story 005 · culture · harry houdini, 1926
houdini gave his wife a password for after he died.
the short, written out
houdini gave his wife a password, in case he ever came back from the dead.
he died on halloween, 1926.
not that he trusted mediums. he’d spent years exposing fakes. arthur conan doyle’s wife once wrote him a message from his dead mother… in english. his mother didn’t speak english.
so the password was a test: a secret between him and bess, in the code from their mind-reading act. rosabelle: the song she was singing when they met. then… believe.
for ten years, bess held a séance every halloween. the last one was on a hollywood rooftop. three hundred people came. houdini didn’t.
she turned out the light she’d kept burning by his photo. “it is finished,” she said. “good night, harry.”
magicians still hold a séance for him every halloween. the one in 2026 is a hundred years on.
the print that goes with it
hooded crowd
five faces looking away, checkered and crescent hoods, oil, black, plum and mustard
no. 462 · 8″×10″ or 16″×20″ · from $20.00 · see the print
sources
- wikipedia, harry houdini
- wikipedia, bess houdini
- john cox, wild about harry (“halloween 1936: the final houdini séance”, “the mama message”)
- houdini’s house, “the 100-year houdini séance” (houdini.nyc)
pictures
- library of congress, public domain (via wikimedia commons). séance photographs: getty images (bettmann)
every sentence of the short was checked against its sources before it went out.
