Madame Tussaud - Wax Sculptress



|Madame Tussaud - Wax Sculptress |

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| |Madame Tussaud was born Marie Gosoltz in Strasbourg in 1761. Her father, a soldier, was killed in the seven-year war, two months before Marie was born. She and |

| |her mother lived alone; her mother was a housekeeper for Dr Philippe Curtius, a skilled wax sculptor. Marie became his assistant and soon she was allowed to |

| |make the wax masks of many famous people including King Louis XVI and the American statesman Benjamin Franklin. She served the French royal court for many |

| |years. |

| |Marie and the French Revolution |

| |During the French Revolution she and her mother came very close to being executed themselves. They shared a cell for a while with Josephine de Beauharnais, who |

| |after the revolution married Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and became Empress. |

| |Marie made the death mask of the Queen of France, as well as many other accused criminals who were executed by the guillotine in the French Revolution. These |

| |death masks are still on display, with the guillotine blade used in the actual execution. |

| |Marie on Tour |

| |When Dr Curtius died in 1795, he left Marie his entire wax sculpture exhibition, which already had become quite famous in France. The exhibition then contained |

| |many famous people from the time; Lord Byron, Benjamin Franklin, King George IV and the death masks of the French royals. |

| |That same year she married François Tussaud and had three children - one daughter (who died) and two sons. Eight years later, she moved to England with her |

| |oldest son, and began touring the British Isles. |

| |During the British tour the exhibition survived many perils, for example, in 1822 a ship carrying the exhibition to Ireland hit a rock, but most of the |

| |sculptures were saved. |

| |In 1835, Madame Tussaud's wax cabinet settled in Baker Street, London. |

| |Madame Tussaud in London |

| |In 1835, when the exhibition had settled down, it was easier to create many new sculptures. The exhibition began to grow with the expansion of the cabinet to |

| |include 'The Separate Room', known today as 'The Chamber of Horrors'. The room contained many of the world's most dangerous criminals. Murderers were stored |

| |along with replicas of their victims' dead bodies. |

| |Marie Tussaud died in 1850; eight years earlier she had completed her greatest work, a remarkable self-portrait that is still on display today. Her grandsons |

| |continued the work and in 1884 they moved the exhibition to its current location on Marylebone Road. |

| |The exhibition has survived many accidents along the years. In 1925 an electrical fault caused a raging fire; by the time the fire brigade arrived many of the |

| |sculptures had already melted, but many of the head moulds were saved. This meant that, despite the fire destroying the death masks of, among others, |

| |Robespierre, the masks could be remade. |

| |In 1939, with the beginning of the Second World War, London endured the first of many bombing raids. On 8 September, 1940, the first night of the London Blitz, |

| |Madame Tussaud's was hit by a bomb which inflicted heavy damage. Over 325 head moulds were damaged beyond repair. Also the cinema, which was added after the |

| |fire in 1925, was completely destroyed1. |

| |Madame Tussaud's Today |

| |Today, Madame Tussaud's is built in six different sections: |

| |The Garden Party is an exhibition dedicated to different notables from around the world. |

| |The Grand Hall is dedicated to the greatest of the greatest, royals, presidents, prime ministers and so on. |

| |200 Years shows how much Madame Tussaud's has changed since it began touring in 1802. It contains sleeping beauty and a death mask of Robespierre as well as |

| |many others. |

| |Superstars has the biggest stars from television, news, cinemas and the 20th Century in general, including Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin and Marlon Brando. |

| |The Chamber of Horrors displays the most terrifying people and events of the last 200 years. There you can see Joan of Arc being burned at the stake, Vlad the |

| |Impaler (Dracula), Hitler, a scene of Marie Tussaud making death masks of the guillotine victims' severed heads, and John Reginald Halliday Christie taking the |

| |drop, and many other criminals. |

| |Spirit of London is a ride through different scenes of London history over the past 400 years in small replica London cabs. The ride starts with a model of |

| |Queen Elizabeth I sitting on her throne. |

| |Today Madame Tussaud's Waxworks in London is owned by the Tussaud's Group. The Tussaud's Group2 is a major entertainment business based in the UK. Other |

| |attractions in the UK include the London Planetarium, Warwick Castle, British Airways London Eye, Chessington World of Adventures, Thorpe Park and Alton Towers,|

| |and the Alton Towers Hotel. There are also Tussaud's attractions in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Las Vegas and New York. |

| |A National Heritage? |

| |Madame Tussaud was a remarkable character in so many ways, she was a shrewd businesswoman, as well as a master-craftswoman. She gave Madame Tussaud's a |

| |reputation which cannot be destroyed as long as the workers, who, guided by her spirit, do everything they can to protect the history of perfection which Madame|

| |Tussaud's stands for today. |

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