HOUDINI AN UNLIKELY ENTREPRENEUR

HOUDINI. MAGICIAN, ESCAPE ARTIST, SHOWMAN, ATHLETE AND ENTREPRENEUR.

When asked to name a few famous and successful entrepreneurs you’d probably name some of those I have already written about like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. You may even mention Henry Ford, Richard Branson and John Rockefeller. It is unlikely however that the first name to come to mind would be Harry Houdini.

Harry Houdini however is your archetypal entrepreneur, a calculated risk taker, determined, inventive and driven.

If you think Harry Houdini was nothing more than a magician, think again. Born Erik Weiss in Budapest in 1874 to Jewish parents, he moved with his Rabbi father, his mother and his brothers to the USA in 1878 at aged 4. By the age of 9 Houdini already held down a number of jobs one of which was as a trapeze artist “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air”.

Houdini began his career as a magician at age 17 with little success and spent the next 8 years living from hand to mouth, working dime museums and side shows. During this period he started to experiment with handcuff escapes. His big break came in 1899 when he was spotted by Martin Beck who was a vaudeville entertainments manager.

Beck advised Houdini to concentrate on the handcuff escapes and within months he went from performing in dime museums, to packed houses on the top vaudeville stages in the country.  A European tour followed with performances in England (six months at the Alhambra), Scotland, Holland, Germany, France and Russia.

By 1910 Harry Houdini was a household name in the USA and one of the wealthiest entertainers of his time.

Constantly pushing himself physically and mentally whilst seeking to keep his name in the spotlight, Houdini became fascinated with aviation and in 1910, after buying a Voisin biplane, and while on tour, went down in the record books as the first person to fly in Australia.

Still reaching beyond the boundaries and with visions of the future, Houdini embraced the up and coming era of the silent silver screen, and 1918 he signed a contract with film producer B.A. Rolfe, for a 15 part serial called “The Master Mystery”.

Eventually Houdini started his own film production company called the “Houdini Picture Corporation” and produced and stared in two films, The Man From Beyond (1921) and Haldane of the Secret Service (1923). He also founded his own film laboratory called the Film Development Corporation. (FDC).

Houdini was a true fighter and entrepreneur,  another rags to riches story of innovation, vision, true grit and determination. Houdini challenged death, worked and performed every day of his life until the end.

He died in 1926 at the age of 52 from peritonitis as a result of a ruptured appendix, although he was optimistic that he would recover, it is reported that his dying words were

“I’m tired of fighting”.

Houdini the entrepreneur would be pleased to know that he is still a household name and that “to do a Houdini” is a common term (especially in the USA) to describe an escape from a sticky situation.

Do you have the entrepreneur mind-set?

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