Amazing Houdini could never resist a challenge
AUG 5, 1926
HARRY HOUDINI could never turn down a dare – as he proved on August 5, 1926.
Well aware that Egyptian magician Rahman Bey had been locked, underwater, inside a metal box for an hour the previous month, the great escapologist was determined to better that feat.
This was what drove Houdini to an incredible new stunt, as he spent 91 minutes in a casket-cum-coffin, submerged in a swimming pool!
He also made his name as a magician, pilot and historian
He had previously pulled off so-called “Buried Alive” feats inside a bronze casket.
Spookily, when Harry died later in the year, it was that same bronze casket they carried him home in, transporting him from Detroit to New York after his death on Halloween.
But in early August, even by his own high standards, that submersion for more than an hour-and-a-half added considerably to his reputation as the greatest escapologist of all.
Harry had already been buried, without a casket, in a pit of earth six feet deep.
Not surprisingly, he had panicked and tried to dig his way to safety, and it almost cost him his life.
When Bey had claimed he used supernatural powers to pull off his stunt in the casket, Houdini headed for the Hotel Shelton in
New York, to do his 91-minute attempt in their swimming pool.
He wanted, apparently, to disprove the supernatural side of it all, and show it could be done merely by holding one’s breath.
Incredibly, he would even repeat it, lasting one hour and 11 minutes inside a casket, and did a third version, inside a large tank full of sand.
Houdini often had an annual feature stunt, and this was the one he would try the following year.
Sadly, he would pass away in October 1926.
Peritonitis and a ruptured appendix left him exhausted, and his last words were: “I’m tired of fighting.”
Born Ehrich Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, he had also made his name as a magician, pilot and historian, among many other pursuits.
The Chinese Water Torture Cell was possibly his best-known feat, when his feet were locked in stocks and he was lowered, upside-down, into a tank full of water.
The cell, made of mahogany and steel, allowed the public to see him, before a curtain concealed his escape.
The original cell had been built in England, where he had first performed the feat.
Wherever he went, Houdini caused a sensation and he easily saw off the many acts who tried to copy him.
Never more so than on this special August day.