Published: October 10, 2009 11:50 pm      

Harry and Bess still belong together

One of our great American icons, often closely associated with Halloween, and magic, and spooks is Harry Houdini.

He was a phenomenal magician and escape artist, an outstanding innovator of the art, and of entertainment promotion in general. He also was a silent film star and producer.

Born Ehrich Weisz in Budapest, Hungary in 1874, American immigration officials changed the spelling of his last name to Weiss when his family moved to the United States a few years later. He was raised in Wisconsin by his mother and his father, who was a Rabbi.

The third of five children, he had to start work at an early age to help provide for his family. He soon became interested in performing and made his first stage debut at the age of 9 on Oct. 28, 1883 as a contortionist and trapeze artist. He ran away from home when he was 12, to follow circuses and side shows, but then rejoined his family upon their move to New York City about a year later.

Eric The Great, as he was calling himself, changed his name to Harry Houdini when he was 15 years old in honor of his hero, French magician Jean Robert-Houdin. He formed an act with his brother Theo, known as The Houdini Brothers. Theo would later use the stage name Hardeen.

In 1894 Harry met and married Welhelmina Beatrice Rahner, known as Bess. She became the other half of the act instead of Theo. The marriage wasn't so well received by in-laws because Harry was Jewish and Bess was Catholic.

Harry concentrated on big illusions and escapes that brought about huge publicity. He toured the Vaudeville circuit and began performing in Europe by the turn of the century.

He was a huge star by 1926, and had come to be known as a debunker of false mediums and spiritualists who claimed to communicate with the dead to take money from grieving families. He even testified on his investigations before a congressional committee that year.



Parted by death



On Oct. 22, 1926, after a performance in Montreal, Canada several students from McGill University in Montreal, had the chance to visit Houdini in his dressing room.

One of Houdini's well-known "tricks" was being able to take a punch in the stomach from any man, and not be phased. He was very muscular and could tighten up his abdomen muscles to withstand almost anything.

One student, J. Gordon Whitehead, punched Houdini in the stomach several times before he was ready to absorb the blows. Some think this may have contributed to Houdini's death nine days later, on Halloween.

Some accounts say that Houdini was already suffering from appendicitis when Whitehead sucker-punched him, and that the blows either ruptured his appendix or aggravated his condition.

Houdini continued to perform several shows over the next few days in spite of severe pain and high fever before he finally checked into a hospital in Detroit. Bess was admitted, too with stomach pains, possibly food poisoning.

The book "The Secret Life of Houdini: The making of America's First Superhero," by William Kalush and Larry Sloman, published on Halloween in 2006, even raises the possibility that Houdini had been poisoned by way of some spiritualists, angry over having their fakery exposed.

Houdini's death certificate claims cause of death as paritenitis. Bess received double indemnity payment from Harry's life insurance policy based on the investigation involving Whitehead, who never had charges brought up against him over the incident.

Harry's will stipulated that he wanted Bess to be buried beside him. Bess had the same last wish. She died at the age of 67 in 1943, traveling on an eastbound train from Los Angeles to New York. She was not permitted to be buried in Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York with Harry however, because she wasn't Jewish. She is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Today Harry Houdini's tombstone still reads: HOUDINI 1874-1926, AND BELOVED WIFE WILHELMINA BEATRICE 1876-19_ _.



Love hidden away



Keeping non-Jews out of Jewish cemeteries is still observed by Orthodox and Conservative Jews. Reform Judaism, for nearly 100 years now, allows for the burial of non-Jewish spouses of Jews in Jewish cemeteries, because only individual graves — not cemeteries — are considered sacred.

Arlington National Cemetery has nearly 100 authorized emblems for their gravestones indicating what those buried there believed, including different denominations of Christianity, the Jewish faith, Buddhist, athiest, Muslim, Hindu, Wicca and more.

I wish Machpelah Cemetery could find a way to honor Harry and Bess' last wish. The Houdinis have no direct descendants.

As he closed in on death, Harry promised Bess if there was any way to contact her after he passed away, he would. They supposedly had some kind of code to go by.

Bess held a seance every Halloween for 10 years following Harry's death in an attempt to contact him. Several mediums tried to convince her they had reached him, but no one was able to prove it to her.

"Ten years is long enough to wait for any man," she quipped in 1936. She also said after so many years of trying to get in touch with the other dimension, she didn't believe in ghosts or spirits.

It's sad that these two people, who tried so hard to be together on earth during life and death, still have to be kept apart. If it's important to show what we were about in life through our graves, their bond should trump whatever else they were.

Nobody really knows what the afterlife has in store for all of us. We have to believe what we choose, rely on what we've been taught, or hope what we wish for happens.

If there is a great beyond, it would be nice if we didn't have to be labeled and given assigned seats, like we do here on earth.



Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. Email him at

sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.