Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin Elephant", that every magician of the 20th century was "haunted" by Robert-Houdin, "…who cast an enormous shadow over their generation." American magician and escape artist Harry Houdini (born Ehrich Weiss) was so impressed by Robert-Houdin that, after reading his autobiography in 1890, Ehrich adopted the stage name of "Houdini" in honour of Robert-Houdin. He incorrectly believed that an "i" on the end of a name meant "like" in French; but Houdini, his own career and reputation established by that time, later lost his youthful respect for Robert-Houdin, believing that he took undue credit for other magicians' innovations, and wrote "The
Louis R. Ehrich Sporburg Ehrich. He attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, CT before graduating from Yale University in 1869. He went on to study at the University of Berlin, and divided his time between New York and Europe for much of the 1870s and 1880s, studying the Renaissance and Baroque paintings that would become his livelihood. After graduating from Yale, Ehrich helped his brother William run the Ehrich Brothers Dry Goods Store (est. 1857). Telling the New York Tribune that the stress of retail had left William with a "shattered constitution," Louis resigned from his own position in 1886. His health