Wax on, Wax off

Kimberley McGee

Friday, June 8, 2001 | 5:21 a.m.

Kristen Mayberry is surrounded by celebrities every day.

Their hands crowd the shelving behind her workbench. Their heads sit smiling from posts in the corner of her studio overlooking the Strip.

As the portrait maintenance manager of Madame Tussaud's-Las Vegas at the Venetian, Mayberry primps, preens and paints the celebrity wax figures for another day of perfect posing with tourists who visit the wax museum.

Five days a week Mayberry heads a team of four who comb the gallery at Tussaud's checking for any damage that the dozens of wax figures, called portraits, may have endured the day before from tourists who pose with and paw the lifelike mannequins.

It's a constant task of upkeep.

For more than 200 years, the original Madame Tussaud's in London has created the wax figures from scratch. Meticulous care is used in the crafting of the figures.

Tussaud's then ships the finished figures to its museums in New York, Amsterdam and Hong Kong, where a professional staff grooms the wax mannequins daily.

Recently Mayberry discussed the finer points of taking care of a stable of wax figures with the Las Vegas Sun:

Las Vegas Sun: How do the wax figures become damaged?

Kristen Mayberry: The public is allowed to touch them, put their arms around them and take photos with them. So, we've had a lot of fingernail digs, (wax) fingers broken. There has been more major damage, but that tends to be rare.

Sun: What other serious problems have you had?

KM: The most major damage we've had is ears being pulled off. An arm has been broken.

We've had a portrait accidentally pushed over and the head burst into pieces. It was Oprah. We had to commission a new head and replace it entirely, which is very costly.

Sun: Which celebrities have checked out their likeness?

KM: Wayne Newton has come in. Nicholas Cage has come in. Billy Idol, Engelbert Humperdinck, Shirley Bassey, Evander Holyfield many times.

Larry King came up here a few weeks ago to see what was going on. We happened to have his portrait off for the day for maintenance. He had his wife and his little child here and he got to see the portrait. He's been in here a couple of times.

He's now wearing a new style of glasses and we changed that out. He was eager to see the new style.

Sun: What's your favorite part of the job?

KM: I really enjoy painting them from scratch. Sometimes they get so damaged that we have to strip all the paint off and we have to start over.

You have to think of how their skin layers and where the blood pools in the face. You have to think about all these different things -- every little mark and flaw on their face.

Men are especially interesting to me because of all the things you get to see on their faces. Women usually cover up with makeup. Men have all these little veins.

Sun: Except maybe Wayne Newton?

KM: He has a very nice complexion. We saw him when he came in and he has a lovely tan, so we are about to take him out and give him a bit more of a glow.

Over time when we keep washing the face some of the color gets removed, so now he's kind of duller. We need to take him out and add it back in.

He's been touched a lot. Women really love to pose with him. People like him and Engelbert and Nicolas Cage. The ones who are really popular with women in particular, there's a lot of touching going on, especially around their chin. They tend to lose more paint.

Sun: How do you know how to paint them perfectly all over again?

KM: We have two sets of files for every portrait. We have a hair color grouping of files, which have photos of hair styles. We have close-up shots of ears, hands, eyes, veins. Men tend to have a lot of nicks from shaving.

Then we have another set of files that are just wardrobe. That includes swatches of fabric that are in the costume so we can test how to clean it, how the costume goes together, how the body parts go together, how the portrait should stand, whether the costume has been donated from the celebrity and what special care that takes.

A lot of the costumes are rigged on the portraits a specific way so that it fits the portrait. That way the body part looks natural. It's not a real body so fabric doesn't always want to lay the right way. Fabric has to be adjusted just for that portrait.

Sun: Do you ever have to give a complete makeover?

KM: We are about to do that with Joan Rivers because she has changed her look drastically. We are going to cut her hair and update her look. That's something we can do. If it goes beyond that, if it goes really major as far as getting a whole new head or costume, that's something that London does and ships out to us.

Sun: Why do you continue to paint by hand?

KM: Tussaud's really focuses on keeping the artist's hand involved in the portraits. They could come in and use a computer, but then you'd lose the artistry of it and the fact that it takes place from a sculptor, to a painter, to a hair stylist. All those artists are involved so it's a truly original form.

It's something that has been done for hundreds of years and we're just trying to keep it alive, keep the art form as accurate as we can while still having a little bit of creative license that comes in when the artists start to paint it. It's more real that way.

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