In his youth, he served an apprenticeship to dime-museums and circuses acquiring a mastery of the whole repertoire of magic, he eventually took his place, with a show of his own, as a magician of the first rank. Houdini is in fact a German Jew (Houdini is not his real name)-born in Wisconsin. For preeminently Houdini is the honest earnest craftsman which his German accent and his plain speech suggest-enthusiastic, serious-minded, thoroughgoing and intelligent. His professional formulas-such as the “Will wonders never cease!” with which he signalizes the end of a trick-have a quaint conventional sound as if they had been deliberately acquired as a concession to the theatre. When he performs tricks, it is with the directness and simplicity of an expert giving a demonstration and he talks to his audience, not in his character of conjuror, but quite straightforwardly and without patter. Houdini is remarkable among magicians in having so little of the smart-aleck about him: he is a tremendous egoist, like many other very able persons, but he is not a cabotin. So it is rather the man himself than the showman, the personality of the stage, who is interesting.
Wide-browed and aquiline-nosed, with a cleanness and fitness almost military, he suggests one of those enlarged and idealized busts of Roman generals or consuls.
Seen from the stage, his figure, with its short legs and its pugilist’s proportions, is less impressive than at close range, where the real dignity and force of his enormous head appear. Houdini is a short strong stocky man with small feet and a very large head.
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