On October 22, 1926, Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead went straight for Harry Houdini’s greatest asset: his guts. Whitehead, a student at McGill, was aware of the world-renowned magician’s boast that he could withstand any man’s punch. Catching him off guard in his dressing room at the Princess Theatre in Montreal, he delivered a combination of knockout blows to the escape artist’s abdomen. Houdini, splayed on a couch, didn’t tense in time. Two days later, his appendix ruptured. He died from an infection just over a week later, on Halloween, exactly 100 years ago.
The impact of Whitehead’s fist has often come under fire. Did it actually kill Houdini? It’s unlikely that trauma can cause acute appendicitis. Now, according to Dr. Larrian Gillespie, a urologist and the author of the recent book Houdini: The Man Who Died Twice, there’s a new suspect: a bowl of chop suey. Dr. Gillespie, speaking to The New York Times, claimed that Houdini was actually killed by a “fibrous mass” of the dish that obstructed his bowels. Another theory, conspired by the 2006 book The Secret Life of Houdini, suggests that Houdini may have been poisoned by spiritualists. Which is not as crazy as it sounds. He was, after all, on a crusade against them.