World of waxcraft: the weird and wonderful history of Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussaud was born Marie Grosholz in Strasbourg in 1761. She was just six years old when her father perished in the Seven Years War and her mother spirited her across the border to start a new life in Bern, Switzerland. It’s here, while lodging with a Dr Philippe Curtius (where mom worked as housekeeper), that Marie got her first taste of wax modeling. Curtius, you see, had an interesting side hustle in wax anatomical models and portraits. He took the young Marie on as his protégé, and the rest, as they say, is history. By the end of the 1770s, Marie — now resettled in Paris, where Curtius was following his own wax-based dreams — had casually knocked out a lifelike effigy of the great thinker Voltaire. And her still only a teenager.

After the Revolution ended, Marie inherited Curtius’s waxwork collection (and her husband François Tussaud’s name) and took her young son Joseph to London in search of fame and fortune. Their gimmick? A mobile waxwork exhibition, which spent 30 years traveling the length and breadth of the UK, popping up here, there and everywhere to wow 18th-century Brits with the Tussauds’ ghoulish selection of waxwork celebs.

Madame Tussaud finally found a permanent home for her works on London’s Baker Street, close to where you’ll find the current museum (and even some genuine early Tussaud works) to this day.

Marie died in 1850 at the ripe old age of 88, having lived longer and achieved more than a great many of her contemporaries. Her legacy lives on in 19 wax museums across four continents. The NYC branch opened in 2000 (a mere 165 years after London), and now houses some 200 figures from the worlds of music, film, sport, politics and beyond.

Things have moved on somewhat from Marie Tussaud’s day, when likenesses were generally created from memory or, worse, from contemporary drawings. But it’s amusing to imagine Voltaire and Marie Antoinette patiently submitting to today’s exacting requirements, which often include an in-person studio sitting for skin, hair and eye color-matching, as well as candid close-up photos galore.

Once a mould has been made for the head, and hot wax poured into it, the real work can begin in earnest: eyes and teeth are added, the face receives several layers of paint (Kardashian-style), and real strands of (ethically sourced!) human hair are inserted individually, then trimmed to the required style. Freckles, scars, birthmarks and even veins are then painted in by hand. This is a process every bit as painstaking, time-consuming and expensive as it sounds (up to £250k per figure, fact fans), but it's why Madame Tussauds’ figures remain head and shoulders above their many imitators.

An appreciation of the history behind Madame Tussauds (as well as all the time and effort that goes into each individual figure) definitely gives you a different perspective when visiting the NYC venue. And it’s hard to argue with likenesses so real they have the power to make you jump (lookin’ at you, Pennywise). There’s a whole host of famous faces to meet, schmooze with and pose alongside, from old-school legends like Elvis and Audrey Hepburn to modern-day superstars — hello Tay-Tay and Harry Styles!

You’ll also encounter movie characters, perhaps most notably in the frankly terrifying Warner Bros. Icons of Terror zone and get hands-on immersive attractions like Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s piano and Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio’s catwalk. And who could resist a walk in Mariah Carey’s winter wonderland as you get to experience NYC in all four gloriously picturesque seasons? No-one, that’s who.

Madame Tussaud’s name will live on in wax forever… or at least until the planet gets too hot and they all melt. And melt some of them already have, although usually on purpose. Let’s wrap up with this and a few more fun facts about Madame T and her mighty legacy.

1. The Times Square branch of Madame Tussauds opened in 2000, a mere 165 years after Marie Tussaud opened her first permanent site in London.
2. The oldest exhibit in any of the Madame Tussauds museums around the world resides at the original London gallery: it’s Dr Curtius’s waxwork of Madame du Barry, last mistress of Louis XV, and it dates all the way back to 1765.
3. The phrase ‘chamber of horrors’ was coined in 1846 by Punch magazine in honor of Madame Tussauds display of gruesome French Revolution relics. 
4. You can choose to have your own fair hand rendered in wax at Madame Tussauds NYC, making you every bit as important as current residents Donald Trump, Selena Gomez and The Rock.
5. Many controversial figures including Adolf Hitler have been removed from display and placed in storage over the years, and some particularly notorious former celebs have even been melted down. Modern-day celebs who fall out of fashion are regularly supplanted by up-and-coming new faces. Kardashians, take note. 
6. At time of writing, there’s a total of 13 separately-styled Taylor Swifts scattered across the global Madame Tussauds museums. In New York, she’s wearing a dress inspired by her Midnights album.