Month: March 2011

entertainment

Hollywood’s Museum of Death Lives to Tell the Tale

Becca

By Rebecca Ford
Hollywood Patch

For someone who is always surrounded by death, Cathee Shultz is very lively. Her energy is electric, especially when she’s talking about her fascination with death, and the vast collection of death-related items at the Museum of Death.

Shultz and husband J.D. Healy originally opened the museum in San Diego in 1995, but moved it up to Hollywood in 2000. At its current location on Hollywood Boulevard near Gower Street, the museum encompasses several rooms, each with a different theme, such as serial killers (with art and letters from infamous killers including Richard Ramirez and Nico Claux), executions (with beheading photos) and embalming (with an instructional video). Patch caught up with Shultz to find out more about her unique exhibits.

Continue reading “Hollywood’s Museum of Death Lives to Tell the Tale” →

entertainment

The Man Behind Madame Tussauds Wax Figures

Becca

By Rebecca Ford
Hollywood Patch

Neil Linssen is up to his elbows in hands. As the Creative Studios Development Manager for Madame Tussauds Hollywood, Linssen is tasked with the upkeep of the more than 100 wax figures. Dozens of spare hands, used to replace any damaged digits, are kept on a shelf in the studio where Linssen and the other artists work.

Every morning, Linssen and his team spend two to three hours checking over each wax figure for scratches and dings. Unlike at other wax museums, visitors are allowed to touch and interact with the wax figures at Madame Tussauds (which opened in Hollywood in 2009), and sometimes a celebrity might get roughed up.

Each figure costs an average of $300,000 and takes several weeks of labor to create, so keeping them in top shape is of highest priority. Linssen, who had just returned from a trip to Palm Springs to measure a top-secret celebrity for his wax figure, sat down with Hollywood Patch to talk about the process of making and maintaining these very famous faces.
Continue reading “The Man Behind Madame Tussauds Wax Figures” →