Our friend Sally Schneider, of Improvised Life, sent us this image of Houdini while we were on vacation, noting that the original had recently come up for sale.
The artist, Al Hirschfeld, the most famous caricaturist of the twentieth century, attended and chronicled every Broadway opening from the 1920s until his death, at age 100, in 2003.
"I once stayed up all night trying to convince Moss Hart that it was a terrible idea to make a musical out of Pygmalion!"Al saw Houdini perform many times at the Palace Theater in New York during the '20s, and got to know him.
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| Palace Theater, c. 1920 |
We know this because Al was a valued friend. Just as he used to thrill to Houdini's stories, we thrilled to his.
"He would hang himself across Times Square and get out of a straitjacket. And of course, all traffic at Times Square was tied up. Thousands of people would stand outside and watch this phenomenon."
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| Houdini over Times Square 1917 (via wildabouthoudini.com) |
"He struck me as just one big muscle, with a controlled center somewhere. He seemed to have control over every muscle in his body. We used to go backstage after his performance and sit in his dressing room. And I got to know him rather well. I went back every day, because I was fascinated by this. I just thought there was some kind of tricks connected with it. I’m sure there were. But I discovered after talking to him for a while, that he had really inordinate control of the muscles of his body. I mean, he would show me how he could swell his wrists, you know, before they put handcuffs on them. I’m sure there was more to it than that, but he did have complete control. He used to take his hand and show me little muscles in the center of his hand that he could pop up. He could put [a] hand down like that and pick up a quarter. I used to try to practice that, but I could never see any muscles in the center of my hand. It was really remarkable."
Martin Beck, Houdini's manager, built the Palace theater and then, in 1924, opened the most opulent theater on Broadway, named after himself. In 2003, the Martin Beck Theater was renamed for Al Hirschfeld.
Like Orson Welles, Al thought Houdini was the greatest showman of all time.
NEXT WEEK:
Hirschfeld clears up one of the major mysteries surrounding Houdini's death!
HOUDINI & ORSON WELLES
GHOSTS OF MAGIC
(Quotes re Houdini from PBS "Houdini." Hirschfeld images reproduced by arrangement with Hirschfeld's exclusive representative, Margo Feiden Galleries, Ltd., New York. Other images via Google.)
Nice
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