The Secret Life of Houdini (41 page)

Houdini had previously vowed that he would never play Australia. “I have been all over the world except to Australia, and I’m not going there,” he told a reporter in Bristol in 1904, exaggerating his globetrotting. “It’s a bit too far to get back from shouldst anything happen to my mother. She is a dear, my mother is, and I’ve bought her two homes, one in the town and the other in the country. She’ll never want,” he said, echoing the vow he made to his father. Yet here he was, with Bess, three assistants, and his mechanic Brassac in tow.

A rare photo of Houdini’s brain trust (l to r): Hardeen (with son), Joe Hyman, the mysterious Harry Day, the powerful Lord Northcliffe, and Dundas Slater.
From the collection of Patrick Culliton

Houdini seemed to want people to believe that he was enduring this anguish for strictly financial reasons. “
I RECEIVE FULL SALARY WHILE ON BOARD THE STEAMER
,” he wrote his friend Goldston, who published several magic magazines, after he had signed the contracts for Australia. “So I get paid 12 weeks for resting and 12 for working. That is the only condition I would go all that distance in and if you wish you could make use of the news, as no one knows it, I mean officially.”

There was another more important agenda to Houdini’s Australian trip. In their March 1910 issue,
The Player
, a New York–based show business magazine published by the White Rats, a vaudeville actors union, and edited by a friend of Houdini, reported that while the magician was in Australia he was under contract to make ten airship flights. “Houdini is the first to invade the Antipodes with a flying machine. His contract stipulates for ten flights, each to be of more than five minutes’ duration, for which he will receive £20,000, or £2,000 for each flight.” These figures seem large but to put them in context, in April, while Houdini was in Australia, Lord Northcliffe would pay a French pilot named Paulhan $50,000 in prize money for winning a London to Manchester air race. Aero Clubs and governmental agencies throughout the world were offering pilots premium amounts to stage flights over heavily populated areas to increase the public consciousness of the marvels of aviation. And, perhaps more insidiously, the dangers of airplanes if used for offensive military operations. At the same time that these flights were being conducted, the war department of the United States began tests of a cannon that could be used as a means of defense against possible aerial invasion.

As part of the British Commonwealth, Australia was of vital strategic importance to England. Once thought to be protected by the vast ocean around it, the advent of airplanes that could be deployed from ships made the Australians newly vulnerable to an air attack. What was particularly disquieting to the Australian intelligence community was that Japan was about to build an aviation corps and by 1911 would have four captains and twenty-four lieutenants learning flight techniques in Germany and would order two German-built floating airship construction and repairing stations.

There was an added incentive for Houdini to make the long trek to Australia. If he could successfully fly his Voisin there, he would go down in history as the first man to achieve flight on that continent. With his competitive fires stoked, Houdini threw himself into the task of preparing his aircraft. A few days before their departure, Houdini visited the Voisin factory in Paris with Brassac and noted the many improvements that had been made to the newer models. They loaded up on extra parts for both the motor and the chassis. “Hope all will be well with me and my machine,” Houdini noted in his diary. He also felt compelled to record his wife’s preparations for the voyage. Was there a tinge of envy in his entry? “Bess out early and shopping, buys dresses and hats, happy as a lark. Her trunks full to overflowing. She has no worries.”

The next day, Houdini and Brassac traveled to the aviation grounds and watched as a female pilot flew her Voisin straight into a tree, totaling the plane. At the site, Houdini met a Belgian who was also going to Australia with his machine. Houdini noted: “Is a bit sore on me, looks on me as a rival.” They returned the following day to try and taxi in the Voisin, but the weather was too foggy. On Thursday, January 6, they caught the train to Marseilles, where they would embark on their ocean voyage. Brassac was within thirty seconds of missing the train, and when he finally sprinted on board, he realized that he had forgotten a spare part of the plane’s chassis that had been packed for the journey. “I gave him hell,” Houdini wrote.

Antonio Brassac awoke at nearly four
A.M.
He was huddled underneath the wing of his cherished Voisin, which itself was perched under a huge tent on the grounds of Mr. Plumpton’s paddock at Digger’s Rest, a small township approximately twenty miles from Melbourne. Any minute now, Houdini’s car would arrive from Melbourne, and he knew that he would be pressured into allowing the magician to try to take the big bird up. Brassac pulled a hand through his curly hair, fingered his mustache, stretched a bit, and then slowly pulled himself up. He walked over to the side of the plane where the red bandanna had been attached. Sure enough, the red flag was fluttering in the predawn wind.

“Merde!” the small Frenchman shouted, hopping around and cursing the sky with his hands outstretched. “Beaucoup de vent! Beaucoup de vent!”

It was unclear whose safety Brassac was more concerned with: Houdini’s or the Voisin’s.

A few minutes later, Houdini and his assistants arrived. That morning the entertainer had brought along a reporter from
The Melbourne Argus
, so when Brassac loudly informed him that this damned country of great winds had once again made it too risky to take the plane up, Houdini was forced to merely point out the features of his Voisin. Since February 24, when the plane, still in crates, had been carted out here and assembled, the predawn drive from Melbourne, where Houdini was performing to sold-out houses, had been a daily ritual that ended in disappointment. Even more disappointing were the nights when Houdini and his crew had driven out to Digger’s Rest immediately after the show and had bunked down with Brassac, hoping to catch a few minutes of respite from the wind when the sun came up. It was a grueling schedule. “My eyes are getting weak, think from loss of sleep,” Houdini wrote almost a month into this routine.

Oddly enough, there was another airplane right next to them in the paddock, a rebuilt Wright machine named the
Stella
owned by L. A. Adamson, the headmaster of Melbourne’s Wesley College. Adamson was adamant that the glory of making the first flight in Australian history should not go to an American magician, so he hired a Brit named Ralph C. Banks to pilot his craft and ordered him up in the air at the first possible opportunity.

On March 1, Banks seized that opportunity. That morning, Houdini was just motoring up to the field when he saw that Banks was about to take off. Besides Brassac’s bandanna, most pilots used the match test to determine if conditions were acceptable to fly. If the wind could blow out a lit match, you’d stay on the ground. Houdini lit a match. It was immediately extinguished. Houdini could only shake his head in disbelief as Banks began to taxi down the field.

Houdini’s aviation corps pose in Australia.
From the collection of Dr. Bruce Averbook

The Wright machine rose to fifteen feet. “There goes the record,” Houdini moaned. Brassac knew better. Banks had gone about 300 yards when the plane suddenly dove headfirst toward the ground. The entire craft was demolished with only the motor and two wheels left intact. It was a miracle that Banks wasn’t killed. He escaped with a few scratches, a black eye, and a torn lip.

On the morning of March 18, Houdini got his long-awaited chance. The sun had come up and the slight breeze hardly even ruffled the leaves of the gum trees that surrounded the field. A little after eight
A.M.
, the Voisin was taken out of its tent. Houdini warmed up by merely rolling the plane across the field a few times, without attempting to ascend. He came back to the starting point and called his mechanic over.

“Brassac, there is something wrong,” Houdini said.

Brassac went to the rear box and made an adjustment to the rudder. That had explained why the plane wouldn’t rise the previous day when Houdini had raised the elevating planes with the steering wheel. Brassac shooed Houdini out of the pilot’s seat and hopped in. He demonstrated the effects of his subtle adjustment and then climbed down. Houdini took his seat behind the wheel.

“Un, deux, trois,” Brassac counted off and then sharply twisted the propeller to start the engine. It caught and spun swiftly. Houdini disengaged the clutch and the machine began to roll. He brought his speed up to thirty-five miles per hour and after rolling fifty yards, he pushed down on the steering wheel, and the plane leaped into the air. Houdini rose to a height of about twenty-five feet and began to fly around the field.

“He’s up,” a few of the spectators shouted.

“I love you, I love you,” Brassac shouted in the direction of the Voisin.

He had become so excited that he forgot to speak French.

Within a minute, Houdini had executed a perfect landing. He was only trying out his wings.

He immediately went back into a short roll and then quickly burst into the air. He stayed at the same altitude but remained up in the air about a minute longer. As he was easing the plane back down, he forgot to straighten out the elevating planes, which had been depressed to bring him down. Thankfully, the guard wheel at the tip of the plane made contact with the earth. The plane skidded to a stop for a few yards with its nose on the ground and its tail in the air. Houdini moved forward in his seat, getting ready to throw himself clear of the heavy propeller that was screaming behind him. At the last second, he finally straightened out the planes and the machine righted itself. Brassac and his assistants ran out and pulled up the plane.

Houdini was just starting. After a few minutes’ break, he rolled out again. The plane ascended to its previous height and then headed for the big gum trees. At the last second, Houdini soared over the trees and swept gloriously up into the ether. Never descending below one hundred feet, he circled the field to the cheers of the crowd, which had been swelled by the arrival of some nearby farmers, intent on checking out the progress of the strange metallic bird. After three circuits that took about four minutes, he descended perfectly, landing within a few feet of where he took off. Houdini was the first person to fly in Australia.

Gasping with excitement and emotion, Houdini jumped out of the pilot seat and hit the ground, surrounded by well-wishers. His brow was creased with perspiration, and his hands were cold and clammy to the touch. He threw his arms up, posing for the photographers and yelled, “I can fly! I can fly!” Just then a bird landed on the wing right above Houdini’s head and squawked.

Houdini laughed. “He’s telling me that I can’t fly worth a cuss.”

Mindful of history, Houdini had the spectators sign a statement attesting to his feat. Even his rival, Ralph Banks, was pleased to shake his hand in congratulations. The magician would go on to complete fourteen more flights over the next few days at Digger’s Rest, including a flight that lasted more than seven minutes and spanned six miles, but this first one was the sweetest.