WEBVTT - Harry Houdini: A Ghost Story 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:21.079 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.920 story about a ghost, a ghost story, a ghost who 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.520 was full of shit, a ghost, too many say represented 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:34.360 the greatest illusionist of all time, escape artist Harry Houdini. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.360 But it's also a story about the occult, about magic, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.600 about fame and grief, and about a mansion where great 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.760 music was made. Unlike that music I played for you 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.000 at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.120 That was a preset loop for my melotron called Laurels 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:02.480 Blues MK. Two. I played you that loop because I 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.080 can't afford the rights to I Adore Mia Moore by 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.480 Color Me Bad? And why would I play you that 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.959 specific slice of heart shaped creola cheese? Could I afford it? 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.760 Because that was the number one song in America. On 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.520 September twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one, and that was the 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.480 day of the Red Hot Chili Peppers released the album Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:33.000 further stoking the myth of Harry Hoddin's ghost. On this episode, 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:38.080 the Occult, Fame, Grief, the Chili Peppers, and the Ghost 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:51.600 of Harry Houdini. I'm Jake Brennan. In this his disgraceland. 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.680 John Fruchante, guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, felt 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.880 the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.400 He was staring at a missing panel on the ceiling, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:19.600 watching the darkness inside stare back at him. He heard 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:26.400 the sounds again, strange noises, voices, and then a disembodied 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:32.960 scream somewhere between pleasure and pain. John thought about what 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.000 his friend and bandmate, Chili Peppers bass player Flee had 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.239 told him the other day. That he saw a lady 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.480 dressed in black walking around this place, but not just 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:50.280 any lady. She was there, and also she wasn't there. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:58.800 She was translucent, a ghost. John Fruchante wasn't sure what 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.120 he expected from this rehab mansion in the Laurel Canyon 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.799 neighborhood of Los Angeles, but it wasn't this. For decades, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.400 Laurel Canyon, nestled up in the hills between Hollywood and 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.880 the San Fernando Valley, have been a creative sanctuary for 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.640 artists and musicians. In the nineteen sixties, it was ground 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.400 zero for the counterculture movement. Home to Mama Cass, Frank Zappa, 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.640 the Birds in Buffalo, Springfield It's where Graham Nash and 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.240 Joni Mitchell fell in love and then dropped out of love. 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.760 It's where John Lennon dropped acid for the first time 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.840 while the actor Peter Fonda told him what it was 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.240 like to be dead. Okay, that last one technically happened 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.080 in Bennett at Canyon, I think, but it's like right 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.440 next door, so you know, close enough. And now, in 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.360 nineteen ninety one, roughly a quarter century after the Summer 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.480 of Love, John Fruchianta and the Red Hot Chili Peppers 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.040 found themselves carrying on that rich tradition, living in a 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:04.200 four bedroom house and Laurel Canyon, specifically on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.120 which was referred to aptly and quite simply as the Mansion. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.800 Along with their producer Rick Rubin an engineer Brendan O'Brien, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.520 the band had installed a makeshift studio inside the mansion 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.120 so that they could record their fifth studio album there. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.320 That album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, would transform the group 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.160 from freaky stylely La Seinsters into one of the biggest 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.960 rock bands on the planet. But more on that in 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.800 a minute. The idea was that the Chili Peppers would 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.400 live and work in the same space for the duration 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.719 of the album's recording, thus isolating themselves from the influence 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.039 of the outside world while also tapping into their deep 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.080 musical brotherhood. Or, as the band's lead singer Anthony Keita 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.120 so poetically put it, by not recording in a traditional studio, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.720 they avoided the quote anal retentive vibrations of the sterilicity 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:04.240 involved with that sort of courting environment unquote. But drummer 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.000 Chad Smith, the odd man out in the Chili Peppers 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.680 in more ways than one, didn't want to spend every 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.840 night in the mansion with the other guys. He just 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.240 met the girl that he was pretty sure he was 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.279 going to marry one day at after hours hanging with 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.480 these dudes. The last thing he wanted to do was 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.719 hang out with them some more, go put socks on 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.120 their dicks or whatever it was they were doing, and 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.760 not when he had a lady waiting for him back home. Plus, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:34.039 the mansion was creepy as fuck. Weird shit happened there 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.719 all the time. But this being the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.640 the same band that was currently laying down new tunes 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.479 with titles like Suck My Kiss, and Sir Psycho sexy. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.720 The supernatural vibe of the place quickly took a turn 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:53.440 from creepy to horny. John was the first one to 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.359 hear it, the sounds of a woman getting laid in 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.400 one of the other rooms. It sounded so real, but 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.640 just like the trapdoor in the ceiling, John couldn't see anything. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:10.080 It didn't matter. The moaning, the panting, the shrieking climaxes, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.720 they couldn't be ignored. Up to that point, John had 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.520 focused solely on the music he was making with the band, 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.880 and they had a tight deadline, a deadline that Warner 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.360 Brothers Records was holding firm. But he just couldn't hold 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.240 out any longer. He spent the next night in that room, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.040 turned on by all that weird ghost sex, a room 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:38.960 in which, as he later told Interview Magazine, he furiously masturbated. Still, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.840 John and the others were curious as to who or 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.080 what these spirits were, so they called in a team 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.200 of paranormal experts to investigate, or should I say so 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.400 called paranormal experts, Because after a few visits in which 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.359 the investigators seemed to become possessed by whatever was in 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.560 the house, it became apparent that they were simply trying 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.000 to scare the band in order to make a quick buck. 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.360 Cut to a few months later, and the Red Hot 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:11.160 Chili Peppers were the ones making the Bucks. Big Bucks, 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.760 released in September of nineteen ninety one, and led by 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.800 the tremendous success of the ballad Under the Bridge, Blood Sugar, 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.520 Sex Magic made the band megastars. And while that album 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.720 was making its way up the charts, and John, Anthony, Flee, 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.080 and Chad all returned to their respective homes in the 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:34.280 Greater Los Angeles area. Back on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, ghosts 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.720 continued to haunt the living, and just because a team 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.440 paranormal investigators tried to take the Chili Peppers for a ride, 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.960 it didn't mean that the spirits inside the place weren't real. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.560 Years later, after Rick Rubin purchased the mansion at two 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.560 four five one Laurel Cannon Boulevard and continued to use 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.320 it as an unorthodox studio, the band Slip Knot had 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.560 their own creepy encounter with an apparition while recording there, 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.080 this time the ghost of a Man in the tuxedo. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.119 The legend of Rick Rubin's Haunted Mansion grew partly because 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.760 it was commonly being referred to as the Houdini Mansion, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.920 named for the iconic illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:22.920 who died back in nineteen twenty six. While calling Rick's 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.720 Place the Houdini Mansion is something of a misnomer because 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.560 there is no evidence that Houdini ever lived at two 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.760 four five one Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Now just down the 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:38.200 road Apiece, there's another mansion, this one at two four 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.320 zero zero Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as its smaller 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.520 guesthouse across the street, number two four three five, and 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.280 there is some evidence that Harry Houdini and his wife 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.720 Bess may in fact have resided at one or both 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.480 of these addresses when Houdini was in town to shoot 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.320 a couple of movies near the end of the silent 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.440 film era, and it was in this exact area, the 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.720 twenty four hundred block of Laurel Canyon, that a small 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.080 but devoted group of people gathered every year On Halloween night, 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:15.120 October thirty first, the anniversary of Harry Houdini's death, They 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.400 gathered to perform an annual ritual, and they performed this 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.720 ritual in nineteen thirty six and nineteen fifty six, even 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:27.160 as late as nineteen ninety one, at the moment that blood, sugar, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.840 sex magic was being blasted from car windows cruising down 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:36.920 nearby Hollywood Boulevard. This ritual was conducted under the belief 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.160 that Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time, 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.160 had saved his best trick for last, that he was 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.640 going to find a way to escape from the great beyond, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.840 to tear the fabric between this world and the next, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.240 and furthermore, that this group of true believers would be 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.319 his guide as he made his unprecedented exit from the 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:02.600 suite hereafter carrying out the ritual, did so hidden amongst 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:07.559 laurel canyons, flora and fauna, lit only by candlelight, emboldened 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.360 not by blood or sugar or sex, but by magic, 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.840 black magic, reaching into the dust of the past, peering 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.000 through the veils of time, reality, and reason to do 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:26.000 the impossible, to wake up a dead man and bring. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:48.400 Him back to life. 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.480 What is magic? The Mirriam Webster Dictionary describes it as 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.240 quote the use of means such as charms or spells 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:08.480 believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. That's the quote. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:13.240 Jimmy Page and David Bowie's favorite occultist, Alistair Crowley, define 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.720 magic as the science and art of causing change to 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.600 occur in conformity with will. While the yacht rock band 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.240 America once insisted in the top ten single that you 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.400 can do magic, many of you out there probably think 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.720 that in reality, magic is a bunch of bullshit, And 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:35.520 you know what, you're not wrong. Stage magic, magic for entertainment, 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.160 all that pick a card, any card, rabit out of 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.880 a hat. Stuff. Yeah, that's total bullshit, bullshit by design. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.040 It's not magic. I'm putting air quotes around that word, 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.160 by the way, so much as it is sleight of hand, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:55.520 smoke and mirrors, misdirection. You know this though, but seeing 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.040 as you also know, is believing and getting you to 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.640 believe in something um believable is the whole game when 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.280 it comes to being a magician. Harry Houdini, for one, 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.079 understood this better than most. This is why he took 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.960 the breaking out of handcuffs. Not only was his mouth 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.920 tape shut, but completely naked, so that he theoretically had 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.640 nowhere to hide a key, and if you were alive 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:20.640 way back at the turn of the twentieth century and 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.600 saw Houdini do the impossible and only his birthday suit. 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.760 He did so knowing the old story about how when 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.080 he was barely old enough to walk, he was already 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.280 picking the locks of his mother's treat box where she 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.760 kept her homemade apple cake. My point, you went into 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.120 the experience already believing that there was something special about 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.800 the guy, the Harry Houdini we all think of now 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.960 in twenty twenty four, the illusionists who slipped out of 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.319 straight jackets, who cheated death while submerged upside down in 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.200 what he called the water torture chamber. That was a 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.400 persona created in a large part by Houdini's very real limitations. 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.960 Ask any magician then and now, and they'll tell you 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.680 Harry Houdini was a shitty magic man. What he was 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.600 good at was escaping from situations that John Q. Public 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.400 could never manage to escape from. That's how Houdini's legend 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:18.160 was made. He was the world's first escape artist. And 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.040 not only was he the first, more importantly, he was 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.559 the best. At least that's how he promoted himself Houdini 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.920 was aggressive when it came to self promotion, and he 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.000 took no prisoners. You get in his way, you steal 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.280 his thunder, you attempt to rewrite his story, you should 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.600 prepare to be destroyed. Even the great magician from whom 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:42.240 Houdini took a stage name, Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, eventually 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.640 found himself and his disciples crosshairs at five five and 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.840 all muscle. The man formerly known as Eric Weiss, a 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.679 native of Budapest, even though he'd have you believe he 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.439 was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harry Houdini like the greatest 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.480 of showmen and the toughest of bullies. Anyone who listened 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.480 to prove him wrong. Bring him us at a cuffs 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.240 and he'd break free. Lock him in a prison cell 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.720 and he'd bust out. But Houdini was no superman. He 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.920 wasn't an alien from another planet. He was only human. 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.120 The means and methods of his particular brand of illusion 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.480 were real, and thus the one thing that really got 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.840 Houdini's goat was when someone tried to undermine all his 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.440 hard work, his real work, by giving credit to magic. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.880 Spiritualists were having their moment at this time in history, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.200 the early nineteen hundreds. Now, I'll think of a spiritualist 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.760 like a medium, someone who claims they can communicate with 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.360 the dead. In Houdini's eyes, spiritualists were like those guys 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.600 hired to investigate the ghosts who convinced John Fruchiante to 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.600 rub one out in a haunted mansion, and they were 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.480 a cheap parlor trick, a hoax. Houdini had more respect 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.040 for the common criminal, the person who was openly cheating you. 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.800 We know because he wrote and published a book called 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.800 The Right Way to Do Wrong, which, besides being a 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.440 great title, was all about how to commit crimes and 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:12.560 actually get away with them. But again, Harry Houdini was 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.320 only human, and even he could be convinced to give 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.840 the whole spiritualism thing a try, especially when his beloved mother, 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.120 Cecilia died of a stroke in nineteen thirteen at the 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:28.280 age of seventy two. Cecilia was Houdini's rock. Some even 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.640 said she was the motivation behind his career, that the 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.560 reason he worked as hard as he did was because 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.120 he once promised his father that he Houdini would take 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.160 care of his mother till her dying day, and now 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.120 that day had arrived, and Houdini, pained and grieving, would 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:48.160 do anything to speak with her again. So years later, 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.480 when his good friend, the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.400 creator of Sherlock Holmes, along with Doyle's wife Lady, invited 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.920 Houdini and his wife Bess to a seance. Houdini took 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.120 the bait the Doyles, like many at the time bodily 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.040 stock and spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hoped that by 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:11.000 performing the seance, by contacting Houdini's dead mother, he could 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.280 bring some solace to his friend in the time of 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.600 great need. Let's set the scene. The room is dark, 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.920 the blinds are drawn. The faint sound of ocean waves 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.120 gently lapping a nearby beach here carried on the wind 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.600 through an open window. Candle flames flicker on a table 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.160 in the center of the room, and they toss shadows 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.360 on the wall at one end of the table, the 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.600 Houdinis at the other end, The Doyles. Sir Arthur Conan 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.200 Doyle hung his head and Harry Houdini followed his friend's 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:48.479 lead and did the same. The Lady Doyle began to speak, Cecilia, 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.880 Cecilia Weiss, are you here? This was the same question 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:58.480 Houdini himself had been asking for years now, Mama, Mama, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.600 are you here? He sought out his dead mother in dreams. 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.600 He often startled awake in a cold sweat, reaching out 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.159 for her, but she was never there when he called. 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.919 She was always just out of reach. Tonight, however, when 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.480 Lady Doyle asked that question, Cecilia, are you here tonight? 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:25.119 The question was answered by three loud knocks on the table. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.720 Every muscle in Houdini's body tensed up, his throat clenched, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.760 The flames of the candles on the table flapped wildly, 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.399 as if something had just passed through them. Was his 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.760 mother really here in this room with him? Right now? 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.440 Harry Houdini, the world's greatest skeptic, could feel the impossible happening. 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.879 He was starting to believe. Suddenly, Lady Doyle picked up 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:50.399 a pen from the table in front of her and 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.520 began writing on sheets of paper. She wrote fast, and 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.760 seeing that she wasn't even looking at what she was writing, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.760 auto writing they called it psychography, allowing a spirit to 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.960 miss manipulate your hand and write for you. Houdini knew 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.640 this to be one of the buzzwords around spiritualism, and 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.280 now he was watching it happen in the flesh. And 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.159 by the time Lady Doyle had finished, she had written 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.560 on fifteen pieces of paper, all of it a long, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.560 loving message to Houdini from his deceased mother, or so 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.240 the Doyle said. The papers were handed over to Houdini 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.080 and he began to read, but not before he noticed 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:27.960 what Lady Doyle had drawn at the top of the 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:34.040 first page across odd, he thought, seeing as his family 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.680 was not Christian but Jewish. And then as he began 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.000 to read in earnest he was struck by how the 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.199 words were written in English, not in German, which was 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.679 the only language his mother spoke. That was all the 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.159 proof he needed. He didn't even need to know that 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.040 the three knocks on the table at the start of 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.760 the seance had actually been made by Lady Doyle herself, 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.320 not by a spirit. Harry Houdini had been hoodwinked by 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.680 a friend. No less, he'd been made to look like 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.960 a do and Houdini would not be made to look 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.200 like a doe. The seance ruined Houdini and Doyle's friendship forever. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.679 It also sent Houdini on a crusade against spiritualism. He 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.680 publicly took on bogus mediums who were conning people out 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.680 of their money. He testified before Congress and hopes that 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.840 he could single handedly outlaw seances altogether. They were bad 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.800 for Houdini's image. They were bad for business, and around 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:30.199 this time, the nineteen tents the nineteen twenties, business was 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:35.399 very good for the world's pre eminent escape artist. Harry 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.040 Houdini was one of the most famous people on the planet, 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.639 as big as Babe Ruth or Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:46.000 a master of the moving picture. Movies dazzled American audiences, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.160 and they were their own kind of magic. For Harry Houdini. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.320 Cinema was another illusion, another conduit from which to saturate 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.520 the market with his brand, which is why in nineteen nineteen, 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.760 Harry Houdini and his wife Bess pulled up stakes from 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.359 their home in New York City and went out west 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.840 to Los Angeles, so that the world's greatest escape artists 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:13.440 could become a big movie star. Instead, he became something else, immortal. 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:25.359 We'll be right back after this We're, We're, We're. Contrary 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.359 to popular belief, Harry and Bess Houdini never owned the 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.040 mansion at twenty four hundred Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the one 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.120 just down the road from Rick Rubin's mansion, nor did 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.200 they own the guest house across the street. Those were 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.760 the property of Ralph M. Walker, a department store executive 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.920 who happened to be friends with the couple. Hard evidence 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.040 is scarce, but let's just say it is very likely 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.080 that Ralph Walker let the Houdinis crash in his guesthouse 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.200 while they were in town for Harry to shoot two movies, 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.760 The Grim Game and Terror Island. Rumor had it that 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.160 the guesthouse had an elevator that dropped you underground, where 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.399 you could make your way through a dark tunnel passing 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.560 beneath Laurel Canyon Boulevard and find yourself surfacing over at 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:12.120 the Big House, a three story, eleven bedroom, nine bathroom 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.040 Mediterranean style villa with a ballet room and a big 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:20.120 stage for musicians. The whole underground tunnel business fits perfectly 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.680 with Houdini's image a master escape artist who could secretly 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.720 escape from his own home and you never saw exactly 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:28.520 how he did it, how he got out of a 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.960 coffin six feet underground, or how he pulled off the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.200 metamorphosis act, the one where he was bound with rope 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.040 and locked inside a trunk, only for the trunk to 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.600 be opened and revealed that he was no longer there 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.520 and instead his wife Bess was in his place, bound 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:47.440 in the very same way. Maybe fake rivets, fake screws, 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.960 or fake welds, and the construction of the apparatusus. Maybe 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.960 real handcuffs were swapped of for trick handcuffs. He kept 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.240 audiences guessing, is the point, and he also made sure 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.119 they had some skin in the game by welling their challenges. 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.600 There was no problem he couldn't solve, and no outside 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.240 force he couldn't beat. You could even punch him in 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.199 the stomach if you wanted. He would easily absorb the 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.800 blow with what appeared to be prodigious strengths. Houdini couldn't 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.000 remember if he had actually issued that last challenge publicly 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.320 to be punched in the stomach, but in nineteen twenty six, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.400 a student at McGill University in Montreal was telling him that, yes, 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.200 indeed he had and Furthermore, the student wanted HOODII to 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:36.000 prove it now. Hoodini was tired. His career as a 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.680 movie star never took off like he expected it would, 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.600 and one of the two movies he made, The Grim Game, 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.720 didn't even get released. He was fifty two years old 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.119 and these days increasingly worn out by the physical demands 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:53.240 that his job as an illusionist required. His fight against 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.720 the spiritualist movement was a losing battle, not as great 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:58.480 of a loss as that of his mother, whose death 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.840 thirteen years earlier still weighed heavily on his mind. This 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.080 is all to say he wasn't operating at one hundred percent. 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:09.359 And I haven't even mentioned the incredible pain happening in 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:13.320 his stomach, pain that he'd been experiencing for weeks but 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:17.080 had not told anyone about, not even best. But here 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:21.280 in Montreal at McGill, he was still a god, still 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.119 revered by an adoring public that was humbled to have 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.639 the world's greatest escape artist in their presence, or so 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.919 thought the two students currently interviewing Houdini for the school paper. 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:34.480 That interview was on hold for a moment, however, as 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.600 a third student entered the room and brazenly asked if 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.879 he could test one of Houdini's standing challenges. He wanted 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.560 to punch Houdini as hard as he could. Pudini paused 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:47.800 for a moment. Again, he couldn't remember actually making that 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:51.359 challenge to the public, but it didn't matter. He was 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.159 motivated not only by a promise he once made to 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.439 his father, but by his own iconic status, by his 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.080 dominance as the most incredible entertainer of the day. He 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:05.000 would defend that status and that dominance by any means necessary, 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:08.119 even if the crowd was small, like it was today. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.479 So Houdini accepted the student's challenge. He began to stand 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.159 from where he was seated, but before he could straighten 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.439 his back, tense up the right muscles, and get his 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.200 athletic body in the proper stance for such an attack, 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:24.720 the kid came in hot with a clenched fist. Three 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:28.320 punches in quick succession to Houdini's ribs and stomach. Houdini 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:32.439 doubled over Jesus Christ. That hurt, and he could hardly 0:24:32.440 --> 0:24:35.560 get his bearings before the kid swung again. He landed 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:38.080 another punch as Houdini was going down, and another, and 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:42.800 another about seven in total. Houdini's insides were in turmoil. 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:45.720 He thought his stomach hurt before, but now it was 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:50.240 on fire. Still, he couldn't actually show that he was 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:53.399 in pain, so he simply offered a tense smile to 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:56.920 the three kids in the room and politely said that'll do. 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:00.800 He wanted to put the whole ord ill behind him, 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:04.760 the pain, the humiliation. But later that night, while performing 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.720 on stage in Montreal, Houdini began to sweat. His heart 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:10.960 was pounding in his ears, and the pain in his 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.959 stomach was getting unbearable. After the show, he collapsed. He 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:19.280 was hot and then cold. His temperature spiked to one 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.960 hundred and two. He took a train to Detroit for 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.080 his next show, and there a doctor made the diagnosis 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:29.439 the Houdini was suffering from appendicitis. He was instructed to 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:33.800 go to a hospital for immediate surgery. Houdini declined treatment. 0:25:34.240 --> 0:25:37.360 The show must go on and all that. So he 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:39.920 took the stage in Detroit without one hundred and four 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:46.840 degree fever. He collapsed twice. His eyes burned, his lips quivered. 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:50.760 He slipped in and out of consciousness. His dreams began 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.720 to mix with reality. He saw faces, not only the 0:25:54.760 --> 0:25:57.439 faces of those standing by his bed like best, but 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:03.280 faces from his past traveling medicine shows. Sideshow freaks, a 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:05.960 Japanese acrobat who once taught him how to swallow a 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:08.760 ball and cough it back up, the barker who gave 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:11.280 him a crash course and how to slip free from ropes. 0:26:11.800 --> 0:26:15.200