Theatre & dance / Film & TV
Harry Houdini
1874–1926 · illusionist, escape artist, stage and film performer
Budapest-born escape artist who played Detroit's vaudeville houses for decades, leapt handcuffed off the Belle Isle Bridge in 1906 and died in the city on Halloween 1926.
- Born
Budapest, Hungary- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 52- Birth name
- Erik Weisz
- Also known as
- The Handcuff King · Weisz Erik
- Detroit years
- 1890s–1926 (tour stops)
- Field
- Theatre & dance, Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Detroit was a regular stop on Houdini's vaudeville route, most often B. F. Keith's Temple Theatre on Monroe Street. During a two-week run there in November 1906 he leapt, handcuffed and tied to a long lifeline, from the draw span of the Belle Isle Bridge into the Detroit River, slipped the cuffs underwater and swam to a waiting boat. His later tale of a frozen river and a desperate search for a hole in the ice is not supported by the newspaper reports of the day. As president of the Society of American Magicians he also recruited Detroit's magic club into the national body. On October 24, 1926, feverish from a ruptured appendix, he insisted on performing at the Garrick Theatre on Griswold Street while staying at the Hotel Statler. He was taken to Grace Hospital and died there of peritonitis on October 31. His body left for New York by train in the bronze casket he had built for his buried-alive stunt.
Highlights
- Born Weisz Erik in Budapest in 1874; grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, and New York
- Nov. 27, 1906: handcuffed leap from the Belle Isle Bridge into the Detroit River
- Gave his final performance at Detroit's Garrick Theatre on Oct. 24, 1926
- Died at Detroit's Grace Hospital on Halloween 1926, aged 52
- First person to fly a powered aircraft in Australia (1910)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 7
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Performed here · 1906 and other visits
Temple Theatre
Demolished · 1901–1930
Keith's vaudeville house, Houdini's most frequent Detroit stage; he was playing here during the 1906 bridge jump. The site is now part of One Campus Martius.
Related place · 1906
Belle Isle Bridge (site of today's MacArthur Bridge)
Demolished · 1889–1915
On Nov. 27, 1906 Houdini jumped handcuffed from the bridge's draw span into the Detroit River. That bridge burned in 1915; the MacArthur Bridge (1923) now crosses to Belle Isle here.
Performed here · 1926
Garrick Theatre
Demolished · 1887–1928
Scene of Houdini's last performance on Oct. 24, 1926. The theater closed in 1928 and was razed in 1929; a later commercial building stands on the site.
Related place · 1926
Hotel Statler
Demolished · 1915–1975
The hotel on Grand Circus Park where Houdini stayed during his final Detroit engagement. Demolished in 2005.
Related place · 1926
Grace Hospital (original building)
Demolished · 1888–1979
Houdini died here of peritonitis on Oct. 31, 1926. The building was demolished in 1979; the site is a parking lot.
Related place · 1926
W. R. Hamilton Co. Funeral Home
Closed
Houdini's body was embalmed here and placed in his bronze stunt casket. The funeral home closed; the vacant, deteriorating buildings at Cass and Alexandrine still stand.
Related place · 1926
Michigan Central Station
His casket left Detroit for New York by train from this station. The depot closed in 1988 and reopened in 2024 after Ford's restoration.