Biography claims Houdini was secret spy

NEW YORK — Eighty years after his death, the name Harry Houdini remains synonymous with escape under the most dire circumstances. But Houdini, the immigrants' son whose death-defying career made him one of the world's biggest stars, was more than an entertainer.

A new biography of the performer suggests Houdini worked as a spy for Scotland Yard, monitored Russian anarchists and chased counterfeiters for the U.S. Secret Service, all before he was possibly murdered.

"The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero" will be released on Halloween, the anniversary of Houdini's death at 52. Chasing new information on the superstar led authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman to create a database of more than 700,000 pages.

"There's no way in the world we could have done this book without it," Sloman said of the huge electronic index. "It would have taken 30 years — maybe."

Spymaster link

The biography lays out a scenario in which Houdini, using his career as cover, traveled the United States and the world while collecting information for law enforcement. The authors made the link after reviewing a journal belonging to William Melville, a British spymaster who mentioned Houdini several times.

Melville, while at Scotland Yard in the early 20th century, helped launch Houdini's European career by allowing the performer to demonstrate his escape skills. Houdini, at a demonstration arranged by Melville, slipped free from a pair of Scotland Yard handcuffs as an audition for a London theater owner.

The book suggests Melville's compliance was part of a quid pro quo in which Houdini worked as a spy. A similar situation occurred in Chicago, where Houdini's career took off after a publicity stunt aided by a local police lieutenant, the book said.

"Finding the Melville diary, we knew there was a connection, we knew there was something there," Kalush said. "But finding that diary solidified a lot of other things."

No less a Houdini enthusiast than Teller — the usually mute half of magic and comedy duo Penn & Teller, and one of the legendary performer's spiritual descendants — believed the link between the escape artist and the authorities was no leap.

"Law enforcement is about bureaucracy and cronyism," Teller said. "So they're going to let some entertainer walk in and escape from their jail cells? That suggests to me that [the authors] are on the right track."

Houdini was a relentless self-promoter in the style of showman P.T. Barnum, although he didn't play his audience for suckers. The biography recounts one 1902 escape, in Blackburn, England, where Houdini refused to surrender despite the use of plugged locks that made his escape almost impossible.

Ovation after escape

After two hours, Houdini escaped to a standing ovation. The next day his arms were "hideously blue and swollen, with large chunks of flesh torn out," the book recounts. Because of the way the chains and rigged locks were fastened, Houdini "had no choice but to tear out the chunks of his flesh to get free."

That's entertainment.

Houdini's renown was such that he was known around the world by a single name long before Sting or Madonna.

"We know Houdini was a hero," Sloman said. "He could get out of anything, which was a myth, of course."

Kalush said the myth eventually overshadowed the man.

The biography's other hook is the suggestion that Houdini's relentless debunking of the Spiritualist movement, whose proponents included "Sherlock Holmes" author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, led to his death. The group believed it could contact the dead; Houdini believed the movement was a fraud.

Houdini, at the turn of the last century, joined his wife, Bess — "The Celebrated Clairvoyant" — in presenting a trumped-up act in which he worked as the barker and she as the medium. But he eventually crossed over to the other side, exposing phony mediums much as he'd once exposed copycat escape artists.

"I like the way that Houdini comes off as a real tough guy, which is no doubt true," Teller said. "He's not afraid to show up at somebody else's performance and scream, 'This is my act you're doing. Why don't you try this trick?'

"That's a rough-and-tumble thing you'll never see a modern magician do."

The authors recount two October 1926 incidents in which Houdini was punched in the stomach, once by a college student in his dressing room and later by a stranger in a hotel lobby.

Houdini — the book suggests the Spiritualists may have arranged the attacks — died days later at Grace Hospital in Detroit. His aura of invincibility seemed over. But as the authors found, it lives on today.

"He's compelling because of that myth, that he could not be restrained by anything," Sloman said. "The more successful he was, the more he became a symbol of the lone man resisting authority."