The Secret Life of Houdini (60 page)

Harry gets cozy with a young Gloria Swanson.
From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

The genesis of the idea that Houdini was stiff and wooden as an actor may be Harold Kellock’s Bess-endorsed biography, in which it is claimed that Houdini’s “puritanical soul” shrank from love scenes with his gorgeous young costars. One director allegedly even asked Bess to leave the set because “whenever we get him to the point of kissing the girl, he spoils the shot by glancing anxiously at you.” That might be true from the point of view of Houdini trying to avoid a browbeating from a jealous wife, but there is ample footage of Houdini with his costars, some even just lounging between shots, that shows a relaxed, flirtatious, and even frisky Houdini. Contemporary reviews bear this out: “As a screen actor Houdini also wins laurels, playing his scenes with the heroine in a manner which reflects great credit to him,” a
New York Telegraph
reviewer noted.

Houdini’s films were widely distributed internationally, especially the serial, and the star began receiving fan mail from all around the planet. The letters from men usually were pleas for Houdini to share the secrets of his magic, while females were more apt to ask for autographed photos. One Japanese girl wrote that after seeing
The Master Mystery
, she “was charmed by your excellent art with a lovely face.” Another American female fan harkened back to his escape days to compose her ode:

I wish that I was Mr. Keith And in my house you’d play For you my maiden heart does seethe, And has since that first day When I sat in my seat and gasped, While you the handcuffs wrecked—I’d rather have my arms tightly clasped About your swarthy neck.

I’d like to be put in a box With you, all clasped about With seven different kinds of locks—I bet you’d not get out! Your powerful, sturdy, graceful pose; Your shirt sleeves white turned up; Your curly hair; your handsome nose; With you I’d like to sup….

I’d like to be put in that bag, And then put in the trunk Where you so closely follow, O ’t would make my feelings drunk. My consciousness would leave me, I would not think of harm If in that bag and trunk with you, My waist within your arm.

I’d keep the people waiting, Expectantly, for days, While in the trunk with you I sat, My feelings in a maze; My head upon your shoulder, My cheek against your tan. O! Harry H. Houdini, You are the
only
man.

The Houdinis’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary gala.
From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

With temptation all around him in Hollywood, and Charmian London on her ranch forty miles north, Houdini decided to make a very public show of his affection toward Bess on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding on June 22, 1919. At first he put the word out that he was planning to renew their vows. Houdini even asked his friend Kellar to give away the bride. Whether they had actually ever been legally married at all remains an open question, and eventually the affair morphed into a celebratory dinner in the main ballroom of the Hotel Alexandria, Los Angeles’s crown jewel and the location of choice for the burgeoning film industry. In front of two hundred guests, all seated at one very long table, Harry and Bess entered the room as the band played “The Wedding March.” Bess was overcome with emotion, and Harry had to sprint to the bar and bring her back a bracing glass of wine.

Houdini spared no expense for the gala event. The long table was covered with orchids, roses, and sweet peas. Two brilliantly lit fountains sprayed fragrant rose water into the air. A tiny bouquet of orange blossoms was set next to each guest’s name card. And what an A-list gathering it was. Will Rogers, Fatty Arbuckle, and other stars from Lasky’s studio were there, along with many behind-the-scenes power brokers.

Back at their hotel room, Houdini presented Bess with some magnificent diamonds in a silver setting—“Wear this dear heart. It is my gift to my bride with all the love that is possible to give.” He also gave her two more love notes. The first, addressed to “My Soulmate Wife” and written while Bess and their niece Julia were “busy at the mirror making up,” seemed a candid declaration of love. “We have starved and starred together. We have had our little tiffs, but your sunny smile and my good sense (?) always robbed them of bitterness. I love you, love you, dearest, and I know you love me.” He signed it “Yours to the end of life and ever after.
EHRICH
(Harry Houdini).” At two
A.M.
, Houdini added an addendum. “How wonderful you were! The most beautiful and wonderful of all. You will only surpass yourself, my Dearest, when you will be my Golden Bride. If the years pass as quickly as these twenty-five have done, we ought to begin at once to prepare to celebrate our golden wedding together.”

The gale winds were buffeting the small launch, and now the worst happened: The waves had knocked out the steering gear, making it impossible to steer the small craft in the raging sea off Catalina Island. When the engine sputtered dead, the boat started dragging anchor and it rounded the reef blowing a distress signal. The boat was near the jagged rocks and no one dared risk their lives to save the four souls who seemed minutes away from a horrific fate.

Except for Houdini. As soon as he heard the distress signal, he rushed down to Buttershell Beach, seized a line, threw it around his waist, and plunged into the surf. Someone threw him a circular life preserver and, using it to shield his head from the battering waves, he tried to swim out to the launch. He managed to get within twenty-five feet of the vessel when the seething giant waves, as if angry at his defiance, shook and flung him back against the rocky shore, but he wasn’t finished yet. He jumped back in the water and had almost made it to the boat when a baby tidal wave engulfed him and hurled him sixty feet right back into the rocks. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind to put the life preserver around his neck, shielding his face, but now he found himself crushed against the rocks, holding on for dear life, threatened with being caught in the great undertow and swept back out to sea and a watery grave.

Houdini does card magic for Fatty Arbuckle despite having a cast on his wrist.
From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

If this had been a serial, the episode would have ended right here. Houdini
was
on Catalina Island in November of 1919, filming his second Lansky picture,
Terror Island
, but what was happening now was scripted only by Mother Nature. The launch, the
Catalina Flyer
, belonged to the production and had been carrying some of the film crew, who were on their way to set up the next shot. Houdini’s instincts were noble and heroic, and he actually did risk his life to save the men, but life didn’t imitate art in this case. Battered and bleeding from several cuts, Houdini weakened in the water and two deep-sea divers had to swim out and rescue the rescuer from the violent surf. With the star back on terra firma, a motorboat was sent out for the disabled launch. After a harrowing battle with the ocean, which was by then being filmed by the production’s cameraman, the men and the launch were finally rescued.

Terror Island
itself gave Houdini another chance to show off his underwater prowess and an opportunity to get close to his stunning costar Lila Lee, who, according to the comedian/film star Georgie Jessel, claimed to have a romantic fling with Houdini. Perhaps Houdini was thinking of more than just the weather when, back in frigid New York in December for a stopover on his way to London, he wrote Kellar and told him he missed “sunny California.”

They didn’t call it
Terror Island
for nothing.
From the collection of Roger Dreyer

Collins and Vickery were not pleased. They knew something was wrong when Houdini made an awkward move inside the Water Torture Cell and seemed to flinch. Within seconds, he was standing outside of the structure.

“Nearly cracked my neck,” Houdini fumed, massaging his injury.

Luckily for everyone, this was literally a dry run; they had been reluctant to fill the cell with water for fear of breaking the glass. Houdini was trying out a new torture cell preparatory for his return to the vaudeville stage in London, where old contracts that had been disrupted by the war were finally about to be fulfilled.

One week into his performances, during his first show of the night, the glass broke in the cell, forcing Houdini to use a reserve pane in the second show. About a week later, Houdini injured his right ankle doing the stunt. It must have been painful, for the usually stoic escape artist saw a doctor named Parsons, who examined his ankle, did a general checkup, and proclaimed that Houdini was in “danger of death.” After a series of treatments that included a regimen of electrical “baking,” the ankle responded and Houdini informed the managers he could complete his tour. The doctor didn’t fare quite as well. Within two weeks, Parsons was dead. While Houdini noted the irony of the doctor’s death, Parsons’ warning must have had some impact on the conjurer. A few months later, Houdini sat for a bust of himself to be placed on his grave after his death.

Accounts of Houdini’s show on that tour suggest that he was treading creative water. His half-hour turn was filled with one or two short effects, the Upside Down water cell escape, and a long monologue peppered with anecdotes from his movie career. In Nottingham, the newspaper’s reviewer actually apologized to his readers for writing advance promotion for the show once he had actually seen it. “Why on earth should Houdini imagine that any audience would be entertained by hearing a long and uncalled-for account of what he has been doing during the past six years…people go to a Vaudeville house to see a performance…not to hear a diatribe on the personal pronoun worked around ‘the story of my life, sir.’”

The cynical English critic didn’t understand but the people did. Houdini broke all records that tour, and earned the highest salaries of his career, pulling down $3,750 a week. “Blame it all on the fact I have been successfully in the movies,” he crowed to Kilby. “
The Master Mystery
has been showing over a year…so the people think they know me personally. Have to make speeches every night. It’s wonderful to think that after all my hard work, I can draw the Public without killing myself.”

With his mind still in Hollywood, Houdini hired a film crew and shot exteriors in England and France for a film about counterfeiting that he tentatively titled
The Dupe
. He found that the cameras were attracting gawkers that were ruining the filming. In what might be one of the first uses of concealed cameras, he was able to achieve natural-looking cameos from the unsuspecting extras. His heart was elsewhere too. In April, he sent Charmian London what she deemed a “sweet” letter, and when he returned to New York in July, she received two more “love-notes” from her Magic Man.