Houdini's Last Trick Was in Detroit — and It Killed Him

The greatest magician who ever lived died in Michigan. On Halloween. At 1:26 in the afternoon.

Harry Houdini was scheduled to play Detroit’s Garrick Theatre on October 24, 1926. Two days earlier, in Montreal, a college student named J. Gordon Whitehead had visited Houdini’s dressing room and asked if it was true that Houdini could take any punch to the gut. Houdini said yes. Whitehead — without giving him time to brace — landed several hard blows. Houdini finished his Montreal shows in pain, then took an overnight train to Detroit.

By the time he reached Detroit, Houdini was running a 104-degree fever. Doctors begged him to skip the show. He refused. He walked onstage at the Garrick Theatre on the night of October 24th, started his act, and collapsed during the first half. Backstage, he was offered a doctor; he insisted on finishing. He went back out and completed the full two-and-a-half hour show. Then he collapsed again — for the last time onstage.

At Grace Hospital, doctors found a ruptured appendix and full-blown peritonitis. They operated, but the poison was already in his bloodstream. Houdini held on for a week. On October 31, 1926 — Halloween — he died at age 52 in Room 401. Whether the Montreal punches caused the ruptured appendix or merely masked the pain of one already failing has been debated for a century.

His three Detroit landmarks — the Statler Hotel where he stayed, the Garrick Theatre where he performed, and Grace Hospital where he died — have all since been demolished. Houdini is buried in Queens, New York.