Unchained Melody: The dark side of Harry Houdini

From the article:

"In this revelatory book, Begley shows the dark side of this showman. He disliked competitors, possessed an outsized ego, could not abide criticism and was prone to extreme exaggeration. He was also an ardent self-promoter. "

As far as dark sides of historical figures go, that doesn't sound so bad. I really expected way worse. He actually sounds like many public figures today, not sure I'd consider those things much of a dark side now.

Another book about Houdini (and a whole host of other fascinating characters) with a rather different focus to this one (by the sound of it) is 'Hiding the Elephant' by Jim Steinmeyer and I really can't recommend it enough.

Much more interesting is his work on debunking spiritualists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini#Debunking_spirit...

This is not really an article about Houdini's dark side, it is a book review about his dark side. As such, any details are extremely thin which is quite a bit frustrating. In fact the description of his dark side is limited to essentially one sentence in one paragraph: "He disliked competitors, possessed an outsized ego, could not abide criticism and was prone to extreme exaggeration."

If you follow the link expecting to find out about Houdini's dark side... you will be disappointed.