Bess Houdini

Wilhelmina Beatrice Houdini, born Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner on January 23, 1876, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American stage assistant and performer who appeared on Broadway in 1926 in Harry Houdini. The daughter of German immigrants Gebhard Rahner, a cabinet maker, and Balbina Rahner, née Bugel, she would go on to become one half of one of the most recognized performance partnerships in American entertainment history.

Rahner was performing a song and dance act called The Floral Sisters at Coney Island when she first encountered the Houdini brothers. Though initially courted by the younger brother Theo, known professionally as Theodore Hardeen, she fell in love with Harry Houdini and married him on June 22, 1894. The couple performed together for several years under the billing The Houdinis, and their signature illusion, Metamorphosis, remained part of their act throughout Harry's career. Beyond performing, Houdini took on practical responsibilities for the full evening roadshow, designing and sewing the costumes. She also managed the couple's collection of pets and maintained a personal collection of dolls. The marriage produced no children; her niece, Marie Hinson Blood, attributed this to a medical condition Houdini had that prevented her from bearing children.

Following Harry Houdini's death on October 31, 1926, Bess opened a tea house in New York and performed a vaudeville act in which she froze a man in ice. She subsequently moved to Inwood, Manhattan, where she conducted séances in an attempt to make contact with her late husband. To guard against fraudulent mediums, she and Harry had agreed in advance on a secret code that only the two of them knew. The phrase she listened for was: "Rosabelle – answer – tell – pray answer – look – tell – answer answer – tell." The word "Rosabelle" held particular significance — it was the name of the song she had been singing when she and Harry first met, and it was also engraved inside her wedding band. The remaining words corresponded to a private spelling cipher the couple had developed for use in a mentalism act, in which specific words or word pairs each represented a letter of the alphabet. Decoded, the full phrase spelled out the word "BELIEVE."

In the 1930s, Houdini relocated to Hollywood, California, where she worked alongside her manager and partner Edward Saint to preserve and promote Harry Houdini's legacy. On Halloween 1936, the two organized what they called the Final Houdini Séance on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. When no contact was made, Houdini extinguished a candle beside a photograph of Harry that was said to have burned for ten years. In 1943 she stated that ten years was long enough to wait for any man. After the 1936 séance, she asked Walter B. Gibson — writer of the mystery series The Shadow and a friend, confidant, publicist, and ghostwriter for Harry Houdini — to continue the annual tribute. Gibson held the séances for many years at New York's Magic Towne House, with participants including Houdini biographer Milbourne Christopher, before passing the tradition on to Dorothy Dietrich.

Houdini appeared as herself in the 1938 film Religious Racketeers, also known as Mystic Circle Murder, directed by Frank O'Conner and produced by Fanchon Royer. In the film she expressed the view that communication with the deceased is impossible. The film drew controversy from spiritualists while receiving praise from magicians, and was released on DVD in 2006 by Alpha Video. On stage, the role of Bess Houdini has been portrayed by Judith Bruce in Man of Magic in 1966, Viviane Thomas in Houdini – A Circus Opera in 1979, Kim Lores in The Great Houdini in 1999, and Evanna Lynch in Houdini in 2013. On screen, the character has been played by Janet Leigh in the 1953 film Houdini, Sally Struthers in The Great Houdini in 1976, Stacy Edwards in the 1998 Houdini, and Kristen Connolly in the 2014 Houdini.

Bess Houdini died of a heart attack on February 11, 1943, at the age of 67, while aboard an eastbound train traveling from Los Angeles to New York City, near Needles, California. Because she had been raised Roman Catholic and Harry Houdini was Jewish, her family did not permit her to be interred alongside him at Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York. She is buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.