The Hollywood Wax Museum is located in the heart of the tourist district of Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA, in Branson, Missouri, USA and in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee USA.
The museum, the brainchild of entrepreneur Spoony Singh, was opened in 1965, and claims in promotional literature to be the only wax museum dedicated solely to celebrities. It is the longest-running wax museum in the United States. The lobby and most of the inside was renovated in 2006, and a new neon sign containing 1,532 incandescent lightbulbs and 1,189 feet of neon was erected in honor of the Museum's 40th anniversary. Wax figures and sets continue to change regularly. There is also a Chamber of Horrors, featuring classic and current movie monsters. On November 7, 1965, Mr. Singh appeared on "What's My Line", Dorothy Killgallen's final appearance.
Some of the sets include:
Hollywood Icons (classic buildings of Hollywood with celebrities on the red carpet)
- Halle Berry
- Ben Affleck
- Angelina Jolie
- Matthew McConaughey
- Jude Law
- Hugh Jackman
- Samuel L. Jackson
- Gwenyth Paltrow
- Johnny Depp
Classic Stars
- Marilyn Monroe
- Charlie Chaplin
- John Wayne
Top 100 Movies of All Time:
- King Kong with Jack Black and Naomi Watts
- Mission: Impossible II with Tom Cruise
- Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet
- Men in Black with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks
After Singh's retirement, his sons and grandson have continued to own, operate and further the Hollywood Wax Museum's legacy. The group built a Hollywood Wax Museum in Branson, Missouri in 1985, which was completely renovated in 2009 and was recognized with the 2011 Branson Beautification Award for improving an important stretch of the Highway 76 strip. The next Hollywood Wax Museum was opened in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 2007 and closed in 2010 to make way for a larger Hollywood Wax Museum attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee that opened in May 2012.
In June 2012, the family was recognized as Heroes of Hollywood by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Community Foundation for their staunch and generous support of the Hollywood community.
The Hollywood Wax Museum is featured on the video game, Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
Famous quotes containing the words hollywood, wax and/or museum:
“Just like those other black holes from outer space, Hollywood is postmodern to this extent: it has no center, only a spreading dead zone of exhaustion, inertia, and brilliant decay.”
—Arthur Kroker (b. 1945)
“A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“No one to slap his head.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 190, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)