Was Madame Tussaud a Real Person?

I’ve been tormented by mentionings of the over-played and over-photographed Katy Perry the last couple of days. She’s been popping up in all my favourite places, and all because a new wax statue of her was placed on exhibition in the Las Vegas branch of Madam Tussauds  Museum.

The plague of Perry aside, I find the wax museum an interesting enough concept. My bestie and I visited there when we were in Vegas a few years ago – it was a fun excursion, and kept us out of the desert heat for a couple of hours. Some of the figures were obviously more similar to their living counterparts than others, and D and I were both too cowardly to enter the “scary” section, but it was worth whatever we paid as an entry fee to pose for bizarre photos with our favourite celebrities.  Speaking of favourite celebrities, I bet this particular figure has been kissed a lot.

I was curious, though: was Madam Tussaud an actual living person at one time? Or is the name just that – a name? So, I did an online search and yes, indeed she was real. Her name was Anna Maria Grosholtz (the Tussaud name came later via marriage) and she was from Strasbourg, which sounds like it should be in Germany or Austria or somewhere similar but is actually in France . Her mom cleaned house for a doctor who made wax figures (as part of his medical studies? no idea), and he was the one that taught her how to do it.

I kind of like that idea of an older physician taking interest in the intelligent daughter of his housekeeper, spending his spare time patiently teaching the young girl his craft. I’m preferring to ignore the vague possibility that he was just a creepy pedophile with unsavory intentions and instead am thinking of him as kindly and freethinking – after all, this was in the late 1700s and not many educated men were interested in teaching a woman. That is, anything above the blanket.

Anyways, Anna Maria started out by creating a model of Voltaire when she was just 16, and from there went on to take a macabre interest making masks from the decapitated heads of people executed during the French revolution. Yuck. Eventually she set up her first real shop on Baker Street – famous for another one of its (although fictional) residents, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Another thing I really like is that Madame Tussaud got to die in her sleep at the ripe old age of 80-something. Not too shabby.