?Aw, g?wan with your act,? growled Willard to Houdini from his perch in the Orpheum?s balcony. ?I paid for my seat here??
Obviously P.D. McCartin didn?t read the Police Gazette or whatever else was the 1916 equivalent of People Magazine, because he had no idea that Harry Houdini was one of the biggest celebrities in the world. Chief McCartin?he headed the Fire Department in Colorado Springs, Colorado?didn?t even know who the extraordinary performer billed as ?Houdini the Great? was.
But as McCartin stood outside his firehouse one day that fall and saw strolling down the street the man in town to enthrall another vaudeville crowd with his ability to squirm out of a straightjacket, a chained and padlocked trunk and the stoutest handcuffs that could be found, something about him rang a bell.
McCartin approached him and said, ?Pardon me, but isn?t your name Weiss??
?It is,? replied Houdini, whose straight handle was Erich Weiss, ?but I do not remember you.?
?You fought for me several times,? said McCartin. ?I used to run bouts in the basement of the Kirby House in Milwaukee in 1886. Mickey Riley was one of my best performers. One day he said he had a likely looking chap in tow. He brought you in. I remember you gave Mickey a bad licking and earned the dollar that went to the winner.?
Born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874, the future Harry Houdini was four years old when his family landed in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Weisses moved to Milwaukee in 1883. Beating Mickey Riley in the ring when he was 12 might?ve portended a bright future in boxing for Erich. Riley went on to fame as a big thorn in the side of Battling Nelson. They fought four times before Nelson became lightweight champion of the world in 1906. The Milwaukee boxer won one by decision, the police stopped one, and the other two were draws. ?That?s one fellow I never could lick,? lamented Nelson in his autobiography.
(For their final bout on July 24, 1903, in Hurley, Wisconsin, they weighed in at a local firehouse. Getting off the scales, Riley sneered at Nelson, ?What a licking I?m going to give you tonight!? ?Why wait?? responded Nelson, and they went at it right there until the firefighters pulled them apart. That night there were no boxing gloves on hand, and somebody came up with the skintight gloves purportedly worn by John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan in their heavyweight title fight in 1882. Maybe they were, because there was so much dried blood on them the gloves were stiffer than Donald Trump?s ?do. ?Of course, the mere mention of the old time gladiators using the gloves stirred our blood up to a fighting pitch,? wrote Nelson, ?and how we did tear, maul and slam each other for fifteen rounds.? The verdict was another draw.)
Young Weiss must have shown remarkable ring potential for Patsy McCartin?one of Milwaukee?s top pugilists in the 1880s?to remember him for it 30 years later. But Weiss chose a different path to fame, and a different name, and when Harry Houdini returned to his boyhood hometown in 1916 for a week?s engagement at the Majestic Theater he was raking in $3,000 a week (almost $67,000 in today?s dollars).
?The world?s heavyweight champion is in Milwaukee this week,? began a story about him by J.J. Delaney in the local Sentinel. It was a reference to one of Houdini?s most stunning recent feats?when he turned the conqueror of Jack Johnson into a national laughingstock.
Three months earlier, Houdini was headlining at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. As he did everywhere he performed, the escapologist picked 10 persons from the audience to come up on stage and attest that the straightjackets, handcuffs and other implements of imprisonment used in his act were not rigged. But this time, after seven men had been selected for the task Houdini stepped to the footlights for a special announcement.
?Now I need three more gentlemen on this stage and there is a man here tonight who doesn?t know I am aware of his presence,? he said. ?He will be enough for three ordinary gentlemen if he will serve on this committee. He is Jess Willard, our champion.?
Jess Willard had become the most famous man in the world the previous April when he won the heavyweight championship of the world by knocking out Jack Johnson in 26 rounds in Havana, Cuba. Known as ?The Pottawatomie Giant,? the 6?6??, 230-pound Kansan was considered the epitome of rugged manliness.
After he won the title Willard moved to Los Angeles, and when the Orpheum audience heard from Houdini that the Greatest White Hope of all was in their midst, reported the Sentinel, there was ?tumultuous handclapping? and ?cheers and shrieks resounded throughout the house.?
?I will leave it to the audience, Mr. Willard,? declared Houdini to even louder cheers. ?You see, they want to see you.?
The problem was that except when he was in the ring, Big Jess preferred not to be seen. Not since Jim Jeffries ruled the heavyweights had there been such an irascible emblem of American manhood.
?Aw, g?wan with your act,? growled Willard to Houdini from his perch in the Orpheum?s balcony. ?I paid for my seat here.?
When Houdini good-naturedly tried again, the glowering Willard said, ?Give me the same wages you pay those other fellows and I?ll come down.?
The audience of about 2,000 was stunned into silence. ?Come on down,? Houdini said less genially. ?I pay these men nothing.?
Willard gruffly refused again to scattered hissing and booing. Then Houdini drew himself up to his full 5?6? and held up a hand for quiet.
?I was mistaken,? he said. ?I called for gentlemen, Mr. Willard, but you are not one. Now I want to tell you something else. Remember, I will be Houdini the Great when you are no longer heavyweight champion!?
The cheers accompanying Houdini?s rhetorical haymaker were so thunderous that Willard fled the theater. Then the public derision engendered by the incident caused the heavyweight champion to decamp from Los Angeles. First, though, he whined in a letter to the LA Examiner: ?Because I would not make a personal appearance on the stage to strengthen the performer?s moth-eaten act, the press agent of the theater rushed to the penny papers and got more publicity than he usually gets in a year. All this because of the position I happen to occupy in public life. When I declined to come down to the stage, this should have settled the matter and the stage ?hero? should have gone on about his work. The only reason in the world he ?worked up a scene? was because he knew my name would be a boost for him? I do not believe that the laws of California permit of a theatrical management singling out a patron for the abuse that I have had to stand.?
Prickly Jess stood a lot of abuse. Two days before he lost his title to Jack Dempsey in Toledo, Ohio, on July 4, 1919, his eye was cut during a public sparring session with Walter Monohan. ?What a big ham you are, Willard!? yelled a spectator. ?You?re a big bum when a little guy like Monohan can cut your eye. What will Dempsey do to you??
The crowd laughed, enraging the champion. ?If any of you fellows out there think you can do as much to me or more than Monohan,? he roared, ?step right up and take a crack at me!?
Lucky for Big Jess that his nemesis Houdini the Great?dead 87 years ago this Halloween?wasn?t around then to give it his best shot.
