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
The Illusionist (2010 film) struggling illusionist who visits an isolated community and meets a young lady who is convinced that he is a real magician. Originally intended by Tati to be set in Czechoslovakia, Chomet relocated the film to Scotland in the late 1950s. According to the director, "It's not a romance, it's more the relationship between a dad and a daughter." Sony's US press kit declares that the "script for "The Illusionist" was originally written by French comedy genius and cinema legend Jacques Tati as a love letter from a father to his daughter, but never produced". In 1959 Paris, an out-of-work illusionist