Porter would later move to New York City and find great success there. He published over three hundred eighty stories in the last eight years of his life.
One of his most famous stories is “The Gift of the Magi.” You can hear it next Saturday, December twenty-fifth, on the Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.
The Great Houdini
DOUG JOHNSON: Our listener question this week comes from Anemina Raente Vaijero who wants to know about the life of magician Harry Houdini.
His real name was Ehrich Weisz. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in eighteen seventy-four. His father was a rabbi, a Jewish religious leader. His family moved to the United States two years later.
Young Ehrich loved show business. At the age of nine, he called himself “The Prince of the Air” as he performed on a swing high above the audience. But Ehrich always dreamed of becoming a magician.
One of his favorite entertainers was a French magician named Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Ehrich took his last name, changed the pronunciation, added an “i” and began calling himself Harry Houdini. At first, he performed many different kinds of magic. But in eighteen ninety-nine, he decided to spend most of his time working on “escapes.”
Harry Houdini began performing his escape from the Chinese Water Torture Cell in 1913
One of his most famous tricks was the “Chinese Water Torture.” His feet were locked together and he was lowered, upside down, into a glass box filled with water. A curtain was placed in front of the box so the audience could not see how he did the trick. Several minutes would go by. Just when everyone was sure the Great Houdini had drowned, the curtain would drop. There stood Houdini on the stage, free from the deadly box.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25