Hollywood Flashback: In 1919, Houdini Was Seduced by Movie Magic – Hollywood Reporter
The famed magician, whose life was the inspiration behind 2013’s ‘Now You See Me’ and its sequel (out June 10), made his Hollywood debut in silent action films such as ‘The Grim Game’ and ‘Terror Island.’
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Note: The above story mentions that [Harry] Houdini lived in L.A. at 1616 N. Curson Ave. which is not quite true; it was actually Bess Houdini that lived there with Ed Saint sometime around 1936.
While filming a moving picture [Terror Island] on Catalina Island in California, he took part in a real-life nautical drama. A small vessel had been disabled and was in immediate danger of capsizing or smashing into the rocks off Sugar Loaf Point. [The Witch of Lime Street]
Dietrich is considered the first woman to gain prominence as a female magician and escape artist since the days of Houdini, breaking the glass ceiling for women in the field. She’s the first and only woman to have performed the jinxed catching of a bullet in her mouth. a feat that has killed twelve men and injured many others. The bullet catch is the one stunt Houdini announced he would do and then backed out of. She’s also the first woman to perform a straitjacket escape while suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a burning rope as shown on a Home Box Office Special The World’s Greatest Escapes.
Last year she uncovered Houdini’s best, and believed lost, film “The Grim Game.” It was restored and shown for the first time in 96 years at the finale of the week long Turner Classic Movies Festival in 2015 and televised last October. TCM flew Dietrich out to Hollywood for the premier of the restored film as the closing event to a standing ovation. Additionally she replaced Houdini’s bust at his grave site destroyed by vandals and missing for over 30 years. She is founder and director of The Houdini Museum of The Only Building in the World Dedicated to Houdini, originally the first Houdini museum in New York City at The Magic Towne House before moving the collection to Scranton, PA. in 1980.
The 2006 Columbia Encyclopedia included Dietrich among their “eight most noted magicians of the late 20th century”. Early on, as a teenager, she already was dubbed as “The First Lady of Magic.” Dietrich, often called the Female Houdini, has duplicated many of Houdini’s original escapes. In addition to escapes and large-scale stunts, Dietrich performs magic with live animals such as doves, rabbits, poodles and ducks. She’s known for sawing men in half, and for levitating volunteers from the audience. Dietrich has created special shows for such companies as Maidenform, Pooltrol, Yago Sangria, Manhattan Shirts, as well as fashion and cosmetic companies. She is a regular performer for trade and industrial events.
Dorothy Dietrich’s many appearances on national TV includes Home Box Office Special “The World’s Greatest Escapes” as special guest star, You Asked For It, Travel Channel, Magic Road Trip, Mysteries at The Museum, The Bill Cosby Variety Show, The Tom Snyder Show along with Kiss, Evening Magazine, The Montel Williams Show, twice with Rich Little on You Asked For It, Real People, TV Land’s Myths & Legends, Exploring The Unknown, Biography Channel’s Dead Famous-Houdini, Just For The Record, The Best of Everything, Klein Time with Robert Klein, Man and His Mysteries with Dick Van Patten, Pierre Ferland’s Autobus du Canada (three segments), SyFi Channel’s Deals From The Dark Side, Huff Post TV on Houdini’s Birthday, NPR Weekend edition Trials and Tribulation of being a woman in a man’s field, PBS On The Pennsylvania Road, PBS Strange and Unusual Museums, and PBS Conversations. Part of popular culture she was even mentioned in a segment on House MD in a scene about her bullet catch. (Year 8, Segment 8, Perils of Paranoia).
