Harry Houdini was 52 when he died. Thus his ability to escape ended with him. I think if he had his way, he might have stopped the escapes even earlier as they do take a toll on the body. Most escapists are younger folks, 20s and 30 year olds. By the time they get past 30 they seem to wise up and switch to card tricks or mentalism or something less dangerous.
The best I can tell, The Amazing Randi, stopped doing escapes probably in his early 50s. I know he was injured preparing for the Milk Can escape on National TV for the LIVE Magic Special about HOUDINI hosted by William Shatner. Dean Gunnerson, many years younger, stepped in and presented the escape.
Dunninger who, during his teens and early 20s did countless escapes, completely stopped once his mind reading became all the rage.
Cunning the Jail Breaker (Robert Doc Cunningham) pulled out of escapes in 1909 in favor of mentalism. He was in his 30s at the time.
Even Steve Mr. Escape Baker stopped his escapology while in his 50s. Granted he wanted to continue, but two freak accidents, one related to an escape, the other not, left him frankly unable to continue. He would often tell me, "if I knew I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself."
But not everyone called it quits early. Houdini's own brother, Hardeen continued to perform after Houdini died. According to Walter Gibson, Hardeen did the overboard packing crate escape numerous times in Atlantic City in his later years. And on May 30th, 1945, at the RKO Madison Theater in Brooklyn, Hardeen presented his final show. The feature of his last show was the Milk Can Escape. He was only 69 years old, and no doubt had he survived the operation he had later that week, he would have continued to escape even in his 70s.
I've left out some modern day escape artists because...who knows, maybe they'll beat Hardeen's record!
