Theodore "Dash" Hardeen, known simply as Hardeen, was a Hungarian magician and escape artist who was the younger brother of Harry Houdini. Hardeen, who usually billed himself as the "brother of Houdini", was the founder of the Magician's Guild. Hardeen was the first magician to conceive escaping from a straitjacket in full view of the audience, rather than behind a curtain.
, English stage magician and editor of the Magician Annual, wrote that: After his brother's death in 1926, Hardeen played the vaudeville circuit, doing many of his late brother's routines. From 1938 to 1941, he was featured in Olsen and Johnson's Broadway revue, Hellzapoppin. During World War II, he performed for the troops. In 1936, Hardeen starred in a Vitaphoneshort film for Warner Bros. called Medium Well Done. In it, Hardeen played a "hardboiled detective" on the case of a bogus medium. The film was directed by Lloyd French, who directed many of the early Laurel and Hardy shorts. Like his brother, Hardeen was skeptical of the claims of spiritualist mediums. With his friend Julien Proskauer he exposed the fraudulent methods of mediums. Houdini, in his will, requested for all his files to be given to Hardeen and destroyed On August 15, 1927 Hardeen's Brooklyn home had been broken into and some of Houdini's apparatus had been damaged. Later that year, Hardeen burned all of Houdini's personal files in a furnace in his basement. Planning on writing a book about his brother, in 1945 Hardeen went to Manhattan's Doctors Hospital for a simple operation. He unexpectedly died of complications while recovering from the procedure. He was 69 years old.
Legacy
During his final show on May 29, 1945 in Ridgeway, Queens, Hardeen named his chief assistant, Douglas Geoffrey, his official successor. Geoffrey then went on to perform as "Hardeen, Jr."; he died January 14, 1990 at the age of 82. Richard Valentine Pitchford took over the Magicians' Guild after Hardeen's death. Sidney Hollis Radner received the Houdini collection from Hardeen. Hardeen has been featured in HBO's Emmy award-winning series Boardwalk Empire. He was portrayed by Remy Auberjonois. The television seriesHoudini's Last Secrets is hosted by George Hardeen, Theo Hardeen's grandson.
