Trick Houdini Couldn't Pull: Cheating Death

Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24, 1874. His family soon immigrated to the American Midwest, where his father became the first rabbi of a new congregation in Appleton, Wis. American immigration officials changed Weisz to Weiss. As a young man, known as Ehrich Weiss, the aspiring magician selected his own name and persona -- Houdini. He did this to establish his relationship to the father of modern magic -- the French 19th century master conjurer Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin. A consummate showman, Robert-Houdin had brought magic from its historic venues of public fairs and private parlors to open performance on the stage. "A magician," he wrote, "is an actor playing the role of a magician."