THE HOUDINI FILE: HOUDINI IN PARIS: CAGLIOSTRO & ORSON WELLES

Cagliostro's portrait is over Harry's left shoulder.

We’ve previously introduced you to Houdini’s unlikely hero - the infamous Count de Cagliostro, prince of charlatans. Harry loved to work in his library right under a rare original portrait of the 18th century occultist who, one might guess, represented everything he detested.

Bust of Cagliostro by Houdon

Cagliostro: fraud, deceiver, thief, sham psychic, con man, practitioner of witchcraft. And yet:

“Do you regard an impostor like Cagliostro as severely as you do the spiritualists of our day?”

“No,” was [Houdini’s] answer. “There was not any honest way at that time for an honest wonder-worker to make a living. Nor was the spiritualist of that age breaking the civil law as he is today.”

— The New York Times Magazine, 1926.

What did Houdini see in this man everyone else regarded as a notorious huckster? We stumbled on the answer while researching Houdini’s adventures in Paris.

It was in the bookstalls and backstreets of Paris that Harry began to collect his unparalleled library. One of the first books he devoured was Alexander Dumas’ thousand-page historical novel about Cagliostro.

[Video link here. Clip from Cagliostro, starring Orson Welles.]

Houdini discovered Cagliostro’s life had been very much like his own. His parents struggled for survival and the young man, then called Balsamo, ran away with a traveling circus. Soon afterward, he changed his name and became the most famous magician in the world.

That’s where Orson Welles enters our story. As a young rebel himself he first learned magic from Houdini. He played Cagliostro in a film made from Dumas' book. Welles was a first-class magician in addition to his talents as actor, writer and director. In the role of Cagliostro he took cues from Houdini's act in Dr. Hill's Wild West Medicine Show.

Volume Two of Dumas’ Cagliostro saga is entitled “The Queen’s Necklace.” It’s based on the true story of perhaps the greatest deception in history, performed not at a carnival but on the world stage. The Affair of Marie Antoinette's Necklace is considered by historians to be the proximate cause of the French Revolution, the turning point from ancient to modern history, the death of feudalism and the birth of democracy.

Cagliostro played a key role in this affair and Houdini became obsessed with it. He spent many years hunting and gathering the original forged documents and secret letters which became the world’s foremost collection of material on the Queen’s Necklace and the prize of Houdini's famous library.

We'll delve more deeply into Cagliostro's role in the Diamond Necklace affair and Houdini's obsession with it in future posts.