Though she was with the Houdini tour for only a little more than a year, Miss Young gained notice. It took some convincing for her parents to allow Dorothy to sign a contract with Houdini after she won an audition in Manhattan in early 1925. A curtain would rise, then fall, “and instantly she came out in a gorgeous butterfly costume with wings that extended from each hand and start doing ballet turns.”īorn on May 3, 1907, in Otisville, N.Y., Dorothy Young was the daughter of a Methodist minister, Robert Young, and Lena Caldwell Young, a church organist. “Houdini would say, ‘I’m going to put her in the dark,’ ” Mr. Saying she had been “naughty,” Houdini would tie her to the pole, from feet to throat. Miss Young would be brought out in a skimpy burlap costume. Except for a pole, the stage would be empty. “She was the slave girl,” said Dick Brookz, curator of the Harry Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pa.

And then Houdini would take me by the waist and lift me down, and I would go into a Charleston.” “I kicked my feet together and jumped up and did a curtsy.

“That was my cue for my one foot to pop out of the radio, then the other one,” she said. “Then,” Miss Young recalled, “he would close the radio and say, ‘Now we’ll tune in on KDKA Pittsburgh’ ” - or whatever local station they were near - followed by an announcer saying, “Miss Dorothy Young doing the Charleston!” She did describe how, after changing costumes, she reappeared on stage as the “Radio Girl of 1950,” a projection of what that medium might be like 25 years in the future.Ītop a table would be a big, boxy ersatz radio that Houdini would fling open - front, back and top - to show that it was empty, apparently. “I was sworn to secrecy, never to divulge any of Houdini’s secrets,” she said in a 1999 interview for a PBS “American Experience” documentary about Houdini. Connolly Collection.For all those years, Miss Young kept her vow to never reveal how Houdini mystified audiences. Image credit: Harry and Bess Houdini, Married Thirty-One Years, 1925. Related Link: Houdini: Art and Magic on view through March 27, 2011 He affectionately called her his “Precious Lump of Sweetness,” “Sweetie Wifie, Mine,” and “Darling One and Only.” Houdini signed these notes with various pet names including “your popsy” and “Houdinsky.” Houdini biographer Kenneth Silverman included this note from the magician to his wife in the book Houdini!!! The Career of Erich Weiss:Īdorable Sun Shine Of my Life I have had my coffee have washed out this glass, and am on my way to business. Houdini adored his wife and enjoyed leaving her love notes and poems around their Harlem brownstone at 278 West 113th Street. Although Bess disappeared from the stage, Houdini often confided and consulted with his wife about his new ideas. Yet, as Houdini’s fame rose, Bess found herself farther from the limelight and the attention focused solely on the adventurous feats of her husband. After marrying Houdini, she joined her husband on stage and they appeared as “The Houdinis.” A petite woman, Bess helped Houdini perfect the Metamorphosis illusion with her speed and agility. Bess, a Cathholic girl born in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, was an entertainer in her own right and performed at the Sea Beach Palace in Coney Island as part of “The Floral Sisters” trio. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon at Coney Island and were married for 32 years. On June 22, 1894, Harry Houdini married Wilhelmina Beatrice (“Bess”) Rahner after just three weeks of courtship.

Bess houdini