Today on “Days to Remember” we celebrate Madame Tuassaud’s Wax Museum debut in New York City located on 42nd Street, on October 17th 2000.
Who was Madame Tuassaud’s?
Madame Tuassaud’s was a French wax sculpture who was born in 1761 in Strasbourg, France.
It was from this ‘uncle’ that Marie learned her art as a child and after he had moved to Paris, where he scored a fashionable success, she and her mother joined him and she became his assistant. As a result, she met many of the leading French aristocrats and intellectuals of the day and she modeled both Voltaire and Rousseau from life.
Tussaud’s created her first wax sculpture, of Voltaire, in 1777. Other famous people she modeled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin.
During the French Revolution she modeled many prominent victims. In her memoirs she claims that she would search through corpses to find the severed heads of executed citizens, from which she would make death masks. Her death masks were held up as revolutionary flags and paraded through the streets of Paris; sound’s a little creepy doesn’t it?
By 1835 Tuassaud’s had settled down in Baker Street, London, and opened a museum. This part of the exhibition included victims of the French Revolution and newly created figures of murderers and other criminals.
Other famous people were added to the exhibition, including Lord Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott. Some of the sculptures done by Marie Tussaud’s herself still exist. The gallery originally contained some 400 different figures, but fire damage in 1925, coupled with German bombs in 1941, has rendered most of these older models defunct. The casts themselves have survived (allowing the historical waxworks to be remade), and these can be seen in the museum’s history exhibit.
Madame Tussaud’s wax museum has now grown to become a major tourist attraction in London, incorporating (until 2010) the London Planetarium in its west wing.
It has expanded and will expand with branches in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Beijing, Berlin, Blackpool, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, New York City, Niagara Falls (Canada), and Orlando, Prague, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Vienna, Washington, D.C., Wuhan, Tokyo and a temporary museum in (Korea).
Today’s You Tube video brought to you by user name, (My Video Hole) is the wax museum in New York City. It’s a slight video clip but it gives you in depth look of the movie stars in wax forms. As we celebrate on October 17th 2000, the opening of the Tussaud’s Wax Museum opening in New York.
Today’s wax figures at Tussaud’s include historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars and famous murderers. Known as “Madame Tussaud’s” museums (no apostrophe), they are owned by a leisure company called Merlin Entertainments, following the acquisition of The Tussaud’s Group in May 2007.
The Tussaud’s Group is now part of Merlin Entertainments, the world’s second largest leisure group, after Disney.
It is based in Poole, Dorset from where it manages a portfolio of brands and over 50 attractions including the Madame Tussaud’s waxworks, Legoland Parks, Sea Life Centres, and Gardaland in Italy, The Dungeons, The London Eye, The Orlando Eye, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, and Chessington World of Adventures.
Her last work was a self-portrait, created eight years before she died in 1850 at age 89. By then, her name was as famous as her exhibition. She left her collection to her two sons, who, with her grandchildren, continued the business. Today, the Merlin Entertainments Group operates the attraction and ensures that the spirit, artistry and vision of Madame Tussuads, lives on!
As we celebrate the opening of her wax museum today on October 17th in New York City.
Written & Designed by JD Mitchell