Trivia

Married to his wife three times; first in secret, and then once in each of their respective religions' churches.

In addition to his career as a stage magician and an escape artist, he also had a part time career as a debunker of mediums and other so called experts of the paranormal. However, his reasons for this campaign included a hope he could find an actual medium that could communicate with the dead.

His cousin was the wife of Stooge Moe Howard

Although born in Budapest, Hungary, he often gave his birthplace as Appleton, Wisconsin, where he was raised. Today, his boyhood home there is maintained as a museum.

Was one of five children of a penniless rabbi who died when Houdini was 18 years old.

Was fanatically devoted to his mother, Cecilia. When he died, his casket was adorned with a wreath that spelled, "Mother Love," and his head lay on a pillow of Cecilia's letters.

Based his stage name on that of the French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, whom he would later denounce as charlatan!

His will stated that a bronze bust of himself be placed on his tomb to guide his spirit back from "the other side".

Willed his collection of books on magic to the American Society for Psychical Research, on the condition that J. Malcolm Bird, an ASPR official whom he hated, resign. Bird refused, so the books went to the Library of Congress.

His original stage name was Eric the Great.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7001 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 31, 1975.

Has been portrayed in films by Tony Curtis and Adrien Brody--both, like Houdini, of Hungarian ancestry.

The image of Houdini dying while attempting to escape from a water tank in the popular movies has overshadowed the real cause of death: a fan testing his body-strength when he was unprepared for the blow, as he would have been doing his act, which resulted in peritonitis. Some water-tank escapologist showmen even introduce their trick as "The one that killed Houdini".

A common misconception is that his death was caused by a student who tried to test his famously strong stomach muscles by punching him. Although it is true that Houdini was not given sufficient time to prepare himself for the blows, landing him in a hospital, this is not what he died of. He died of diffuse peritonitis, nine days later, because his appendix was ruptured by the unprovoked assault.

Pictured on a USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamp issued in his honor 3 July 2002.

Houdini traveled in the same same show with The Three Keatons, and after a particularly hard fall down the stairs by the (at the time) youngest Keaton, Houdini supposedly said to Joe Keaton, "That's quite a Buster your kid took", which is how Buster Keaton got his name.

Co-founded (with Arthur B. Reeve, John Grey and Louis Grossman) Supreme Pictures Corp. (1919-20), a film production company.

He is mentioned in the song "Ghost Town" by Cat Stevens.