"The Life of Harry Houdini"

"On or around 1883 a boy named Ehrich Weiss and his brother, Theo, started a little circus.

Ehrich called himself The Prince of Air. He did the trapeze. All the kids in the neighborhood went to see it.

The trapeze was made of broomsticks and rope. Ehrich’s mom made him a trapeze outfit. One of his tricks was picking up nails with his eyelids from the trapeze.

The brothers quit grade school, but kept their show going. Ehrich had always been into magic.

He and his brother had a magic show at the same time Ehrich was working in a locksmith shop.

He could pick any lock in the shop.

Ehrich’s favorite magician was Jean Enguene Robert Houdin. So Ehrich thought he could get his stage name from Houdin. He would add an ‘I’ to ‘Houdin’ to be ‘Houdini’ and change his nickname, ‘Ehrie’ to ‘Harry’, and ‘Harry Houdini’ was ‘born’.

Harry and his brother called themselves ‘The Brothers Houdini’. When they were performing in Coney Island, Harry saw a woman who was also performing, named Bess. Harry met Bess.

They fell in love and got married. He started performing with Bess instead of his brother, who kept performing, but never grew as famous as his brother.

Harry and Bess moved to England and Harry got work as a magician and escape artist, for a week. Harry’s employer said there were too many escape artists, but if he could break out of Scotland Yard, he could have six months of work. Harry never let a challenge go by.

Harry knew that most of London’s handcuffs could be opened with only two types of keys, and he owned both of them. At Scotland Yard, he was put in a cell naked with cuffs chaining him to

a stone pillar. The guards checked anywhere that he could be hiding extra keys, but Harry was hiding them where nobody thought to look. He was holding them in his throat.

Superintendent Melville assured Harry that he wouldn’t be getting out any time soon. But Melville was amazed, as seconds later, he heard chains and handcuffs clatter to the floor. Then Harry’s employer gave him six months of work.

When the six months were up, Harry and Bess moved to New York. They had two kids and Harry became very famous. They bought a huge house with a library with over four thousand books on magic.

Harry learned how to escape out of a straightjacket, but later on performed it with an added twist.

He would perform it hanging from a five story building. One time he performed, there were strong winds and he got pushed into the building and badly bruised.

In 1926, Harry was performing in Montreal, Canada, when two schoolboys confronted him backstage. Both of them had heard that he could take any punch. Before Harry had time to clench his muscles, one of them hit him hard several times in the stomach. Harry had a strong pain in this stomach that night. He went to the doctor and the doctor said his appendix had burst and needed to be removed, but Harry chose not to do it right away.

Harry should have cancelled his next show, because he was sick and injured, but he still performed the next day. He went onstage with a temperature of a hundred and four degrees, but during the intermission he collapsed backstage. He was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. He was dying.

Harry died the next morning on October, 31st- Halloween. Harry was buried in the coffin he planned to use for his “Buried Alive” escape. He had fought death many times and he was used to winning, but this time he would lose.

I chose Harry Houdini for my book report because I’m into magic and Houdini is my favorite magician. He set an example for all magicians that followed him."