Movieland Wax Museum

The Movieland Wax Museum was the largest wax museum in the United States with over 300 wax figures in 150 sets. Located in Buena Park, California, it was for decades one of the most popular wax museums in the United States. It was located north of Knott's Berry Farm on Beach Boulevard (SR 39).

History
Allen H. Parkinson founded the museum on May 4, 1962, after he was inspired by a visit to the Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London. The opening ceremony was attended by silent film actress Mary Pickford, who dedicated the museum. The project cost $1,500,000. Parkinson sold the museum to the Six Flags Corporation in 1970.

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. 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.

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. However, in 1984 after a drop in attendance, the Florida museum was closed and sold to the publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 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.

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.

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. Movie themes and sound effects also added to the authenticity of the museum. 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.

The museum was featured in a 1990 episode of the PBS children's television series, Reading Rainbow, where the program's host, LeVar Burton, checked out his wax likeness displayed there.

On August 19, 2002, the museum's founder, Allen Parkinson, died from natural causes at 83 years old in his Rhode Island home.

On October 31, 2005, after forty-three years in business and 10 million visitors, Movieland went out of business. The reason for its closure was because of declining visitors and revenue.

Many of the wax figures and sets from the Movieland Wax Museum were auctioned off in March 2006.

The Movieland Wax Museum property was purchased by the City of Buena Park in May 2007. In 2013 the city leased the property to Premier Exhibitions for display of RMS Titanic relics and its Bodies: The Exhibition.

In March 2015, it was announced that the city of Buena Park had approved plans to convert the Movieland property into a Butterfly Palladium that would "feature the sanctuary for butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and other wildlife, an aquarium with jellyfish, a 3D movie theater, a cafe and a retail shop."

In October 2016, the main Movieland Wax Museum building was torn down to make way for retail space. On July 31, 2018, the tall tower sign that was the tallest sign in Orange County, California was removed.

The former Starlite Gift Shop in front of the museum is now a Starbucks Coffee.

As of 2019, the construction on the retail space has been stalled by a legal battle in which the City of Buena Park had filed a lawsuit to it client, Butterfly Pavillion LLC.

Figures displayed
• Gene Kelly from Singin' in the Rain

• Elizabeth Taylor from Cleopatra

• Christopher Reeve as Superman

• Metropolis Woman from Metropolis

• Elvis Presley

• Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones

• Rudolph Valentino

• Charlie Chaplin from The Gold Rush

• Clint Eastwood

• Cantinflas from If I Were a Congressman

• Shirley Temple from Bright Eyes

• Jean Harlow from Dinner at Eight

• Jonathan Winters

• George C. Scott as George S. Patton

• Abbott and Costello from Who's on First?

• Laurel and Hardy

• Buster Keaton

• John Gilbert and Greta Garbo from Queen Christina

• Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks from The Taming of the Shrew

• James Stewart from Rear Window

• Lucille Ball

• Leslie Nielsen from Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

• James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause

• Liberace

• George Burns

• Charles Laughton as Henry VIII

• Johnny Carson

• Bob Hope and Bing Crosby from Road to Bali

• Dick Clark

• Dudley Moore from Arthur

• Ed Asner as Lou Grant

• Dan Rowan and Dick Martin

• Carol Burnett

• Marlon Brando from The Godfather

• Brigitte Bardot

• Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Carol Lynley and Red Buttons from The Poseidon Adventure

• Mae West from She Done Him Wrong

• Sammy Davis Jr.

• Roger Moore as James Bond

• Jack Nicholson from The Shining

• Nancy Sinatra from The Wild Angels

• Vincent Price from House of Wax

• Tom Selleck

• Fred MacMurray from The Absent-Minded Professor

• W. C. Fields from Poppy

• Gary Cooper

• Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd from Ben-Hur

• Edward G. Robinson from Little Caesar

• Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr from The King and I

• John Wayne from Hondo

• Whoopi Goldberg from Sister Act

• the cast of Star Trek

• the cast of The Andy Griffith Show

• the cast of The Beverly Hillbillies

• Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page from Sanford and Son

• Michael Landon, Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker from Bonanza

• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers from Top Hat

• Debbie Reynolds from The Singing Nun

• Raymond Burr

• Cliff Robertson from PT 109

• Chuck Connors

• Alan Ladd from Shane

• Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon

• Tom Cruise

• Kevin Costner from Dances with Wolves

• Mel Gibson from Mad Max

• George W. Bush

• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

• Catherine Zeta-Jones

• Michael Jackson

• Michael J. Fox from Back to the Future

• Liza Minnelli

• Little Richard

• John Lennon

• Jennifer Lopez from Maid in Manhattan

• Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire

• Keanu Reeves from The Matrix

• Julia Roberts

• Britney Spears

• Jim Carrey from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

• Ricky Martin

• Sarah Michelle Gellar

• Cher

• Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from Titanic

• Donny and Marie Osmond

• Halle Berry

• Barbra Streisand from Hello, Dolly!

• John Travolta

• Gloria Estefan

• Bruce Willis

• Jackie Chan

• Chuck Norris from The Delta Force

• Geena Davis

• Madonna

• Billy Ray Cyrus

• Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

• Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator

• Jerry Lewis and Eddie Murphy from The Nutty Professor

• Bette Midler

• LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow

• Elvira

• Mr. T

• Hulk Hogan

• Roseanne Barr from Roseanne

• Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert from Green Acres

• Roy Clark

• Roy Rogers from Don’t Fence Me In

• Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley from The Wizard of Oz

• Linda Blair from The Exorcist

• Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera

• Bela Lugosi as Dracula

• Boris Karloff from Frankenstein

• Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man

• Ricou Browning as Gill-man from Creature from the Black Lagoon

• Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

• The Marx Brothers

• The Little Rascals

• The Three Stooges

• Marilyn Monroe

• Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh from Gone with the Wind

• Bette Davis from All About Eve

• Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn from The African Queen

• James Cagney

• Anthony Perkins from Psycho

• Omar Sharif, Julie Christie and Rod Steiger from Doctor Zhivago

• Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

• Robert Taylor and Hedy Lamarr from Lady of the Tropics

• Julie Andrews from Mary Poppins

• Sophia Loren from Two Women

• Robert Redford and Paul Newman from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

• Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone

• Tom Mix from Rustlers' Roundup

• Ronald Reagan from Tennessee's Partner

• Hugh Jackman as Wolverine

The Starprint Gallery
The Starprint Gallery was located at the outside of the Movieland Wax Museum, and it featured handprints and footprints of celebrities in cement, dating from the early 1980s. It had a similar concept to the cement handprints at the front of Grauman's Chinese Theater in nearby Hollywood. When the museum closed, the prints still existed until the museum's demolition in 2016. The celebrities featured on the gallery include: • Lou Ferrigno

• Billy Barty

• Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

• Roger Williams

• Loni Anderson

• Carol Burnett

• Bob Newhart

• Vincent Price

• Gene Autry

• Dudley Moore

• Dorothy Lamour

• June Allyson

• Frankie Avalon

• Ed Asner

• Beverly Garland

• Mike Farrell

• James Doohan

• DeForest Kelley

• Eddie Albert

• Tom Selleck

• Liberace

• Cher

• Jack Klugman

• Dennis Weaver

• Adam West

• Burt Ward

• Johnny Mathis

• Ray Charles

• Mac Davis

• Phyllis Diller

• George Gobel

• LeVar Burton

• Gloria Estefan

• Billy Ray Cyrus

• Eva Gabor

• Tina Turner

• Marcel Marceau

• Elvira

• Herve Villechaize

• Peter Fonda

• Dorian Harewood

• Brock Peters

• Ja'net Dubois

• Alex Haley

• Louis Gossett Jr.

• Al Lohman

• Roger Barkley

• Gary Owens

• Georg Stanford Brown

• Beverly Todd

• Persis Khambatta