Now you see me…
…now you don’t.
Harry Houdini would be the next entry on the list of celebrities that died in a totally avoidable way. I know you are waiting with bated breath to know how it happened.
How did the worlds most famous magician go and join his ancestors, how did he meet his end? For a guy that has thrown himself into a 30 foot harbor, jumped off bridges wearing leg irons, stuffed himself in air-tight boxes for long stretches at a time, and lived to tell about it, it certainly couldn’t have been easy, right?
In 1926, while on tour, the Hungarian escape artist was locked in his Chinese Water Torture Cell and was struck on the foot/ankle by some faulty equipment. He toughed out the rest of the performance but the doctors, after checking him out, said that he had a fractured left foot. This was the beginning of the freak accidents that led to his demise. Neverminding the pain, the magician (unwisely) continued touring. He traveled to Montreal, Canada where he gave a lecture at McGill University.
One day he invited some students to his private dressing room in Princess Theater. The dude’s ankle was still sorer than a loser, so he plopped down on a couch to take a load off. One of the students, J. Gordon Whitehead asked The Great Houdini if the rumors were true. You know, the one about him being able to resist hard punches to the abdomen. Houdini supposedly said the rumor was true and Whitehead went to town on him. Delivering a succession of shots to the hobbled magician’s abdomen, Houdini, caught off guard, took the blows and then brushed them off (he was severely weakened even further afterward).
Days later, he began to complain about stomach pains and cramps. His temperature even rose to 104 degrees Fahrenheit! A doctor figured that the man of mystery had appendicitis and advised him to go to a hospital — immediately.
No go.
Houdini insisted on giving the fans their monies worth and attended his opening performance at Garrick Theater later that night. He struggled through his routine and then collapsed after the final curtain. This show would unfortunately be his last. He was rushed into surgery and had his appendix removed, which had ruptured several days earlier, but it had already managed to poison his insides. Even with a bad prognosis, he clung for dear life until October 31st, when he passed away at 52 years old with his wife Bess and his two brothers right by his side. The official cause of death was peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix.
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