Columnist Susan Snyder: Houdini controversy getting hairy

Friday, June 4, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

A Las Vegas magician says Harry Houdini is still fooling the masses, despite claims this week by Wisconsin museum officials who say they have unveiled the secret behind the Houdini's hallmark "Metamorphosis" trick.

"There are not even illusion builders who could walk up to a trunk and say this is definitely the way Houdini performed this," said Dixie Dooley, a Las Vegas magician and owner of an extensive collection of original Houdini memorabilia.

Dooley, whose stage appearance even resembles Houdini's, has just released a course on escapology techniques through the company Penguin Magic, and is set to open a new show titled "Escape" on July 8 at the Riviera.

Dooley knows his Houdini -- so much so that he was the magician who performed for the 1989 grand-opening of the Appleton, Wis., Outagamie Museum original exhibit devoted to Houdini.

On Wednesday the museum opened a new exhibit, "A.K.A. Houdini," which features a "substitution trunk" with sliding panels that museum officials claim reveals how the handcuffed Houdini emerged from a sack locked inside the trunk and traded places with an assistant who stood outside.

Dooley said the substitution trunk is only a prop, and simply being able to climb inside the trunk to see how it works still doesn't show how Houdini did the trick.

"His exact way of performing it was never related to anyone. There is no documentation of it, and there's no existing (original) trunk," Dooley said. "If you're trying to educate people, then you're misleading them by saying this is method Houdini used."

Dooley said he has spent a lot of time and money studying the life of the magician, who some say was born in Budapest, Hungary, others say was born in Appleton, and still others claim was born on a boat crossing the Atlantic en route to the United States from Budapest.

"Houdini always claimed his hometown was Appleton because he wanted to be known as an American magician," Dooley said.

Even if museum researchers have run across documentation on how Houdini performed the "Metamorphosis" or any other illusion, there would be no good reason to make the longstanding ethics of magic disappear.

"When we first opened the Houdini museum, we tried not to expose any of Houdini's tricks," Dooley said. "The audience really doesn't want to know. If a comedian goes out and tells a punch line before he tells the joke, nobody's going to laugh. He's ruined the entertainment."

The new exhibit is set to run for 10 years, according to an Associated Press report. It includes hands-on displays and 38 artifacts.

Museum officials told the Associated Press they haven't revealed anything that's not already posted on the Internet or published in books. But that hasn't stopped complaints from those who oppose the idea of revealing Houdini's secrets, including one from illusionist David Copperfield.

Dooley emphasized that simply finding the trunk's sliding panels doesn't begin to reveal how Houdini performed "Metamorphosis."

"No one knows. I don't know. You don't know. His exact methods were carried to the grave," Dooley said. "The magic was in the man's personality."