During his life, his name became a legend. Illusionist Harry Hudini was seriously considered a magician and a sorcerer. He could pass through the walls, open any safe, get rid of the shackles in the Ice Pochin, to take an escape from the Butycan prison and to go to the light of God from the grave. However, Harry himself rumors about their supernatural abilities persistently refuted, revealed the secrets of many focus, which led to the rage of colleagues. And still fought with the so-called medium and psychics, considering them fraudsters. As a result, such a position cost him friendship, and perhaps life.
Thanks to him, he even appeared the term "gedine", which determines the ability to get out of any, even the most difficult situations. Hudini called the genius of liberations. Indeed, his whole life is escape. From myself, from your roots, hopeless poverty. Already being glorified by an artist and earning more American president, Houdini trembled very carefully. At the same time generously sacrificed homeless and disadvantaged.
Eric Weiss (real name King Illusion) was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, in the family of Rabbi Meira Samuel Weissa. On that day, two of his older brothers died on some strange coincidence, and his father decided that the curse was lying on the boy. However, it did not particularly affect his attitude to the Son: Meyer was equally cold with all his offspring. When Erica turned four years old, the family moved to the United States, in the small town of Epplgate, Wisconsin. Weiss received the post of Rabbi of the reformist synagogue. Pretty soon his sullen temper and unwillingness to talk at any other language, except Yiddish, played their negative role. Parishioners politely, but firmly asked Meira to leave the post. Later, Guedini claimed that Wisconsin was his real homeland, but the documents denied.
Harry could take shape in half, significantly increase or decrease the volume of muscles and even shock bones in the joints - so he performed the most complex tricks
Photo: ru.wikipedia.org.
Unlike his father, Eric possessed the character of cheerful, light and intelligent toastful. At an early age, he repulsed his parents and senior brothers as a question: "What's there inside?", Trying to make out the toy interested in his interest. Then the things went into the move. For example, the wall clock that he disassembled and collected again and again. The most interesting thing is that after all experiments they continued to walk. The boy was a terrible slough, and no locks on the buffet, which the father changed with enviable regularity, could not stop him. Candy continued to disappear. However, as Gudini remembered later, it was not so much in sweets as in the admiration of the public - brothers and sisters. When the little spectators are tired of focuses with castles, he moved to cards and coins. In general, the most happy days in the life of the boy were those when a stray circus came to the city. Once he even showed his own focus during the presentation - the needles collected with eyelashes - a rather risky occupation. The ovations of the audience and a bunch of small coins, which he brought Mother, convinced Erica that he was on the right track. When, at the age of thirteen, he announced that he was leaving for tours with a circus, no one had fallen especially - one hungry mouth in the family was less. In sixteen years, a novice artist bought a thick disheveled volume with a thick disheveled volume called "Memoirs Robert Gidda, Ambassador, writer and magician written by him." This book has become a kind of Bible for him. He even took a consonant creative pseudonym.
The first steps of the Great Houdini in the circus world were quite modest. Together with the younger brother Theodore (DESH's stage name), he spoke with stray troupes at provincial fairs, exhibitions, charitable evenings. During one of the ideas and met that the one who became his wife and the faithful companion for life.
Wizard Wizard.
Young Wilhelmin Beatrice Raper (later known as his assistant Bess) was like an angel: little growth, fragile, slim, with thoughtful blue eyes. The dress, which Gudini accidentally splashed with the content of the "magic bowl" - acid, turned out to be hopelessly spoiled. But the admiring girl accepted sincere apologies. Harry promised that his mother would save her a new outfit - much more beautiful than the former. In the same evening, they went on a date to Koni Island. And three weeks later got married. From now on, the newlyweds showed their own number entitled "Gudini Spouse".
The personal life of the famous illusionist went legends. They rummed that both artists had a hot-tempered temper and sometimes quarreered so that the sparks flew. So that it does not come to bloodshed, Gudini and his wife developed their own system of signs. The raised right eyebrow pointed out that the magician was hung to the limit and his faithful better close the mouth immediately. Sometimes Harry left the house to ventilate, and returning, threw his hat into an open window or door. If the hat did not return back, it means that the wife calmed down and the thunderstorm passed.
Bess for many years was not only wife, but also an assistant, and faithful companion
Photo: ru.wikipedia.org.
At the same time, they loved each other very much. Sometimes Harry wrote a spouse of tender letters, even if she was in the next room. Unfortunately, this bright pair did not have children. It was rumored that the cause of infertility of the maestro was the experiments of his native brother Leopold. He was listed by one of the most advanced radiologists of New York. And Harry often performed as his experimental rabbit. Apparently, excessive irradiation has played a fateful role. But the desire to have a child was so great that Gudini came up with an imaginary son, who was called Meer Samuel. In their opinion, he had to become a future US president ...
From year to year, the experiments of the magician became increasingly risky and dangerous. Twice he was on the verge of death and remained alive only thanks to the unprecedented presence of the Spirit. The first case occurred in Detroit, where the illusionist had to arrange a public advertising performance - to rush from the bridge in handcuffs and free from the shackles under water. Even the fact that the river was covered with a rather thick layer of ice, did not prevent him from demonstrating his art. Switching by joking phrases with the gathered journalists, Hudini wonderfully waved with his hands to the audience and jumped into a smarrine smoking on the cold. When four minutes passed, the journalists rushed to the phones to notify the editors about the death of the king tricks. But, as it turned out, hurried.
The second case was no less dramatic. During the tour in Los Angeles, the illusionist was offered to bet that he would not be able to get out of the grave from the six-foot depths of shaved in handcuffs. Later he confessed that the attack of panic was barely worth his life. Being in the grave, Harry tried to call for the rescue, losing air remnants and almost scoring his mouth. In the end, the instinct suggested him the path to salvation: like the mole, carefully, inch in an inch he made his way to the surface. And being outside, I could not even stand on my legs.
Presentations have always collected many people and press
Photo: ru.wikipedia.org.
All this time, Bess Molila's God, so that the beloved did not die. Frankly, her life is difficult to call cloudless. Extreme is good in youth, but then begins to tire. Permanent moving was deprived of the wizard's wife to equip their own nest. Despite the fact that Gudini acquired a big mansion in Brooklyn, the married couple stayed in it infrequently. Mother Guddini, Cecilia lived in a luxurious house. He just idle - so that sometimes Bess even had to jealous.
Jewish Mama
Since childhood, she was his guardian angel, the one that always defended and supported, believed in him. Once, being a child, Harry promised his mother that he would fool her, and fulfilled his promise. In 1912, the illusionist earned insane money, showing a trick with a liberation from the rope - he was tied to the beam at the height of the twentieth floor. At the end of the first week, he asked the director of the theater to pay him not by banknotes, but gold. Brought a bag with a fee into the dressing room, where assistants were waiting for him with a rag and abrasive paste, and began to polish coins so that they brightly blocked. Then I went to my mother: "Remember, as the dad before the death took the word from me to take care of you? And now substitute the hem! " - and poured shiny dollars to her knees. Later, Harry said that it was the happiest moment in his life.
Cecilia felt like a real queen, when the son made a presentation in his native Budapest in her honor. He removed the best hall in the city with a palm garden under a glass roof and a lie, in which she squeezed, like royal person. It was a dress stitched for the Queen of Victoria. Gudini saw him in the London store and convinced the owner to sell, Mom had the same size of the clothes.
When it did not, he was distraught from grief. Leaving on tour to Hamburg, as if it was premonished by trouble, I could not open my hands, hugging my mother. She asked him to bring fur slippers. These slippers, he then put in her coffin ... I spent whole days the illusionist in the cemetery, talking to the dead, and rumored rumors that Gudini went crazy. The tragedy made him appeal to those characters he had always disliked and treated them with great distrust. Namely - to mediums. So he hoped to come into contact with the deceased.
It must be said that in those days, the spiritual sessions were, as they are called, a fashion trend. People appealed to the world of spirits hoping to learn the future, get an answer to the question of interest or chat with dead relatives. At one of these meetings, Gudini met Sir Artur Conan Doyle. It is curious that a person who has a sharp logical mind and creating the author of the deductive method of Sherlock Holmes, he himself became naive as a child when it was about other worlds. Perhaps because the wife of the writer, Lady Gin Elizabeth, allegedly possessed the gift of the medium.
With your favorite women: Mother Cecilia and his wife Bess
Photo: ru.wikipedia.org.
The Hudini and Doyleov family became close. Once, they spent their weekend in Atlantic City (New Jersey), in Ambassador Hotel. By evening, Sunday Conan Doyle announced that he would like to make a friend a gift - to arrange a session of a spiritual connection with his deceased mother. In the room reworked windows, and Jin performed as a conductor. She quickly entered into contact with the Spirit, grabbed the pencil and began to write a message quickly. On fifteen pages, the mother spoke Harry's words of love and support, reminded his son's habit of pressing her ear to listen to the heartbeat, and reported that she was busy at home preparation, where they would reunite again. To say that Gudini was bitterly disappointed and angry, not to say anything. After all, Cecilia was a Jewish, spoke only to Yiddish and would not have become the hand of the medium to draw Christian crosses. In addition, she would hardly have forgotten about his birthday, which, by chance, fell on a communication session. Differences added and the fact that the on the eve of Jean was quite detailed by Bess about the habits of her mother-in-law. That evening Gudini said nothing to friends, but subsequently collapsed with the exposure of mediums and psychics.
Ghostbuster
Once, being in three quarters from Hudini's house, Conan Doyle wrote on a piece of paper: "Mene, flowed, Fars," words, according to the Bible, appeared on the wall of the Valtasar Palace. An hour later, in the house of the illusionist, the writer saw the cork ball asked spontaneously with spontaneously brought these words on a stoveless chalkboard. Conan Doyle lost the gift of speech and recognized a friend the greatest medium. But he stated that he worked on the trick almost all winter and this is nothing more than the dexterity of the hands in connection with some technical devices. Alas, Conan Doyle was not easy to convince. After the death of Gudini in 1926, Sir Arthur released the book "The Unknown" (The Edge of The Unknown), where he described his experience with psychics. He devoted a whole chapter by Hudini - in his opinion, he only pretended by an ordinary person, and in fact possessed superpowers.
Of course, Gudini is difficult to attribute to the category of average citizens. That endurance with which he trained his body by making it a tool for performing the most complicated tricks, deserves respect. He could be folded in half, significantly increase or decrease the volume of muscles and even shock bones in the joints. A special deep bath was adapted to his house, where Maestro trained the breath's delay. In every free minute, he repeated and honed the tricks with playing cards and unleashed daily at least hundreds of rope nodes with his fingers. He perfectly knew the features of the device of various castles and made miniature lays that hid in unexpected places. For example, tied a capsule to the tooth. And during a visit to the Butycian prison, his wife Bess was handed over to him during a kiss.
No secrecy did not do from Hudini's work, on the contrary, he was insanely annoyed by speculation of colleagues-illusionists who hinted on their mystical abilities. He wrote several books in which he told about how he makes wonders. His first book "The exposure of Robert Gudini" was published in 1908, in 1920 "Merperists and their methods" appeared, then "the magician among the spirits" appeared.
In the picture "Gudini" the role of the magician brilliantly played Adrian Brody
Photo: Frame from the "Gudini" series
With the light hand of Gudini newsmens dubbed the ghost hunter. Judicial proceedings over mediums in which he also participated, turned into a kind of presentation. In the presence of jury, the judges and many viewers of the Illusionist easily moved the items, asked questions to the balls that he was answered, blew the candles at a distance and portrayed everything that medium were engaged. At the end he explained the essence of the tricks and left the hall under the applause. "There are only two types of mediums: mentally defective, which doctors should observe, and quite sensible fraudsters," he said at a parliament meeting. He was supported and the police were supported - so, in California, the leadership of the national independent spiritualist association was accused of fraud. In general, mediums panicked. Such exposures not only deprived them of earnings, but they could cost freedom.
Until now, some researchers believe that the death of Houdini was not the result of an accident, he fell victim to a conspiracy. Allegedly those who counted themselves to psychics and mediums decided to eliminate an uncomfortable colleague. On October 28, 1926 in Canada, after a speech in the dressing room, the artist went three local students and asked whether he could withstand any blows in the stomach. Gudini nodded absently. And immediately without warning one of the visitors, Gordon Whitehead, College Champion on boxing, hit him three times in the stomach. From surprise, the illusionist did not have time to strain the muscles of the press. And two days later, the buzzing appendix led to the development of purulent peritonitis. The great and terrible Guedini died - on some kind of mystical coincidence, just for Halloween. After years, the version was expressed that she was poisoned by unfriendlies, because the opening of the body was not conducted. It was neither confirmed nor refuted.
And there must be no spiritual sessions for ten years to cause Harry's spirit. During his lifetime, they agreed that the code word of his presence would be a phrase from their favorite song "Rosabelle Believe". But, alas, the contact did not take place. The last session was held on the roof of the Nicerboker Hotel. Putting a candle next to the photo of her husband, Bess said: "Ten years of expectations are quite a long time for any person." She died in 1943 on the train on the way to New York. Shortly before that she gave an interview: "I like the idea to meet Harry in Paradise ... But I am a skeptic. No one has yet managed to prove the existence of the other world. "