Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast EpisodesHarry Houdini, The World’s First Entertainment Superstar (Part Two)
Few personalities have achieved the worldwide fame and popularity of Harry Houdini. Successful in several different media ranging from vaudeville to motion pictures, this performer was also an astute businessman who incorporated both groundbreaking copyright implementation and sensational publicity to establish himself as the first 20th century entertainment superstar.
To publicize commercial appearances, the escape artist also began the practice of jumping handcuffed from bridges spanning whatever river ran through the city where he was performing. On May 6, 1907, when Houdini jumped from a bridge in Rochester, New York, he also incorporated the new phenomenon of motion pictures, a two minute clip of this exploit is still easily found on the internet today. Underwater for no more than fifteen seconds, Houdini quickly emerged, holding the now removed restraints in the air. Not only was this particular jump witnessed by an estimated ten thousand spectators, Houdini cleverly was able to exhibit the film footage in subsequent performances in theaters and arenas, cutting edge stuff in 1907. A subsequent jump in New Orleans, included not only handcuffs but chains wrapped around his limbs and padlocked at his throat. This required only about thirty seconds, before Houdini emerged, holding all of the restraints triumphantly over his head, as a transfixed audience of thousands watched from a Mississippi levee. Weather conditions also were circumvented, Houdini once jumping twenty five feet off of Detroit’s Belle Isle Bridge at the end of November, into the freezing Detroit River. Similar successful jumps occurred into Pittsburgh’s Allegheny and Boston’s Charles Rivers but the danger involved in these attempts was evidenced when a head first dive into the ocean from an Atlantic City pier in front of 20,000 people resulted in Houdini slamming his head into the ocean floor.
All of these escapades wound up routinely publicized on newspaper front pages all across America.