stage and
Speaker 1: she was the psychometric madam whatever that means. So they
Speaker 1: would do really anything. But he did start to incorporate
Speaker 1: handcuff tricks. And then at about eight ninety nine, a chap
Speaker 1: called Martin Beck, who worked for the Orphium Circuit, which
Speaker 1: was a large circuit of vaudeville theaters. Sorry Schawan was
Speaker 1: taken with the handcuff tricks and told him to drop
Speaker 1: the other things because he was a competent magician, but
Speaker 1: not outstanding, not above the rest, but his handcuff tricks
Speaker 1: and those ideas of escape might be his future, and
Speaker 1: he became successful in that orphium circuit and that really
Speaker 1: set off a pretty metioric rise in America, but particularly
Speaker 1: in Europe after that.
Speaker 2: So, just going back to talking about picking the locks,
Speaker 2: so obviously he was an illusionist, it sounds like you're
Speaker 2: saying he really was getting himself out of those locks.
Speaker 2: You never know with magicians, and illusionis what's real and
Speaker 2: what's not real. But you're saying that he really was
Speaker 2: learning to get himself out of those locks in a
Speaker 2: matter of seconds.
Speaker 1: He certainly had enormous skill at that. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: and I guess magicians and he, more than anyone, wouldn't
Speaker 1: give away his tricks. And certainly, you know, he did
Speaker 1: things that were seemingly impossible, which obviously you know there
Speaker 1: were tricks involved. But he was I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a phenomenal athlete. He was a great runner, He was
Speaker 1: a terrific swimmer. He could hold his breath longer than
Speaker 1: almost anybody for over three minutes, So he had enormous
Speaker 1: physical skills. He did understand locks too, and worked out
Speaker 1: how locks could be undone. And I think part of
Speaker 1: it is that there's a mystake about handcuffs that they're
Speaker 1: impossible to get out of. But when you think about it,
Speaker 1: people don't spend a lot of time in handcuffs, and
Speaker 1: usually if they're in handcuffs, they've got a couple of
Speaker 1: police standing next to them, so I don't get much
Speaker 1: chance to pick the locks. So he was someone who
Speaker 1: studied them, and so he did have enormous capacity to
Speaker 1: undo locks.
Speaker 3: But he also used a few tricks. Some of his
Speaker 3: sometimes had.
Speaker 1: Supposedly a little bits of why that might be in
Speaker 1: his mouth or in his hair that he could use
Speaker 1: to pick a lock. But he certainly was very adept
Speaker 1: at picking locks. So there were tricks, but probably more
Speaker 1: than other magicians, a lot of it was through enormous
Speaker 1: natural skill, that being able to escape from various perilous situations.
Speaker 2: Now it sounds like he began using that name Ujinie
Speaker 2: fairly early on. Where did he get that name from?
Speaker 1: Well, there was a great French magician who was named
Speaker 1: Jean Eugene Robert hoo Dan, So Robert who Dan was
Speaker 1: his surname, and he died a few years before who
Speaker 1: Deney was born. But he was considered, you know, a
Speaker 1: father of modern magic, and he wrote a biography that
Speaker 1: Who Deney read as a young boy and was very
Speaker 1: taken with, and so that's where he took his name from.
Speaker 1: So he took the second half of Robert hoo Dan's
Speaker 1: name and just added an eye to it, and then
Speaker 1: later on called himself Harry and became Harry Who Deny.
Speaker 2: Now, I'd love you to tell us more about how
Speaker 2: he became just so world famous in his various publicity
Speaker 2: stuff and exactly what the show was like and all
Speaker 2: the different tricks that he would do.
Speaker 1: He was a master of publicity and he had some
Speaker 1: very clever ways of getting publicity. He probably as a
Speaker 1: stage magician, he probably didn't have the great pattern and
Speaker 1: the great stage presence that perhaps a card someone doing
Speaker 1: car tricks.
Speaker 3: Or whatever would have and would rely on.
Speaker 1: He was probably the type of magic he did, or
Speaker 1: the type of escapes he did, really suited his demeanor.
Speaker 1: But he have big public events that would attract crowds
Speaker 1: and obviously enhance his fame. And one of the first
Speaker 1: things he did was he would challenge various police stations
Speaker 1: to lock him up in a cell and lock him
Speaker 1: in handcuffs, and they would take that on because they thought, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy was a bit of a smart
Speaker 1: elecant will show him, and you know, he would actually
Speaker 1: strip down, sometimes apparently completely naked, or sometimes to his underwear.
Speaker 1: His clothes would be placed outside a cell. He'd be
Speaker 1: locked in a cell in handcuffs, and the commissioner and
Speaker 1: various boys would go into another room and sit down
Speaker 1: for a cup of tea, and then, you know, ten
Speaker 1: minutes later, fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Later, he would appear fully dressed.
Speaker 1: And so part of that was that he may have had,
Speaker 1: you know, things like bits of why things that you
Speaker 1: can pick locks with. But I think he was also
Speaker 1: extremely good at picking locks, and so that sort of
Speaker 1: gained him fame. And then beyond that as he became
Speaker 1: more famous, I mean when he went to after he
Speaker 1: did the circuit at the Orphium Vaudeville theaters and he
Speaker 1: gained some fame in America, he actually went off to
Speaker 1: London without any sort of bookings, and that was in
Speaker 1: I think god ninety nine, and he was holding a
Speaker 1: press conference and there was another chap who felt that
Speaker 1: he could escape from handcuffs, named the Great Circle, and
Speaker 1: he challenged to Jerney, which he Jerney loved because he
Speaker 1: was always felt that he was the best, and he
Speaker 1: probably was. And of course the Great Circuit couldn't get
Speaker 1: out of the handcuffs, and who Doney had handcuffed him
Speaker 1: in Who Doney got out of Circle's handcuffs in about
Speaker 1: five minutes, So that was great publicity. So he would
Speaker 1: do a lot of things like that. One of the
Speaker 1: most famous ones was when he was touring, and he
Speaker 1: was very popular in Europe. And one of the theories
Speaker 1: was that, particularly in count who is like Germany and Russia,
Speaker 1: where the regimes kept very strict control of their populations
Speaker 1: and people would often disappear in the jar without much trial,
Speaker 1: that people were delighted to see someone who could escape
Speaker 1: from handcuffs and could, to an extent make a bit
Speaker 1: of a fool of the authorities. And in Russia they
Speaker 1: had a train that used to take prisoners to Siberia,
Speaker 1: and supposedly, once it was locked, the only key to
Speaker 1: open that was in Siberia.
Speaker 3: So of course he had himself locked.
Speaker 1: In this train, in this prison train, and the publicity
Speaker 1: was that if he didn't get out, he'd end up
Speaker 1: in Siberia before he could get out, and of course
Speaker 1: he did get out, and this sort of embarrassed the authorities,
Speaker 1: but of course made him much more popular with the people.
Speaker 1: And there was a whole range of things like that,
Speaker 1: and they got a little bit more extreme. I mean,
Speaker 1: later on he incorporated straight jackets into his routine, and
Speaker 1: he was able to get out of straight trackets in
Speaker 1: full view of people.
Speaker 3: Often with his magic, as.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about in a minute, a screen will be
Speaker 1: put across and he would then appear after he'd escaped.
Speaker 1: But with the straight jackets, he would be hanging forty
Speaker 1: meters up in the air from the side of a
Speaker 1: building in a straight jacket upside down and he would
Speaker 1: wriggle out and then be lowered down and there might
Speaker 1: be twenty thirty thousand people watching that. And the same
Speaker 1: with was when he started to do his dives into
Speaker 1: rivers around the world handcuffed.
Speaker 3: And again, if you're handcuffed.
Speaker 1: And you drive into a river, you haven't got many
Speaker 1: minutes to get out, otherwise you'll drowned. But he would
Speaker 1: always get out very quickly. So I mean, there are
Speaker 1: enormous public events that many people attended but also got
Speaker 1: enormous publicity for him. So that's one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: I think why his name is so enduring because he
Speaker 1: was able to build such an enormous amount of fame
Speaker 1: through a lot of these public events that enhanced his
Speaker 1: stage shows and enhanced his fame and had him press
Speaker 1: all over the world. So he was pretty good at publicity.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, what he did was regardless of
Speaker 1: what tricks he used, it was still enormously skillful. And
Speaker 1: there was that element of him, you know, literally but
Speaker 1: he may die in this, and that wasn't that was
Speaker 1: a risk. I mean, you know, if you're locked in
Speaker 1: somewhere in an enclosed space in water, then there is
Speaker 1: a risky you will drown. So whereas I think with
Speaker 1: magicians on stage, even if they was sawing a woman
Speaker 1: in half, I don't think anybody quite believed they'd saw
Speaker 1: someone in half. But with who doney he was diving,
Speaker 1: it was a nightmare for people, you know, to dive
Speaker 1: in handcuffed into water. Everybody would feel that a great nightmare.
Speaker 1: And often with those water tricks, people would try to
Speaker 1: hold their breath and they could never hold it.
Speaker 3: As long as he denie.
Speaker 1: So I think he bought that that absolute death defining
Speaker 1: literally death defying element that wasn't part of other other magicians' work.
Speaker 2: And when he was doing these publicity stunts in rivers,
Speaker 2: these were just open for hundreds or thousands of people
Speaker 2: to watch for free, I assume.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, And often they'd be in the city where
Speaker 1: he was performing, so it was like an opportunity for
Speaker 1: people for publicity for him, but also they would gain
Speaker 1: publicity right around the country. So he would do those
Speaker 1: and there'd be twenty thousand and thirty thousand people there,
Speaker 1: but all of those were potential people to come and
Speaker 1: see his shows, so his shows would sell out, and
Speaker 1: for him, they probably there were big events for that town,
Speaker 1: but he was just they didn't take him that long
Speaker 1: because he was so quick at getting out, but they'd
Speaker 1: give him enormous publicity, and he was very good at
Speaker 1: a whole range of things. He'd often, you know, at
Speaker 1: wherever he went with his shows, he would ask people
Speaker 1: to concoct challenges that he would then try and escape from,
Speaker 1: which again would enhance the publicity. So he was very
Speaker 1: good at creating publicity and that made him a world figure.
Speaker 2: I think did he make a lot of money from
Speaker 2: his shows?
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, once you know, by the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: Once he became farmers, he made huge amounts of money.
Speaker 1: He was sometimes getting paid, you know, a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a week or more, which was phenomenal money in the
Speaker 1: early part of the twentieth century. It was probably you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred times what somebody.
Speaker 3: Would else would earn a week or more.
Speaker 1: He wasn't great with money, though, I think after he died,
Speaker 1: I think his wife found that, you know, he really
Speaker 1: hadn't saved too much of his money, and he did
Speaker 1: make a few bad investments. Probably might mention his film
Speaker 1: crelated but he made a few bad investments, starting a
Speaker 1: film company, a verse things like that. So he certainly
Speaker 1: made a lot of money, but he also spent a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And it was an expensive show to
Speaker 1: put in and travel. But he was a very, very
Speaker 1: highly paid entertainer of his day.
Speaker 2: But he basically liked to put his money back into
Speaker 2: his show. It wasn't like he was living the high
Speaker 2: life or living lavishly, no.
Speaker 3: To an extent.
Speaker 1: I mean, he did have a nice house, but he
Speaker 1: didn't live there that often. He was a great book
Speaker 1: collector and a great collector of things that took his fancy.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I think his wife did
Speaker 1: after he died was to sell for a lot of
Speaker 1: his items.
Speaker 3: I mean he did all the tricks too.
Speaker 1: Would have cost quite a bit of money, because I
Speaker 1: mean there was an enormous amount of imitation going on,
Speaker 1: and so he was coming up with new tricks and
Speaker 1: they did require, you know, quite sophisticated apparatus. And he
Speaker 1: would travel around with a number of very loyal helpers
Speaker 1: who would probably know that whatever tricks he had, but
Speaker 1: never divulge them. And even you know, we'll get on
Speaker 1: to Australia in a minute, but you know, bring an
Speaker 1: aeroplane and a mechanic act for Australia would be quite
Speaker 1: expensive as well. So I think he probably spent his
Speaker 1: money fairly freely. He probably wasn't great with looking after
Speaker 1: his money, but his life was, you know, to a
Speaker 1: great extent, on the road, really and.
Speaker 2: I can imagine that he must have been more motivated
Speaker 2: by adrenaline than money.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there was always that thing
Speaker 1: of this you know, impoverished boy.
Speaker 3: My.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like the American dream, wasn't it,
Speaker 1: This impoverished migrant making a huge name for himself. So
Speaker 1: I think he did, you know, and you love the
Speaker 1: adulation as you would, but I think it was, you know, adrenaline.
Speaker 1: It was sort of the enormous popularity he got from
Speaker 1: the from the public and what he got back from
Speaker 1: the public, which would be a creative adrenaline, adrenaline rush.
Speaker 1: But I think it was probably also someone coming from
Speaker 1: such poverty, who had so little opportunities, so loot of education,
Speaker 1: to have this idea of well, I am really worth something.
Speaker 1: All these people say I'm worth something, and that would be,
Speaker 1: you know, an enormous amount of motivation. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there was a fair bit of a in it,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I'm not a swimmer, so I would
Speaker 1: be horrified to be thrown into a river handcuffed.
Speaker 2: Tell us more about the water trick. So was he
Speaker 2: always handcuffed but otherwise free? Was he ever lowered into
Speaker 2: the water in a box for equaently?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they got, as with most things, they got
Speaker 1: a bit more extreme. I mean he did start with
Speaker 1: diving into various rivers. He drove off the dove, off
Speaker 1: the Paris Morgue, into the Seine. He dive off rivers here,
Speaker 1: there and everywhere, and obviously in Melbourne and in Sydney
Speaker 1: he did the same thing. But he did later, yes,
Speaker 1: have himself blowered into the water in a sealed box,
Speaker 1: which was a very dangerous trick. Whatever tricks he had
Speaker 1: to get out, it was still dangerous, still a chance
Speaker 1: of drowning.
Speaker 3: But he did do that successfully. But I mean he did.
Speaker 1: His tricks obviously had to become a little bit more
Speaker 1: extreme as he went because once he became the handcuff king,
Speaker 1: they became a lot of other handcuffed royalty that were
Speaker 1: following him and really copying him.
Speaker 3: And so then he had to move on to other
Speaker 3: tricks and other tricks that were perhaps a bit more
Speaker 3: extreme or a bit more elaborate.
Speaker 2: We'll be back soon to hear what happened to Hu
Speaker 2: Deni next, So stay with us. Tell us now about
Speaker 2: his Australian to her.
Speaker 1: He obviously was very famous when he came to Australia.
Speaker 1: He'd been very famous for you know, at least ten years,
Speaker 1: and he arrived in Australia back in the start of
Speaker 1: February nine hundred and ten. When he arrived at Fremantle,
Speaker 1: he did an interview. Some enterprising journalists got on the
Speaker 1: ship and did an interview, and he did say that
Speaker 1: he would have dived off the ship into the ocean,
Speaker 1: but he was scared of sharks. So he arrived in
Speaker 1: Melbourne a few days later and then appeared on stage
Speaker 1: his stage show in Melbourne. I mean he did later
Speaker 1: in life, he did do much longer stage shows and incorporated,
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of traditional magic that he hadn't
Speaker 1: done for a long time. But in Melbourne his stage
Speaker 1: show was enormous popular, but he was only on stage
Speaker 1: for twenty or twenty five minutes, and he had quite
Speaker 1: a few support acts. There were acrobats and comedians and
Speaker 1: various other people who supported him, and he only did
Speaker 1: about three or four tricks on stage. He got well reviewed,
Speaker 1: although the reviewer did suggest that it would have been
Speaker 1: nice if he come back for an encore and just
Speaker 1: done a few handcuff tricks, because by that stage I
Speaker 1: do refer to the fact that he's noted as a
Speaker 1: handcuff king, but there was not a handcuff in sight.
Speaker 1: So I mean, he started that show in Melbourne with
Speaker 1: a couple of films actually off him diving chained into rivers,
Speaker 1: So there was a couple of films and then he
Speaker 1: did a few different tricks. He had audience members come
Speaker 1: and tie his hands together and in no time he'd
Speaker 1: undone those He did a trick in a straight jacket,
Speaker 1: or he released himself from a straight jacket, and that
Speaker 1: was not so much a trick, more just an ability
Speaker 1: to manipulate his shoulders and to work around with the
Speaker 1: straight jacket. And you know, they refer to the fact
Speaker 1: that it appeared as though there were policemen there tightening
Speaker 1: the straight jacket, and you can see films on YouTube
Speaker 1: in fact of various efforts he made doing straight jacket
Speaker 1: escapes and the various early policemen tightening it up to
Speaker 1: a great extent. So that was something that he did
Speaker 1: off and he did things behind a screen so he
Speaker 1: would be trussed up. They put a screen over the front,
Speaker 1: the band would play, people would sing along, and there'd
Speaker 1: be anticipation, and then he would suddenly appear holding the
Speaker 1: straight jacket in his hand.
Speaker 3: But his main trick was one that he'd done.
Speaker 1: With his wife Beatrice since about eight ninety five, which
Speaker 1: was called I think metamorphosis, and that was where he
Speaker 1: was locked in a big trunk or a cupboard and
Speaker 1: he would perhaps have. In this case, he had a
Speaker 1: coat from a member of the crowd and someone had
Speaker 1: tied his hands and he was locked away, and I
Speaker 1: think he was secured in a bag and locked away
Speaker 1: in the cupboard or the cabinet, and a screen was
Speaker 1: put across and then lie and behold he would appear,
Speaker 1: screen will be taken back. He would then make a
Speaker 1: big play of untrusting the cabinet that had chains all
Speaker 1: over it, and his wife or his assistant Beatrice would
Speaker 1: appear in the coke with a hands bound as well.
Speaker 1: So even though that was a bit of a trick,
Speaker 1: there was probably a false back in the cupboard. It
Speaker 1: also had to be done very very quickly, and the
Speaker 1: showmanship was that sort of play of this is so
Speaker 1: hard to unlock and things like that.
Speaker 2: So tell us now about his famous dive into the
Speaker 2: era in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Andrew, Yeah, Well it was on the seventeenth of February
Speaker 1: nine hundred and ten a Coensbridge and he had twenty
Speaker 1: thousand people turn up to watch him dive into the era.
Speaker 1: And there's photos of him being handcuffed and the paper
Speaker 1: refers to him as being chained, handcuffed and peglocked and
Speaker 1: he's there in his swimsuit and he jumps off, and
Speaker 1: then a couple of minutes later he appears holding the
Speaker 1: handcuffs and chains triumphantly in his hand and been picked up.
Speaker 3: By a boat.
Speaker 1: So it was all over relatively quickly, as you would imagine,
Speaker 1: because he's holding his breath underwater.
Speaker 3: But it created obviously a huge.
Speaker 1: Sensation and a huge amount of publicity for his ongoing shows,
Speaker 1: and that was something he tended to do in most
Speaker 1: parts of the world.
Speaker 3: Did he to it?
Speaker 1: He certainly did it in Sydney as well. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I suspect is probably not true, but
Speaker 1: he's reported much later in papers and in books, is
Speaker 1: that supposedly there was a dead body caught on branches
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the era and he dislodged it.
Speaker 1: But given that it's not reported in the papers, I
Speaker 1: suspect that might be apocryphal.
Speaker 3: But anyway, it's another bit to add to his legend.
Speaker 2: Oh how was ah?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: There are photos of his dive in the State Library collection,
Speaker 2: aren't there? Can you tell us about those?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are there's photos of him sort of leaping in,
Speaker 1: you know, to your photos actually showing him being handcuffed
Speaker 1: by a barly policeman and then leaping into the Era
Speaker 1: and then emerging triumphant being carried with in a rowboat
Speaker 1: back to shore. So that is a great record of
Speaker 1: that event. And obviously you know, twenty thousand people turned up,
Speaker 1: which was a pretty big crowd for nine hundred and
Speaker 1: ten to come and just crowd around the Era to
Speaker 1: watch this man jump into the river and a few
Speaker 1: minutes later appear.
Speaker 3: So I did create a huge sensation in Melbourne and.
Speaker 2: You can only imagine how many of those people then
Speaker 2: would have gone out to buy tickets to the show
Speaker 2: that night or over the next few days.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, it was a brilliant piece of publicity
Speaker 1: that he did in so many cities, and it got
Speaker 1: him enormous press coverage and just you know, absolutely would
Speaker 1: have prompted ticket sales.
Speaker 2: So Andrew, just thinking about what the Yarraw River was
Speaker 2: like in nineteen ten, that in itself must have been
Speaker 2: quite the hazard for Houdini.
Speaker 1: It would have been an enormous hazard, I would think,
Speaker 1: because at that stage, there were of course lots of
Speaker 1: factories along the Arrow in Collingwood, and lots of their
Speaker 1: whatever they were using would end up in the Ara,
Speaker 1: So it was a very fetid body of water, certainly
Speaker 1: not as clean as it is today. So I think
Speaker 1: if he escaped in a couple of minutes, that would
Speaker 1: have been a very good thing, because I don't think
Speaker 1: you'd want to spend too much time in the water
Speaker 1: because it was a very very polluted waterway at that stage.
Speaker 2: Did he tour us through a regional Victoria or was
Speaker 2: he really just traveling through the big cities?
Speaker 1: Well, really only Melbourne and Sydney. So he did about
Speaker 1: a month or so in Melbourne and then similar in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and similar shows.
Speaker 3: Did different things.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that he always did
Speaker 1: was to encourage the public, and again this is a
Speaker 1: great publicity thing. Through the newspapers, he would challenge the
Speaker 1: public to come up with some sort of trick that
Speaker 1: or something that would contain him that he would be
Speaker 1: able to get out of, and various people did that.
Speaker 3: You had sailors who.
Speaker 1: Challenged him to get out of knots that they would
Speaker 1: time in, and he took up that challenge and of
Speaker 1: course he did it successfully. He had another one where
Speaker 1: a group of carpenters built a packing case and he
Speaker 1: to do with his publicity. He created this poster about
Speaker 1: a challenge to Houdini, the undersigning expert carpenters and joiners
Speaker 1: here by challenge you to allow us to constructure large
Speaker 1: and secure packing case from one inch tim by making
Speaker 1: use of two and a half and three inch flat
Speaker 1: headed wire nails. So and then they said they were
Speaker 1: going to box that and rope it and nail the ropes,
Speaker 1: and he had it on his poster, and then a
Speaker 1: few days later he appeared on stage secure it in
Speaker 1: this box, was put over the front and the band played,
Speaker 1: and then he escaped. In about eleven minutes or so,
Speaker 1: he'd escaped from that box. And I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: he did that, because I think they were fairly genuine challenges,
Speaker 1: and some of them in other parts of the world
Speaker 1: did really challenge him. There was one occasion where somebody
Speaker 1: constructed these almost unbreakable handcuffs and it took him about
Speaker 1: an hour and a half to get out, and when
Speaker 1: he got out his hands were all blooded. So he
Speaker 1: usually was fairly careful to only take challenges that he
Speaker 1: was fairly sure of getting out of. He would often
Speaker 1: inspect the proposed challenge apparatus beforehand, but they were still
Speaker 1: you know, these were still I think, pretty genuine challenges.
Speaker 1: So whatever tricks he had, and he did have tricks,
Speaker 1: but he was extraordinary at extraordinary dexterity and athleticism and
Speaker 1: also bravery to be able to get out of these
Speaker 1: sort of vines that he was placed in.
Speaker 2: We'll leave part one there for now, but come back
Speaker 2: tomorrow for part two of the story of Harry Houdini
Speaker 2: and our final episode of In Black and White. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening. This has been In Black and White, a
Speaker 2: podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters, written and hosted
Speaker 2: by me Jen Kelly, edited by Harry Hughes, and produced
Speaker 2: by John Tyburton. You can find all the stories and
Speaker 2: photos associated with our episodes at haroldsun dot com dot
Speaker 2: au slash ibaw. If you've enjoyed this podcast, we'd love
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Speaker 2: and White at Heroldsun dot com dot au. Any clarifications
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