Harry Houdini a boarding house on East 79th Street. He was joined by the rest of the family once Rabbi Weiss found permanent housing. As a child, Ehrich Weiss took several jobs, making his public début as a 9-year-old trapeze artist, calling himself "Ehrich, the Prince of the Air". He was also a champion cross country runner in his youth. When Weiss became a professional magician he began calling himself "Harry Houdini", after the French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, after reading Robert-Houdin's autobiography in 1890. Weiss incorrectly believed that an "i" at the end of a name meant "like" in French. In
Seymour Weiss Seymour Weiss Seymour Weiss (September 13, 1896 – September 17, 1969) was a prominent hotel executive and civic leader from New Orleans, Louisiana, who was a close confidante of the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr. Weiss, the most loyal of the Longites, bore the same last name as the apparent Long assassin, Carl Weiss, M.D. Weiss was born in Bunkie in Avoyelles Parish and died in the capital city of Baton Rouge. His parents were Samuel Weiss, originally from Austria-Hungary and a merchant, and the former Gisella Elias, of Berlin, Germany. Seymour had three brothers: Bernard, Milton, and Julius. On