Was Houdini the greatest magician ever or just an entertainer?
Magic comes in many different varieties, but they’re all ultimately entertainment. Magic isn’t anything if it’s not entertaining. Houdini was best known as an escape artist, which is almost entirely aside from magic. It uses some of the techniques of magic: misdirection, hiding things, nimble fingers. But really, much of what you saw was an extraordinary athlete with a hefty sense of showmanship. As an escape artist he may have been the greatest of all time; some of his stunts have never been convincingly duplicated. He did perform other sorts of magic, but he’s not particularly remembered for them. His best use of all that was to know how those techniques are used to fool people into believing in the supernatural, and he did a great job of debunking them. So I’d conclude that he was a great entertainer and super showman, but not necessarily a great magician. But then, since entertainment is all magic really is (it’s not magic unless it’s got an audience), maybe he’s a great magician a
