CELEBRITY WITH AMANDA KELLER
MADAME TUSSAUDS
It’s like looking in a mirror! Amanda has her own wax figure at Madame Tussauds, Sydney and after some years of being on display it’s time for a change of outfit. While the wax figure itself is kept pristine by the staff (including eye ball polishing) her dress needs a revamp so Amanda heads in to catch up with herself and work out just what to wear.
ABOUT AMANDA’S FIGURE
In 2011, Madame Tussauds announced that they would open a new wax figure museum in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. To celebrate the launch and build anticipation, the curators of the museum in London announced a competition to decide which Australian personality would be immortalised by the team of artists at the museum and be placed next to Ray Stewart’s newly created figure.
The field included David Koch, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Wil Anderson, Rebecca Gibney and Kyle Sandilands. Sportbet.com.au set up a market for punters to have a bet on which celebrity would win the public vote. As Amanda’s odds shortened, her fellow radio presenter, Brendan Jones, began spruiking even more aggressively for his counterpart to take out the prize. In the end, Keller won out and was unveiled at the Sydney opening on April 16th, 2012.
ABOUT MADAME TUSSAUD
Madam Anna Maria (Marie) Grosholtz was born in Strasbourgh, France in 1761. Her father died before she was born and at age 6, she moved with her mother to Paris. Her mother worked as housekeeper to Dr. Philippe Curtius, a doctor and modeller.
Curtius opened a wax figure museum in Paris in 1770 which Anna Maria worked at and learned the craft. Marie’s first work was of Francois Voltaire at just 16 years old. In 1780 she was enlisted, by the French Royal family, to be the young prince and princess’ art teacher – she lived at Versailles for 9 years.
In 1789, she returned to Paris at the request of Curtius. As he was involved in the revolution, Marie was ordered by the regime to make wax death masks, often having to go through the heads after being guillotined to create the likenesses.
In 1794, with the museum still going well, Curtius died and passed his entire collection to Marie. A year later she married Francois Tussaud and officially became Madame Tussaud.
Fed up with the unstable French political landscape and declining economy, Tussaud moved to England in 1802. Marie left her husband behind – as she never returned to her homeland, she never saw her him again.
She toured every major city in Britain with her collection for over 30 years. Tired of travelling, she settled in London in 1835 and established a permanent site for her collection not far from the present day site on Baker Street.
Her last work was a self-portrait, created eight years before her death in 1850 at the age of 89. ABOUT MADAME TUSSAUDS FIGURES
There are 90 figures at the Madame Tussauds Sydney.
Each figure is maintained every single day by a team managed by Zoe Walton, the studio manager. Madame Tussauds Sydney receives 5-6 new figures per year. Two maintenance teams inspect and primp each figure daily before the attraction opens.
Each strand of hair is inserted individually – it takes approximately 5 weeks to complete. There are approximately 100,000 hairs on each head.
To add authenticity to the figures at Madame Tussauds New York, many artifacts have been donated by the celebrity or bought at auction. Joan Rivers and Ivana Trump even donated their nail polish. All figures have their hair washed and make up retouched regularly.
From the first private sitting with a celebrity to completion, it takes about four months to create a figure. More than 250 precise measurements and 180 photographs are taken of a subject to accurately create the figure. If the subject is unavailable for these measurements, the studio artists study hundreds of photographs and watch hours of video to create the figure. All celebrities vital statistics (measurements, etc) are kept private – the public and press have requested many over the years.
Wax shrinks so all subject are created 2% bigger than their real life counterparts. Red silk thread is used to create the veins in each eyeball. Knotted rope is used to create the look of veins on the body.
It takes 6 weeks to sculpt a head for a figure in clay before it is moulded. It takes 330 pounds (150 kg) of clay to sculpt a standard figure. The most sculpted real life people are Madonna (5), Marilyn Monroe (4), Brad Pitt (3) and Bill Clinton (2).
It takes approximately 17 million flowers to produce enough honey to produce one pound (450 grams) of beeswax – this makes it the most environmentally friendly renewable source of beeswax. About 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of wax is used for a head portrait and 4 pounds (1.8 kg) for a pair of hands. Wax is heated to 76 degrees Celsius to be poured into a head mould. The artists create the realistic skin tones by layering many different shades of oil paints.
More than 500 million people worldwide have visited Madame Tussauds. WEBLINKS
Madame Tussauds Sydney https://www.madametussauds.com.au/sydney/en/