The 20th century’s most celebrated escape artist cheated the Grim Reaper many times onstage, so it seems unbelievable that something as mundane as a gut punch would do him in. There’s still doubt about what exactly took his life, but the consensus is that it did involve several blows to the abdomen.
Most of the details involving Harry Houdini’s demise are still disputed, but the basic circumstances are generally agreed upon. Houdini was known to ignore physical pain to keep performing. Weeks before his end, he had fractured his ankle in Albany, New York, while performing his Chinese Water Torture Cell routine. But instead of getting medical treatment, Houdini finished the show and continued his tour. On October 22, 1926, Houdini was in his Montreal dressing room nursing his ankle and visiting with three McGill University students. One of them, Joselyn Gordon Whitehead, asked Houdini about his oft-repeated claim that he could withstand even the hardest punches by tightening his stomach muscles. (It’s unclear whether Houdini actually bragged about this, which is just one of the details in dispute.) Houdini replied that it was true, and Whitehead asked if he could put Houdini’s claim to the test. Houdini agreed, but apparently didn’t expect Whitehead to punch him immediately.
Whitehead abruptly punched a reclining Houdini as hard as he could four or five times until Houdini asked him to stop. Houdini said he was fine, but that afternoon he began experiencing stomach pains, and the next day he had a fever of 104. Ignoring the advice of his doctors, Houdini tried to perform his act in Detroit on October 24, but couldn’t finish his performance and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors discovered he had a ruptured appendix and removed it. But Houdini developed peritonitis and passed a week later, on Halloween.
Aside from the circumstances, the facts of Houdini’s demise are in doubt, too. Medical examiners never performed an autopsy, so it was never proven that he had succumbed to peritonitis. It was also never proven that the punches to his stomach actually ruptured his appendix, or if it happened for unrelated reasons. Additionally, some have theorized that Houdini didn’t perish from peritonitis, but from a poisoning. Houdini had spent several years vocally denouncing “spiritualists,” or people who claim to be able to contact those who have passed, and spiritualists had threatened Houdini before. However, there’s no evidence that Houdini’s demise involved foul play.
Whether a punch to the gut caused his peritonitis or not, a major factor was Houdini’s decision to ignore his doctors.
