When vaudeville impresario Martin Beck "discovered" a struggling Harry Houdini in 1899, it was Houdini's ability to escape from handcuffs which caught his attention. Although Houdini was hardly ...
Harry Houdini had issued a challenge to every magician ... It was a career that had made the then-48-year-old one of the highest-paid vaudeville performers on the circuit for many years.