Thanks to Bill Mullins for this revelatory discovery.
Heck, it took us 100 years to discover otherwise.
But it could be that Houdini let the young man believe that he had indeed showed him something new. The loser here may be Randolph Douglas and the notion that he introduced Houdini to the idea of the suspended straitjacket escape. When it comes to suspended straitjackets, height does matter. But Houdini had the foresight and courage to be raised over 100 feet, which truly made this a spectacular escape. To be fair, I don't believe Houdini ever claimed the suspended straitjacket escape to be an "original invention" the way he advertised the Milk Can and Water Torture Cell as such. Funny to think that Houdini would imitate an imitator who was himself impersonating an imitator. It appears he last did the escape in 1914, so perhaps by 1915 Houdini felt enough time had passed that he could do the escape himself. Mysterio's escapes were well reported in the pages of The Sphinx. So did Houdini know about Mysterio and his suspended straitjacket escape? It seems unlikely that he wouldn't. Here's the full clipping from the Buffalo Evening News which ran 100 years ago today on November 21, 1913. Gaffney who performed magic and handcuff escapes as "Mysterio" in Europe and the U.S. Digging a little deeper (via Ask Alexander) reveals that Mysterio is actually "The Great Alvin." Alvin would come into conflict with a magician named L.L. Furthermore, it appears that Mysterio did this escape a number of times. Here we have a magician named "Mysterio" performing a suspended straitjacket escape in 1913, a full year before the Douglas demonstration and two years before Houdini first did the escape himself. It would become his signature outdoor escape.īut now reader Bill Mullins sends in a clipping that throws us a curve in regards to where Houdini might have gotten the idea for the escape and how original it was to the escape king.
Houdini would first perform the suspend straitjacket in Kansas City on September 8, 1915. The most recent biography, The Secret Life of Houdini (2006), even goes as far to state that Randini "changed the course of magic history" that day. Randini), during a visit to the Douglas home in England in June 1914. It's been said that Houdini got the idea for his famous suspended straitjacket escape from a super fan, Randolph Douglas (a.k.a.
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