If someone is described as a ‘Houdini’ today, it usually means that person is adept at getting out of difficult situations. In a sense, that is what ‘Harry Houdini’ – born Ehrich Weiss to an impoverished rabbi and his wife in Budapest –sought to achieve when, as a young man, he emigrated to the United States. Like many Jewish immigrants, he tried to find his place through assimilation into American society. He transformed from Ehrich to Ehrie to Harry, his impetus to make the big time emerging from dire poverty. After one of his brothers died at 12 of tuberculosis Houdini literally ran away to join the circus as a trapeze artist, appearing as ‘Ehrich, the Prince of the Air’.