HOUDINI DEATH BLOW: HALLOWEEN SHOCKER!

Today, on Halloween, we offer a bombshell: never-before-reported details on Houdini's death. They are drawn from the deep well of Al Hirschfeld's recollections of his good friend, Harry Houdini. Hirschfeld was the premier historian of the American theater for virtually the entire 20th century. He and Houdini were close friends, as we've described in earlier posts. Hirschfeld frequently shared first-hand Houdini stories with his art dealer, Margo Feiden, herself a magic insider (she was for many years the producer of Kuda Bux's  act "Demonstration of X-Ray Eyes").

Margo Feiden

According to Hirschfeld and Feiden, the Houdini death blow, the punch (or punches) that eventually killed him was part of the "business" that accompanied his act -- it was an ongoing challenge, periodically offered for money!

According to Feiden, Hirschfeld's account was that Houdini had offered a $3000 reward to anyone who could punch him in the gut and make him falter. The tall, powerful and impoverished ne'er-do-well named J. Gordon Whitehead took the challenge that fateful day in Montreal, Hirschfeld says. He sucker-punched Houdini to claim the reward.

Whitehead is seated on the left. His silhouette is lower left. The death blows are depicted at bottom right.

According to Feiden, Hirschfeld got this information directly from Houdini, shortly before his death on Halloween! (We must assume this was a telephone conversation.) Hirschfeld said Houdini recounted in detail what had happened, and why. Harry insisted to his friend that he had been unprepared for the attack.

Houdini's own writings disclose a reason he might have tried to weather Whitehead's punches in his lying-down position, as depicted in the sketch above, made on the spot by one of Whitehead's acquaintances. 

From Miracle Mongers & Their Methods:

In the 5th Fig. of Plate 19, the man IHL (the chairs IL, being made fast) makes so strong an arch with his backbone and the bones of his legs and thighs, as to be able not only to sustain one man, but three or four, if they had room to stand; or, in their stead, a great stone to be broken with one blow.

Plate 19 from Miracle Mongers. Fig 5 is bottom right.

This YouTube video shows challengers of increasing strength punching a karate champ who is prepared for the blows. (Houdini himself would have watched this video with interest, we believe,  until the three-minute mark, when the karate champ begins to attribute his skills to religious faith, not training.)

David DeVal, the illusionist, reports that Harry offered numerous strength challenges, always to young, fit, strong men:

I have on record a man that visited Houdini many times on his visits to Oldham. I interviewed this man about 1956. And he said that Houdini was able to break ropes to demonstrate his strength. And then he offered this man the challenge of pulling him from the spot. "Take hold of my fingers and pull with all your might," he said, "and you're an 18-year old strapping boy, fit. And pull me from this spot." And this man said, "And do you know, I couldn't move him a fraction of an inch. He didn't even sway. He was built like a horse."

"Houdini was an excellent showman, very aware of what he was doing," Al Hirschfeld said. "And seemed to control the audience. They were very skeptical, but he convinced them after two or three minutes–not of just talking, but of doing–that he had some special quality that most performers did not have." 

Houdini writes:

Feats of strength have always interested me greatly, so that in my travels around the world I have made it a point to come in contact with the most powerful human beings of my generation.

The question, of course, will always remain: why did we never hear this before? We can only speculate, along with Don Bell, author of The Man Who Killed Houdini, and other historians, that public revelation that the death blows were not accidental would have severely impacted Bess's life insurance claim for double indemnity. Bell reports in his book that the insurance records have all disappeared.




(Sources: Hirschfeld Halloween design © 2013 Margo Feiden Galleries, Ltd. www.alhirschfeld.com. Taken from an Al Hirschfeld self-portrait that is © Al Hirschfeld. Houdini image by arrangement with Hirschfeld's exclusive representative, Margo Feiden Galleries, Ltd., New York. Sketch via wildabouthoudini.com. Miracle Mongers first edition: thanks to Conjuring Arts Research Center. DeVal quote via PBS.)





RELATED:

HOUDINI'S PRACTICE ROUTINE

HOUDINI & HIRSCHFELD

HOUDINI'S IRON STOMACH

GHOSTS OF MAGIC