Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and now Shah Rukh Khan have melted into History at Madame Tussauds. Madame Tussauds is a famous wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. Madame Tussauds Born in France, Marie moves to Paris with her mother who is housekeeper to Philippe Curtius, a doctor and wax modeler who opens his wax museum in 1790. Curtius dies in 1794 and Marie inherits his collection and some properties in Paris. Marie, now Madame Tussauds, brings the collection to England in 1802. Whats so special about having a wax double ? And why is it that only a select few get into the elite hall of fame ? What takes to get into the Tussauds Museum ?
Shah Rukh Khan becomes the fourth Indian after Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and the much less heard about wax idol of Mahatma Gandhi, to be cast in wax. Ben Lovett, PR manager, Madame Tussauds, says, “We aim to reflect the celebrities currently in mainstream public consciousness. Our stars are as big as they get – Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kylie Minogue, and Shah Rukh Khan. Normally, when stars are immortalized in wax it’s because they are so successful and popular — and because they have made a significant impact on society (global and/or UK).”
Ben gives an outline of how the process of “selecting” the figures for the wax model is done. The details were kept a secret, but he did reveal that exit polls are key to the selection. An exit poll/survey is conducted among the visitors of the museum and King Khan’s name kept coming again and again in those polls. Internally, representatives across Madame Tussauds London meet regularly to discuss customer feedback and any relevant cultural trends, releases, news stories that might feed ideas for a new figure.
Earlier major figures like Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Shakespeare, Queen Mother used to be cast into Wax models. The royalties and political figures have given way to pop stars, film stars and sport stars, thanks to today’s ‘celebrity’ age. Ben says : “We had to reflect this relatively recent cultural shift”. And that is the reason, why we see Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Madonna, Amitabh, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and others.
Now here is the interesting part. It takes some 500 intricate measurements to get the body details right. The making of the wax model is a very detailed process. On an average the figure takes some four months to make and costs £150,000. While making a wax double of SRK, the hardest challenge was to capture his charm, his on screen persona. To get his body language right, Mansfield, the key sculptor even watched some of SRK’s movies. Madame Tussauds runs a private Figure sales business where in individual figures can be made and bought on demand. So next time when you Go to Madame Tussauds and get desperate to have your own wax model made, carry some £150,000 (or may be even more) and take one home. Here are some of the Wax models at the museum.
