Word: waxes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tussaud's had its beginning in the French Revolution. The original Mme. Tussaud, born Marie Grosholtz of Swiss parents, was an accomplished modeler in wax. She was friend, companion and teacher to Louis XVI's sister and lived at court at Versailles, where she knew the great personages of the period. After the Revolution her realistic waxwork was in great demand. She modeled many of the Terrorists from life, sometimes willingly, sometimes under protest. Once she was forced to reproduce the freshly guillotined head of a Royalist. A Royalist at heart, she watched for a chance to leave...
Meantime, the shrewd, energetic woman realized that she was shaping a fine commercial asset in wax. In 1802 she got to England with many of her images intact, put them on exhibition. She added more, taught her children how to model and how to manage. Her venture was plagued by riot, shipwreck and fire. But before her death in 1850 at 90, Marie Grosholtz Tussaud had made an institution of her exhibit in London's Baker Street, first permanent home of the collection. Succeeding Tussauds have carried on. The fingers of at least one member of the Tussaud descendants...
When a land mine exploded in the midst of Indian troops in the Middle East, it left 60 casualties with broken eardrums in one or both ears. Of the wounded, the ones who fared best were those whose unwashed ears were plugged with accumulated wax...
What really started the corn sprouting on Broadway was a lugubrious tune by Louisiana's Jimmie Davis called It Makes No Difference Now. In the late '30s Decca's Recording Chief David Kapp heard this Texas hit and got it on wax. Within a few months record buyers were clamoring for Decca's later Bing Crosby version. Shrewd David Kapp barged wholesale into the hillbilly field, boomed local hits into national smashes by giving them successive recordings by bigger & bigger names. Thus, Crosby became the most popular singer of hillbilly as well as other popular music...
...little babies, the reclining couch strategists of Carthago reasoned that the root of the failure lay in the refusal of the Hasdrubals, Hamilcars, Hannos and Himilcos to profit by the example of Daedalus. Imprisoned by Minos in the labyrinth in Crete, Daedalus had fixed wings to his shoulders with wax and flown to Sicily. Had the great Hannibal been home, instead of wandering about Italy hunting for legions to defeat, they assured one another, he would have known how to adapt the solo flight to military needs. He would have flown an army in. It was clearly the only...