Houdini and Brindamour: Dueling Escape Artists in San Francisco

Houdini appeared in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theatre on Ellis Street in September of 1907. Next door to the Orpheum was another vaudeville theater, The Princess. A rival escape artist, Brindamour, was booked into the Princess Theater during the last week of Houdini's contract.

George W. Brindamour was born to French Canadian parents in Cannon Mills, Minnesota, on April 5, 1870. A one-time photographer, Brindamour began performing handcuff escapes at the turn of the century. He claimed to have been the originator of the handcuff act.

In 1900, when Houdini was first finding success in the U.S., Brindamour twice appeared in opposite theaters in Providence and Philadelphia, offering an exposé of Houdini's act. Houdini soon took off to Europe where he became a superstar. His absence allowed Brindamour to gain a foothold in American vaudeville with his version of the handcuff act.

A confrontation between Houdini and Brindamour had been building during the summer of 1907. The men sniped at each other in the pages of Variety, which ran an ad touting Brindamour's $1,000 per week salary as the highest ever paid by the Western States Vaudeville Association. Rumor had it that the William Morris Agency had signed Brindamour to play against Houdini, who had recently signed with a rival agency. To tweak Houdini even more, the Princess advertised Brindamour as "King of All Handcuff Kings." Variety predicted that "fur should fly" when the two rivals finally met in San Francisco.

Notwithstanding the forecasts of open fighting between the competing escape artists, both men acted unaware of the other's presence.

In 1907, Houdini was already looking beyond handcuffs and jail-breaking as his bread and butter. His feature that week was a challenge to escape from a box made by the Emporium department store employees.

While Brindamour was billed as King of all Handcuff Kings, Houdini's billing at the Orpheum was: "Houdini in New Sensations." So Brindamour might have seemed less of a threat to Houdini at this time, and to have engaged him would have just given him publicity. The best way to hurt Brindamour (and William Morris) was to do nothing.

After San Francisco, Brindamour and Houdini never crossed paths.

Today the Orpheum and Princess are distant memories, property has been subdivided with retail outlets and condos. The area now is known as the Fillmore District.

Brindamour continued as a vaudeville headliner, trodding the boards for twenty-eight years. One of his favorite publicity stunts was to cause any church bell, picked by someone in the audience, to ring at a given time. The long lasting fame of Houdini eluded him, but he was known to double for Hermann the Great whenever illness prevented him to make personal appearances.