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