Behind the scenes of Madame Tussauds ~ Michael Jackson immortalized in wax

  Michael Jackson wax figure                    (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud.

Tussaud, born Anna Maria Grosholtz was born in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, who was a physician skilled in wax modeling.

Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modeling. In 1765, Curtius made a waxwork of Marie-Jeanne du Barry, Louis XV's mistress. A cast of that mould is the oldest work currently on display. The first exhibition of Curtius' waxworks was shown in 1770, and attracted a large audience. The exhibition moved to the Palais Royal in Paris in 1776.

Tussaud created her first wax figure, 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 decapitated heads of executed citizens, from which she would make death masks. Following the doctor’s death in 1794, she inherited his vast collection of wax models and spent the next 33 years traveling around Europe.

Tussaud married Francois Tussaud in 1795 lent a new name to the show – Madame Tussauds.  By 1835 Marie had settled down in Baker Street, London, and opened a museum. One of the main attractions of her museum was the Chamber of Horrors.

The chamber was part of the exhibition, and it included victims of the French Revolution and newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. 

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. The oldest figure on display is that of Madame du Barry. Other ancient faces from the time of Tussaud include Robespierre, George III and Benjamin Franklin.

In 1842, she made a self portrait which is now on display at the entrance of her museum. She died in her sleep on 15 April 1850.

In honor of Michael Jackson and his August 29th birthday, a wax figure of him was created in London and then shipped under high security to Los Angeles, California's Madame Tussaud's Hollywood Wax Museum for a special unveiling located next to Grauman's Chinese Theater.

There have been 13 versions of Michael Jackson created throughout the years, and they say he is one of the most difficult.  Three of the MJ wax figures are in London.  It took 20 people and a series of photographs and intense research, mostly from 1989, creating this most recent version.

Other MJ works of art and MJ-related:  artful renditions, Dr. Murray, birthday...