Spoony Singh, 83, Founded Wax Museum
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Spoony Singh, who once said he founded the world famous Hollywood Wax Museum to give tourists who couldn’t find any real celebrities in Hollywood the next best thing, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 83.
It was while touring Hollywood looking for famous faces in 1964 that Singh thought of the museum. The closest he came to spotting a celebrity was seeing stars’ footprints in the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
“So, I thought, let’s bring the stars back to Hollywood Boulevard. Let’s allow people to get close and look into the eyes of their favorite entertainers,” he recalled years later.
People lined up for half a mile waiting to get in when the museum opened in 1965.
The nearly 200 figures of Hollywood stars have changed over the years as their fame has ebbed and flowed. Marilyn Monroe, however, has remained a perennial favorite.
Singh shrugged off critics who called the museum cheesy over the years. “On Hollywood Boulevard, dignity kind of gets lost in the shuffle,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
Singh was born in Punjab, India, in 1922, and moved to Canada with his family at age 3. He operated saw mills and an amusement park in Victoria, British Columbia, when he paid his fateful 1964 visit to Hollywood.
