Who’s ruffling Kate Middleton’s hair and what does Prince Harry really look like naked? Behind the scenes at Madame Tussauds…
Who is always having their flies undone and what does Prince Harry really look like naked? Lucy Tobin goes behind the scenes at Madame Tussauds and touches up some celebrities
Double agent: Lucy Tobin puts some final touches on model of the Duchess of Cambridge
Bald and naked, Prince Harry is standing passively as a man rubs his muscly pecs. His, er, sizeable package is hard to ignore, especially as it’s about a foot away from my face.
But the crisis management team at Clarence House can relax: this version of the fourth-in-line to the throne is made of clay. He’s about to be turned into a plaster mould, then a £150,000 wax model to be kissed, pinched and fondled by some of the two million visitors to Madame Tussauds in Baker Street every year.Or maybe he’ll fly to Singapore or San Francisco — for the waxworks first made famous by Marie Tussaud’s one-room London exhibition of the death masks she made of guillotine victims 200 years ago has gone global.
There are now 15 Tussauds dotted around the world, from Wuhan in China to Washington DC and Sydney, with another four opening in the next 12 months. But all their models are still made in a big white building on a trafficky road in Acton, west London — a secretive studio of 200 sculptors and artists which has never before opened its doors to the press or public.
Near the feet of starkers-Prince Harry (“You need those parts to make an appearance to make sure the clothes hang properly,” says the sculptor), a mould of Tom Cruise’s head is plonked on the floor. Next to him is a statue of a big Hollywood star, wrapped in clingfilm to stop him drying out. But when I move to jot his name in my notebook, the Tussauds spinner moves in: this lump of clay has to be “press released”, I’m told, with a launch event as manufactured as his model bottom before his existence can be acknowledged. Even a waxwork has a confidentiality agreement today.
That’s not the only insight into our fame-obsessed world offered by Tussauds. There’s the fact that celebrities’ reliance on Botox and cosmetic surgery to create ageless, plastic versions of themselves makes their waxworks seem increasingly authentic. Contrary to popular belief, faded stars are never melted down “because you never know when someone will come back”. Joanna Lumley came out of retirement as her career made a comeback, as did Gary Barlow, retired with the rest of Take That but put back on display when his solo career took off.
The unchanging models also form an interesting benchmark of celebrity ageing: exhibit A is David and Victoria Beckham. They’re a decade old but it’s startling to see how much younger David looked back then, while Victoria oddly appears not to have changed at all.
The Beckham models were started at a two-hour live fitting, where staff snapped 150 photos and took even more measurements; eyeballs alone are assessed down to a quarter of a millimetre. Then followed interviews with stylists and hair and make-up artists to form a dossier, which was taken back to the sculptors in Acton. Stars who have died or have no time for a sitting are recorded from videos, photos, and museum material.
In the attic room of the Acton emporium, the model-making process is exactly the same as that used by Marie Tussaud in 1835. Downstairs, the clay statues are used to build a 3D mould of each star’s head. Wax is poured in, in the exact shade of each celebrity’s skin tone. A bald wax head of Zayn from One Direction lies discarded on a bench — the colour team reckoned he was too pink and started again.
Michael Jackson’s own skin colour changes meant six versions of him have been made; today his is the only model that can be found in every branch of Tussauds (top pub-quiz knowledge, that). The next most-featured are Madonna, Brad and Angelina, David Beckham and Barack Obama.
If you’re starry enough to be asked to be turned into a wax version of yourself for fans to idolise in the temple of the selfie, you do it: “No one has ever said no,” an insider says. But that doesn’t mean they get a say in their likeness.
“We don’t pander to people’s vanity,” says Nick Varney, boss of Merlin Entertainments, which owns Tussauds as well as the London Eye, Legoland and Alton Towers, and which part-floated in London last year. “Some celebrities have a perception of being, uh, taller than they are, and are surprised by their models. And one very famous celebrity sent a donation of some of her clothes, which we could tell from our measurements were at least two sizes too small for her.”
Celebrities are never paid for their time — and they can’t request inclusion — although a Middle Eastern sheikh got in touch to request a model of one of his favourite camels (it didn’t happen). Acton’s model-makers are busy creating about 230 waxworks a year — active ones, such as a diving Tom Daley take far longer than a standing, suited star.
After the models’ wax heads are fitted onto their bodies (they’re made from fibreglass — the old, fully-wax ones are heavier than Eric Pickles), eyes are inserted, while dentists use enamel to make duplicate sets of teeth. Then it’s into hair and make-up, where the decapitated head of a black US TV star (“She’s embargoed,” I’m told) is having her do done. Since the models all have real hair, the whole process takes six weeks per head. One desk along, thin layers of paint are being flicked onto Miley Cyrus’s face, giving it a dotty-effect, like skin. The singer has her hair part-shaved, as per her current hairstyle “but they always change them,” the hairdresser groans. “Sometimes it has to be a portrait of a moment in time.”
Down in wardrobe, celebrities mostly donate their own clothes for their models; Boris Johnson ripped off his suit at the end of his fitting in City Hall just after winning the election. If anyone saw a flash of blond cycling home in pants that day, now you know why.
The model-makers admit they organise fittings quickly when major politicians are elected because “they often only have a five or six-year shelf life”. In Baker Street, Boris stands next to David Cameron, with the former perhaps too close to Downing Street’s black door for the Prime Minister’s liking. But politicians facing their public bring risks: after one after-hours corporate shindig, the hair and make-up team — who give all models the once-over at 7.30 every morning — found the statesmen all had their flies undone.
Since Tussauds ripped away the red ropes to remove the barriers between visitors and their idols in the Nineties, a lot of flies have been undone, as well as fingers knocked off and knickers found in Brad Pitt’s pocket, according to the make-up artist who I join on a pre-opening repair-session. She heads to One Direction first — they get the most wear-and-tear. Harry Styles’s cheeks are covered in lipgloss. Amy Winehouse’s painted-on tattoos are regularly pawed at, while Emma Watson has to be carted off for repairs because someone snapped her ear off yesterday. Kate Middleton and Boris’s hair “get ruffled and mucked up every day”.
“We’ve benefited from the explosion of interest in celebrity culture,” says Varney. “Everyone wants a selfie with Rhianna or Beyoncé. And since the stars know it helps publicity, they like doing it as much we love them being in it.” As long as everyone sticks to the waxworks’ confidentiality agreements.
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