Why harry houndini become escape artist?

Answer 1

1. One of the heads of a Vaudeville chain he was working for told him to drop ALL the "little stuff" (meaning magic) from his act and concentrate ONLY on the escapes. The magic distracted the audience from the escapes, there were plenty of magicians out there doing the "little stuff", but nobody doing escapes of the quality he had.
2. He was very good at escapes! Especially at building suspense!