In the early part of the 20th Century, Ehrich Weiss was one of its greatest escape artists, but few people knew him by that name. Instead, most people are familiar with Harry Houdini and how he died on Halloween night in 1926. There are museums dedicated to Houdini the world over. One of these museums may be found in a Nevada desert in a city that has embraced magic as one of its primary entertainments, Las Vegas. The Houdini Museum is inside Caesar’s Palace, among the forum shops, and contains a number of original items owned by this magician and escape artist, actor, producer, and skeptic, who spent time to stop frauds who exploited others by claiming supernatural communication with the dead.
Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, and immigrated to the United States four years later. As a child, he was a cross country runner and made his debut in public as a nine year old trapeze artist known as “Ehrich, the prince of the air.” Influenced by a French magician named Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, Weiss began to call himself Harry Houdini. He added the i when a friend told him, incorrectly, that an additional i would make the name mean “like Houdini.” The name Harry came from magician Harry Kellar that Weiss also admired. At first, Houdini’s magical career didn’t meet with success; however, once he began working with escape acts his fame began to grow. He worked at first on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, then toured Europe, traveling from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands, to France and Germany, to Russia. He escaped suspended in strait jackets, while in handcuffs stuffed into a large milk can, and from the Chinese Water Torture Cell , his best known trick. While legend and two movies suggest that this last act was involved with his death on Halloween, it didn’t.
Whether you stay at Caesar’s Palace, or one of any number of fine places , it won’t be difficult to escape to Houdini’s Museum and shop, browse the store, and view these famous, magical items.