As he directed, she handed him the ashes. One night, he asked her to write the name-that she had never told him-of her dead father on a piece of paper and then burn it in a gas flame he lit. Houdini wanted to teach Bess to appear to be psychic, as well as assuage her fear of black magic. Houdini meant training to be a part of Harry’s daunting magic act.

She didn’t really know her new husband the Weisses’ ways were foreign to her. Still, it was a shock for Bess to be abruptly removed from her mother and ten siblings. Cecilia Weiss, by contrast, hugged her son’s wide-eyed shiksa bride and murmured that she was now her daughter. Bess’s people were Roman Catholic, and her mother was horrified to learn that she had wed not just a Jew but a lowly showman. There was good reason for their elopement. Their courtship, such as it was, lasted only a couple of weeks before they exchanged vows and celebrated their matrimony at the carnival resort that was West Brighton. Bess would one day joke that she sold her virginity for an orange to a destitute Houdini. But given that her troupe played the beer halls on the Bowery, her innocent airs may have been more show than substance. She was a seamstress for a tailor shop and a singer with the Floral Sisters. Bess had a lovely, slightly accented voice and large, naïve blue eyes that seemed unaccustomed to navigating the world of grown-ups. While just one year older than she, Harry felt the urge to shield her from his rough-and-tumble circles, including brawny Dash, as she was barely ninety pounds and looked like a child when wearing certain outfits.

An eighteen-year-old Brooklyn girl of German origin, Bess Rahner was at a music hall when Dash Houdini introduced her to his brother, the senior performer in their magic duo.

Houdini bess