This is the 15th "Horror in Wax" I have posted. Some of you may think I have been running out of wax statues to disrespect, but not to worry, I've been holding Twitty in reserve. Wax Conway is shown here along with Wax Loretta, who is a saint I will not besmirch.
Twitty was really Harold Lloyd Jenkins, named after the silent film comic, and if you finish this post, you'll be laughing like the front-row at one of his flicks.
Actually, I am a fan of Conway Twitty as well, since he had the good taste to let a 17-year old Levon Helm play drums for him some 60 years ago. Twitty was raised near Levon's home in Turkey Scratch. Helena, Arkansas, holy ground for the meeting of Blues and Hillbilly music, being the original site of the King Biscuit Flour Hour Radio Show. But it is Twitty's LACK of taste this post is about.
Twitty had over 50 number one hits on the country charts. FIFTY. A record broken only by George Strait, another great singer I suspect less than 1 in 1000 New York City residents could name.
My main concern here is...TWITTY BURGER! Way ahead of his time, Mr. Twitty had another potential mine as gold as the most golden record...a hamburger topped with bacon. Yep...40 years before every chain today relentlessly promotes their killer bacon fatburgers on childrens TV, Conway was hoping to clog our veins with his own invention, but his had a special festive taste twist. Each Twitty burger was to come with a GRAHAM CRACKER CRUSTED PINEAPPLE RING on it. That's right. Straight from the land of fluffernutters, Twitty was able to persuade his friends to invest $100,000 each in his plan to cover the nation with hamburgers smothered in fruit from Hawaii.
As you would expect, (and as one day the turducken influenced KFC Double-Down will as well) the Twitty burger died a quick death. In a complicated legal battle with Uncle Sam, Conway was tried for fraud and such over the financing of the franchise, but he had the good fortune to draw a judge who loved the singer. The judge not only found in Twitty's favor, he sang Twitty a song he wrote for him after reading the verdict. All true in Wax Hell.
To read all the Horrors in Wax posts, click the blue subject heading below.
Wax Museum postcard collection Jim Linderman
AIEEE! Most wax "chambers of horrors" are hardly that...a few familiar Hollywood villains to scare the kids and a damsel in distress for Dad. This setup, however, would warp a kid for a decade. What demented wax sculptor dreamed this up? Vintage grain rake hangs in the back to add a pointy "what is THAT" object to further scare the kids, and a few presumably wax chickens scratch around the "barn of death" floor. A question? Who would SEND this?
From the Dull Tool Dim Bulb "Horrors in Wax" series. Collect them all.
Horrors in Wax #15 Postcard c. 1965. Collection Jim Linderman
Another installment in my Horrors of Wax series, and this one is my SECOND Wax Oswald. So which Wax Oswald did the dirty Dallas deed? Neither...but there certainly were at least two Oswalds made of wax, and to prove it to all you conspiracy buffs here they are, BOTH IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME! The other post focuses more on Wax Jack Ruby. Click Blue subject heading below to see the entire "Horrors of Wax" series.
"Wax Oswald patiently waits for triangulation fire signal from Umbrella Man" (my title) Wax Museum Postcard, circa 1965 Collection Jim Linderman
I haven't done a Horrors in Wax for a while. Here you go!Wax Brigitte Bardot, propped up in front of a dressing room mirror so you can take in every angle of her splendid wax rear. Bardot has been convicted five times for "inciting racial hatred" as she doesn't like race mixing. In her book "A Scream in the Silence" she attacks "the mixing of genes" and calls homosexuals "fairground freaks". In 1966, Harry Belafonte recorded "Zombie Jamboree" which has a verse dedicated to her. She used to be hot.Wax Marilyn, is, of course, a wax icon and as such an easy target. Wax Marilyn is really Norma Jeane Mortenson, although because of divorce, abandonment and such, her last name is really up for grabs. As a child, she grew up in foster homes and was sexually assaulted...maybe. She appeared in a movie called "Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hey! She was an alcoholic and drug addict. For a time, her address was "Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic" She broke Joltin' Joe Dimaggio's heart which alone earns her an honorary place in the wax hall of shame. Tony Curtis once said kissing her was "like kissing Hitler" While dating Arthur Miller, the press referred to the couple as "The Egghead and the Hourglass" After "meeting" President Kennedy, she repeatedly telephoned the White House so often Bobby was sent out to LA and presumably told her to cut it out. Hugh Hefner owns the crypt spot next to her, and the one spot directly above hers was sold on ebay in 2009. She used to be hot.Gina Lollobrigida,remarkably, and despite being showered with flowers while lounging on a chaise taking calls from suitors...kept her nose clean. I have nothing scandalous to report, other than she used to be hot.Three Wax Museum Postcards, c. 1960 Collection Jim LindermanClick the subject heading label to see previous wax wonders.
Wax P. T. Barnum sizes up the purses of passing rubes as tiny wax Tom Thumb and huge wax mammoth look on. Barnum's first hoax was passing off a blind and paralyzed African-American woman as the 160 year old George Washington's former nurse. As 1500 paying spectators found out during her public autopsy (!) she was only 80. His next African-American spectacle was Man-Monkey William Johnson, a microcephalic who was taught to speak a "mysterious" gibberish language. He tried to purchase William Shakespeare's birth home. Two days before his death, Barnum gave the local newspaper permission to print his obituary so he wouldn't miss it. Before passing, he paid for a "life-sized statue" for Tom Thumb's grave.Number twelve in my "Horrors in Wax" series. Click blue subject heading below to see them all.Postcard, c. 1970 Collection Jim Linderman
An astonished wax yokel stumbles upon a chunk of gold among the dusty plastic Ficus Benjamina leaves in a seldom traveled corner of the wax museum. Listen close and you might hear him yelp "garsh, it's gold!" Thousands of tenderfoots followed, though most of the profits went to merchants and brothels. (Early colloquial expressions for capitalists and whore houses, the latter of which I assume still thrive despite California's economic problems.) Leaving the effect this massive land rush had on Native Americans aside, one thing the gold rush gave us was the song " Oh My Darling, Clementine." Clementine was "the daughter of a miner" who dies in a drowning accident, but not to worry. The heart-broken prospector finds consolation with his beloved Clementine's LITTLE SISTER...a verse usually left out of songs books for children as it is of questionable morality. The oft censored eleventh verse follows:How I missed her, how I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine,Til I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.
Clementine is also the name of a data-mining tool....so the search for lucrative nuggets continues. (This is number 11 in the series "Horrors in Wax" which you can find spread among earlier posts like nuggets of gold)Wax Museum Post Card c. 1965 Collection Jim Linderman
Wax Ray Milland (real name Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones) stars as wax Don Birnham, who goes on a legendary bender and emerges with a new friend...OSCAR! In the depicted scene, wax Birnham is thwarted in his attempt to cash in his typewriter for a stiff snort...the pawn is closed for a Jewish holiday. In the book, Don was secretly gay, but 1945 audiences weren't quite ready for that...a hopeless drunk was startling enough. Ray plays two roles for his kudo...Don the writer and Don the ravaged whiskey guzzling bat seeing rummy. The scenes of "Hangover Plaza" were filmed at Bellevue. In real life, Milland blamed a bad perm given to him for his performance in Reap the Wild Wind for his premature baldness, thus reducing him to second banana roles. Milland is also known for the shortest Academy Award acceptance speech in history, and it is a record which will stand. He said not a word, just bowed and left. For earlier entries of Horrors in Wax, click the subject heading below.Dexter "SceniKrome" postcard, c. 1950. Collection Jim Linderman
Back in 1964, when the Beatles were haircuts, not individuals...their wax effigies were rushed into production "for the kids" at the World's Fair. Close, but not close enough. Ed Sullivan was easier, he'd been around forever. Here the wax sculptor accurately captures Ed's famous flexibility. Ed realized it was important to rope in young viewers so he booked numerous rock performers, but frequently censored them. (The Stones complied, Dylan didn't, he walked) The Doors said they would change some offending lyrics, but Morrison sang them anyway. Ed banned comic Jackie Mason for flipping him the bird. David Crosby, to his credit, engaged in a shouting match with the talentless tyrant. Sullivan also cooperated with the witch-hunting followers of rabid alcoholic Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Beatles appeared on his show three times...but then hilarious Canadian "comedy" act Wayne and Shuster appeared 67 times. The Beatles went on to sell so many records, it took Troyal Garth Brooks years (and a cloned version of himself known as Chris Gaines) to catch up. Strangely, Chris Gaines also had a funny haircut.
Diminutive Parisian Wax Toulouse-Lautrec appraises his next wax studio sitter through a presumably real monocle. The only person shorter in this vignette is the woman to his left seemingly with no legs. Certainly a remarkable painter AND person, his tiny size was due to inbreeding...and although he had an adult sized torso, his legs were child sized. He passed away at only age 36 of alcoholism and surprisingly, given his hypertrophied genitals, syphilis (like an earlier figure in my Horrors in Wax series).
Wax Windbag Steve Allen waves goodbye to Wax Johnny Carson after having his head measured for waxing. I've always hated Allen for wasting the rare opportunity of having Jack Kerouac on his gabfest, but blowing it by patronizing the writer with facile "beatnik" questions and persisting to punctuate the incredible opportunity by tinkling his piano keys in pseudo jazz riffs for the whole interview. Watch, judge for yourself.
Wax Jethro Bodine, future Beverly Hills brain surgeon, "Double-Naught Spy" and in one episode big time Hollywood producer "Beef Jerky" drives the wax Clampett family to Beverly Hills. At the time, CBS fancied itself the "Tiffany Network" and the tightly-wound, nose-in-the-air suits HATED the idea of the country bumpkin show...but greed soon won them over. The Hillbillies ruled the airwaves! It was the number one rated show two seasons in a row, and one show alone attracted 22 million viewers. Some trivia? Future Charlie Manson victim Sharon Tate had a recurring role on the series as Jane Hathaway's assistant. Even more amazing, Granny Irene Ryan released a novelty single in 1966 titled "Granny's Miniskirt".
Beverly Hillbillies Postcard c. 1970 Collection Jim LInderman
Wax Crime Czar Al Capone enjoys a last fat one as he ferries to Alcatraz while chained to his escort. Known to his friends as "Snorky" and the rest of us as "Scarface" Capone earned his nickname by scars he obtained working as a bouncer on Coney Island (which he later claimed were war wounds). While in prison he reportedly "cut in line" at the prison barbershop, so inmates gave him a new (and now politically incorrect name even for a murdering mobster)..."Wop with a Mop." After being paroled, Capone returned to Florida where he soon died of complications from syphilis.Crocker Mirror-Chrome Postcard, c. 1960. Collection Jim Linderman
Say...isn't that something? Bob "Ski-Nose" Hope's head packed securely for a trip to the wax museum back room. Mr. Hope lived until the age of 100 yet never told an old joke. This is a press photograph, earlier known as wire photos, radiophotos, telediagraph and belinograph (jeepers, am I looking up words today) There has been some question as to the legality of buying and selling press photos, they have copyrights after all...but I guess if the agency wants this one back, they need just ask."Heading for Cold Storage" UPI press Original Photo 1968 Collection Jim Linderman
Gentleman country crooner Wax Roy Acuff, front and center, tries to attract attention from his better dressed friends Wax Webb Pierce, Wax Carl Smith and Wax Hank Snow. Webb Pierce is the one in the spider web outfit.
Wax Museum Post Card C. 1965 Collection Jim Linderman
The FIRST in my new series "Horrors in Wax"
Wax Lee Harvey Oswald, the only "lone nut" who worked for American Intelligence in at least four countries meets his old friend Wax Jack Ruby, who had more connections to the mob than Carlos Marcello.
Wax Museum Post Card circa 1965 Collection Jim Linderman
