Montreal punches cited in theories about Harry Houdini’s Oct. 31, 1926 death, Fox News reports
Harry Houdini died on Oct. 31, 1926, and Fox News Digital reports that questions persist about whether a series of punches delivered in Montreal nine days earlier contributed to his fatal peritonitis.
Fox News Digital says Houdini’s official cause of death was listed as peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. A key event in the timeline was a series of blows to his stomach on Oct. 22, 1926, delivered by a university student identified in the account as J. Gordon Whitehead in Houdini’s Montreal dressing room.
Roger Dreyer, president of the Houdini Revealed museum in New York, told Fox News Digital that the punches interrupted Houdini before he could brace himself and that others in the room begged the student to stop.
Houdini historian and biographer John Cox told Fox News Digital that many historians believe the blows caused Houdini to ignore early symptoms of appendicitis and delay seeking treatment, though Fox News Digital states that causation was never proven.
Fox News Digital reports the punches also affected Houdini’s estate: Dreyer said Houdini had a $25,000 life insurance policy with a clause that doubled the payout if he died from an accident, and the family received the additional $25,000 after his death.
The Fox Nation three-part series “Houdini: Back from the Dead,” also noted by Fox News Digital, uses artificial intelligence to recreate an imagined contemporary interview with Houdini to explore his life, relationships and feats.
Dreyer told Fox News Digital that Houdini and his wife, Bess, had agreed to attempt contact if one of them died; according to Fox News Digital, Bess held seances every Halloween for 10 years before concluding she could not make contact with him.
Fox News Digital quotes Dreyer and Cox saying public interest in Houdini endures because of his life and work; Cox said researchers are still trying to determine how Houdini performed many of his escapes.
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