Monthly Archives: March 2019

Near Death Photo

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In 2007, the above photo was listed on eBay with a starting price of $1,250 and ended with no bids. The auction described the photo as taken in a “University area in Canada” shortly before Houdini gave a lecture there.  But we know the photo is actually Houdini posing outside the White House in Washington D.C. [Source: WAH]

I recently saw this photo during my trip to the McCord Museum. So, technically, the photo is in the “University area in Canada”, lol.

In addition to its location, I can also add that this International Newsreel photo was used 10-25-26 with the caption, HOUDINI: NEAR DEATH:

 

So, one can see how you could be misled that this was his last photo.

Happy Birthday to the King of Cards

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In honor of Houdini’s Birthday, thought I would light some candles and share a beautiful photo of Houdini doing a card manipulation late in his career, courtesy of the McCord Museum.

Houdini would feature card flourishes in his 3 Shows In 1.

While I wish we could say this photo is from the Princess Theatre, Montreal October 1926, it appears to be a non-cropped still from a movie short Houdini made earlier (1925/26). See below for comparison.

For more info on the Card Flourishes movie, please see the following post:

In the future, I plan to share some new info on a couple more 1926 photos

Replica Key for Mirror Challenge Handcuff and more

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In honor of Houdini’s Daily Illustrated Mirror Challenge that took place 115 years ago, today, thought I would share a replica key from my collection and some posts I did about the challenge through the years:

2018:

2016:

2015:

2014:

Travel Channel Mysteries At The Museum – Scared to Death and More

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On March 3rd, I watched The Travel Channel’s Mysteries At The Museum Episode, Scared to Death and More, that featured Dorothy Dietrich discussing how Houdini died. The segment was a little over 8 minutes.

The gist of the clip was that Houdini was getting better from the surgery to remove his ruptured appendix until injected with an experimental serum (possibly poison) by a mysterious Dr. Levevre (with possible ties to spiritualism).

This theme (serum may have been poison) was chosen by the show, which meant most of the other things Dorothy touched on did not make the cut.

FWIW: Kalush’s book, Secret Life of Houdini, calls Dr Lefevre “…a post-operative specialist…” and also states that he “…was a homeopathist who had devised an experimental serum to combat the poisons circulating through Houdini’s G.I. tract.”  And according to Kalush, Le Roi Crandon, had a confederate inject Houdini with that serum in Detroit, and it was meant to kill him, not cure him.

All of this said, I am not aware of any link between Crandon and Dr. Lefevre, but the Travel Channel suggests Lefevre had ties to Spiritualism.

You can read the NY times articles (10/26, 10/27, 10/28) that cover George L. Lefevre of Muskegon, Michigan and Houdini’s condition that final week (10/25 – 11/1) at Tom Interval’s excellent website: