Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds – no apostrophe, for reasons unknown – is a famous exhibition center for waxwork modeling. There are currently galleries in many major cities across the world, however the first opened gallery was in London, England.

The name Madame Tussauds is based on the sculptor Marie Tussaud, who began her career as a waxwork sculptor in 1777, having learned the art from the famous sculptor Dr. Philippe Curtuis. Marie Grosholtz, the maiden name of Marie Tussaud, was the daughter of one of Curtuis’s housekeepers. Curtuis had many famous galleries in his native France, all of which were inherited by Marie upon his death in 1794. Marie had herself created her first waxwork, of philosopher Voltaire, in 1777 and some of her works are still on display in the current London gallery.

Marie became Marie Tussaud upon her marriage to Francois Tussaud in 1795, and her traveling show of waxworks in France became known as Madame Tussauds. It was exceedingly popular, particularly during the French revolution. In her memoirs, Tussaud claims to have searched through the decapitated heads of victims of capital punishment during the Revolution, and created death masks from them.

Tussaud settled in Baker Street, London, in 1835 and opened her first museum. The current museum is no longer on Baker Street, but is nearby. Upon Tussaud’s death in 1850, her grandson Joseph Randall moved the museum to it’s present location on Marylebone Road and continued to display his grandmother’s waxworks.

In the present day, Madame Tussauds is as popular as it was in Marie Tussaud’s lifetime. It has now become a beacon of success, with celebrities gauging their worldwide fame on whether or not they have a waxwork representation in Madame Tussauds. The current crop of waxworks include all members of the British royal family, recent past and present, celebrated television stars and sports legends such as Muhammad Ali. New United States President Barack Obama is the latest addition; his newly created waxwork was added to the White House set on January 15th 2009, five days before his own real inauguration.

The statues within Madame Tussauds are world renowned for how lifelike they are. A single waxwork of a public figure takes four months to make, and usually involves several sittings with the figure themselves – if available – to perfect the likeness. Madame Tussauds say each waxwork costs around L150,000 to make, and many are updated regularly. The stars themselves often donate clothes they have worn at prominent public appearances to be used on their waxwork.

Amusingly, when Gordon Brown became Prime minister of the United Kingdom in the summer of 2007, Madame Tussauds said they would not commission a waxwork of him until a general election, saying they could not justify the expense should he fail to win re-election at the next public vote. With Brown’s term as Prime minister restricted to at most three years, this move was understandable but seen as a snub by some Government politicians. It is not the first time Madame Tussauds have courted controversy; at the Berlin museum, a man beheaded the waxwork of Hitler that was on display. It has since been repaired and still stands in the historical section.