Wax On

On our trip to California, we visited Madame Tussaud's Hollywood Wax Museum. Sometime in the distant past, I had been to a wax museum and found it cool, but not very engaging. It must not have been this one.

Madame Tussaud's lets you get close to the figures, and encourages you to interact with them (as long as you don't touch their faces.) So we did! It was a blast. Here is one I like to call "Sisters Mary Clarence and Mary Sarah." Whoopi Goldberg is dressed from her role in Sister Act, and Sarah joined in the fun.



Readers, let me tell you -- I was so impressed by the quality of the wax figures. As Mike said during the visit, there are times when you swear, out of the corner of your eye, you saw some of these famous people moving. My own personal "shock" moment was when I realized that the person I was walking towards was none other than Steven Speilberg -- or rather a wax replica of him. The pose is so natural, and the fake so convincing, I took him for a real person.



When you take a photo with the flash, you can see some of the glistening of the wax, but in the lighting of the museum, it does not show up. I started taking most of my shots without any lighting aid. Amid the Oscar winners, you feel like you're really at an afterparty.



This one had a flash, and I love how the Chaplin looks. (Mike looks a bit more like Stanley Laurel than the Little Tramp, but that works, too.)



If you want to see more, well, click on one of the photos above.  It will take you to Flickr, where I've loaded most of the photos I blog.  Or you can go to this collection at Flickr, where I'll post the various sets of photos as I have time.  The first set contains over 90 photos from this excellent visit to Madame Tussaud's.