Almost real

A wax figure of Michael Jackson is the latest addition to the new Madame Tussauds in Hollywood. The statue was unveiled on Thursday, just in time for what would have been the pop star's 51st birthday today.

Madame Tussauds Hollywood, which opened on July 21, is housed in a 40,000-square-foot, three-storey contemporary building designed by noted Los Angeles architect Michael Rotondi. Among the personalities recreated by the wax figures - said to cost $300,000 each - are actors Jamie Foxx, Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Robert de Niro, Jennifer Lopez and John Wayne; directors Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese; singers Beyonce Knowles and Britney Spears and footballer David Beckham.

Marie Tussaud, real name Anna Maria Grosholtz (1761-1850), was born in Strasbourg, France. Tussaud created her first wax figure, of French philosopher and writer Voltaire, in 1777.

Other famous people she modelled at that time include philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and US President Benjamin Franklin.

During the French Revolution she modelled many prominent victims.

In her memoirs she claims that she would search through corpses to find the decapitated heads of executed citizens, from which she would make death masks.

Madame Tussaud's wax museum has grown to become a major tourist attraction in London, and it has expanded over the years with branches in Amsterdam, Berlin, Las Vegas, New York City, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Washington, DC and now Hollywood.