Anyone watching the “Houdini” miniseries on the History channel? I have to confess that about halfway along, I caught myself thinking “this is the same channel that gives us UFO Hunters. How much of this is actually true and how much is the imagination of the writers?” It really did spoil the program for me. 
Wow, that one went over like a lead banana, didn’t it?
I was pretty disappointed that they made it look as though Houdini’s death was the direct result of a “curse” put on him by one of the mediums he exposed. He was sort of portrayed as obsessive about this, as if he had run into one fake medium and wanted to show them all up as fakes. Certain touches struck me as pretty iffy, like Bessie smoking those funny “Mexican cigarettes” to relax her when she worried about him risking his life too much. But over all it was passable.
Wow, that one went over like a lead banana, didn't it? I was pretty disappointed that they made it look as though Houdini's death was the direct result of a "curse" put on him by one of the mediums he exposed. He was sort of portrayed as obsessive about this, as if he had run into one fake medium and wanted to show them all up as fakes. Certain touches struck me as pretty iffy, like Bessie smoking those funny "Mexican cigarettes" to relax her when she worried about him risking his life too much. But over all it was passable.He actually died of a ruptured appendix. I guess he couldn't get out of that one. Lois
The Death of Houdini http://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/death.html On the afternoon of October 22, 1926, two McGill University students visited Houdini’s dressing room. According to reports, Houdini was looking through his mail, when one of the students, J. Gordon Whitehead, asked Harry if he could indeed withstand any blow to the abdomen, as the magician had previously proclaimed. Harry responded that he could, if given time to brace himself, at which point Whitehead hit Houdini four times in the abdomen, under the impression that Houdini had indeed braced himself for the blows. Throughout the evening, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, though he did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, Harry was found to have a fever of 102 degrees and acute appendicitis. He was advised to go to the hospital for immediate surgery. However, Harry decided to complete his show as planned that night.hmmm, a curse, or a lot of cursing was done. guess, I'll skip that one. I hear the Roosevelt's are next up… but this one is a Kan Burns extravaganza, so should be more trustable
If it was a curse it was a self-imposed one. Hubris comes to mind. LoisThe Death of Houdini http://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/death.html On the afternoon of October 22, 1926, two McGill University students visited Houdini’s dressing room. According to reports, Houdini was looking through his mail, when one of the students, J. Gordon Whitehead, asked Harry if he could indeed withstand any blow to the abdomen, as the magician had previously proclaimed. Harry responded that he could, if given time to brace himself, at which point Whitehead hit Houdini four times in the abdomen, under the impression that Houdini had indeed braced himself for the blows. Throughout the evening, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, though he did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, Harry was found to have a fever of 102 degrees and acute appendicitis. He was advised to go to the hospital for immediate surgery. However, Harry decided to complete his show as planned that night.hmmm, a curse, or a lot of cursing was done. guess, I'll skip that one. I hear the Roosevelt's are next up… but this one is a Kan Burns extravaganza, so should be more trustable
This is a tangent, but a good one 
The whole Houdini story makes it very obvious that we should take almost any historical account, and I’m thinking about Jesus here, with a grain of salt. Here we have a relatively modern personage, Houdini, well documented in books, newspapers, pictures, recordings, etc. and STILL there are numerous accounts that are drastically different about the punch that killed him. There’s no way in hell accounts of a person, Jesus, could be anywhere near accurate by comparison.
This is a tangent, but a good one ;) The whole Houdini story makes it very obvious that we should take almost any historical account, and I'm thinking about Jesus here, with a grain of salt. Here we have a relatively modern personage, Houdini, well documented in books, newspapers, pictures, recordings, etc. and STILL there are numerous accounts that are drastically different about the punch that killed him. There's no way in hell accounts of a person, Jesus, could be anywhere near accurate by comparison.I agree. We still hear about Elvis sightings, too. Lois
The Death of Houdini http://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/death.html On the afternoon of October 22, 1926, two McGill University students visited Houdini’s dressing room. According to reports, Houdini was looking through his mail, when one of the students, J. Gordon Whitehead, asked Harry if he could indeed withstand any blow to the abdomen, as the magician had previously proclaimed. Harry responded that he could, if given time to brace himself, at which point Whitehead hit Houdini four times in the abdomen, under the impression that Houdini had indeed braced himself for the blows. Throughout the evening, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, though he did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, Harry was found to have a fever of 102 degrees and acute appendicitis. He was advised to go to the hospital for immediate surgery. However, Harry decided to complete his show as planned that night.The incident was depicted pretty much exactly like this, except that the man who punched him was an irate Spiritualist. He asked permission to hit him and then laid into him savagely over and over again. The program certainly suggests that the injury was directly related to the "curse". Like probably everyone else, I had the scene from the Tony Curtis version firmly in my head, where he was actually performing the Chinese Water Torture escape when the attack hit him, and he had to be dramatically rescued on stage. A friend of mine with some medical background once told there was no way a person with acute peritonitis is going to be hanging upside down. So I have to admit the miniseries' version of that was better. He went out on stage dressed in his swimming trunks and fully intending to, but he had an attack before he could actually perform.
This is a tangent, but a good one ;) The whole Houdini story makes it very obvious that we should take almost any historical account, and I'm thinking about Jesus here, with a grain of salt. Here we have a relatively modern personage, Houdini, well documented in books, newspapers, pictures, recordings, etc. and STILL there are numerous accounts that are drastically different about the punch that killed him. There's no way in hell accounts of a person, Jesus, could be anywhere near accurate by comparison.That's a very good point. Christians will insist that it takes "centuries" for legends to accrue around a famous person, but we've seen over and over again that that's simply not the case.