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
Stanley A. Weiss as proctologist-turned-ventriloquist Gerry Feigen were among a group of friends who met regularly with Weiss at Trader Vic's. His closest friends were the entrepreneur, Harry Hunt, and attorney Bernard Petrie. Living part of the year in the Swiss village of Gstaad, Weiss also befriended a colorful cast of characters including Galbraith, conservative icon and "National Review" founder William F. Buckley, and provocative "Spectator" columnist Panagiotis Theodoracopulos, better known as Taki. Weiss also developed close friendships in Gstaad with two of the actors who played James Bond – Sean Connery and Roger Moore. He would later befriend a third—Pierce Brosnan –