The Movieland Wax Museum property was purchased by the City of Buena Park in May 2007. Many of the wax figures and sets from the Movieland Wax Museum were auctioned off in March 2006. The reason for its closure was because of declining visitors and revenue. On October 31, 2005, after forty-three years in business and 10 million visitors, Movieland went out of business. On August 19, 2002, the museum's founder, Allen Parkinson, died from natural causes at 83 years old in his Rhode Island home. The museum was featured in a 1990 episode of the long-running PBS children's television series, Reading Rainbow, where the program's host, LeVar Burton, checked out his wax likeness displayed there. A movie clapperboard on each set included the name of the wax figures and facts about the movie, props, costume, and the person whom the wax figure was modeled on. Movie themes and sound effects also added to the authenticity of the museum. In the museum's heyday, several actors and actresses attended the unveilings of their wax likenesses, and even went so far as to donate costumes to be worn by their likenesses, along with sets replicated from well-known movie scenes. In April 1985, the Six Flags Corporation sold the California-based Movieland Wax Museum to Fong & Paul Associates, the owners of the world famous Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Having no interest in the museum but an interest in the land alone, Harcourt sold off the exhibits to the American Musical Academy of Arts Association and turned the property into a showroom for the company's educational materials. However, in 1984 after a drop in attendance, the Florida museum was closed and sold to the publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. In 1975, Six Flags opened a Movieland Wax Museum clone called "Stars Hall of Fame" in Orlando, Florida, located near the intersection of the Bee-Line Expressway (SR 528) and Interstate 4, close to SeaWorld Orlando and just north of Walt Disney World. He was responsible for the figures of Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, David Niven, Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland, Natalie Wood, Vivien Leigh, Charlton Heston, Gene Kelly, Robert Stack, as well as the sets Don Quixote and Sancho, Miguel Angel's David, Leonardo da Vinci, and a full-bodied Gioconda. One of the earliest sculptors commissioned by Allen Parkinson to produce these real-sized hyper-realist wax figures in 1960 was the Spanish sculptor Antonio Ballester Vilaseca. Parkinson sold the museum to the Six Flags Corporation in 1970. The opening ceremony was attended by silent film actress Mary Pickford, who dedicated the museum. Parkinson founded the museum on May 4, 1962, after he was inspired by a visit to the Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London. It was located north of Knott's Berry Farm on Beach Boulevard (SR 39).Īllen H. Located in Buena Park, California, it was for decades one of the most popular wax museums in the United States. The Movieland Wax Museum was the largest wax museum in the United States with over 300 wax figures in 150 sets. "Movieland Wax Museum of the Stars" redirects here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |