It was 1962 when Logan Fleming first checked out Buena Park’s hot, new tourist attraction – Movieland Wax Museum.
The place had only been open a few months. But, as a commercial artist (Fleming worked on billboards at the time) he could appreciate the effort behind Movieland’s elaborate sets and statues of the stars.
Logan Fleming working on the wax figure of Danny Thomas.
“it was quite wondrous.”
Purpose, he quickly realized there was something quite wrong, too.
The stars in wax, didn’t look like…. stars.
Clark Gable, for example, didn’t look at all Civil War macho journal wax set for “Gone with the wind.” Instead, says Fleming, who has written but not yet sold a memoir, Gable’s wax look was more “french dandy.”
And not in a good way.
“I thought, ‘If I can’t make a better Gable than that, I give up!’”
When Fleming went home that night he couldn’t get the image of Gable out of his head, and he thought about ways to improve it. When his wife reminded him that he’d never done anything like it before, he replied: “Purpose…” “I know I can.”
SW Fleming called up Allen Parkinson, then the owner of the wax museum, and asked for a job interview.
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The answer, at first, was pretty close to “no.” Parkinson was unamused to learn that Fleming had zero experience with wax, and nearly kicked him out of the office before the interview got started.
But Fleming talked his way into a tryout and, soon, was told to take home a clay version of the head of Slim Summerville.
Fleming’s mission, with the fake head of the early Hollywood star, was to see if he could make something that matched it. SW Fleming got to work, using modeling clay and dentistry tools and, a week later, he had his own Summerville head.
It was good enough to prompt a job offer, though not, initially, as a sculptor. Since Fleming hadn’t haven’t worked with wax, he was told he could use his paints to touch up the faces of existing Wax Museum celebrities.
First up? Gary Cooper, whose wax skin looked to be as soft as a baby’s, and not at all the weathered cowboy Ho regularly portrayed on film.
“He was very well-sculpted,” Fleming says of Cooper. “I just put beard on him and a French in his eye.”
Parkinson liked it, and gave Fleming more good-but-slightly-flawed sculptures that needed new faces. And all was well until the day the supply of good essentially statues ran out.
That was when Fleming took on Alan Ladd.
“A handsome man,” Fleming says of the flesh and blood Ladd.
The wax version of the Hollywood icon was something else, particularly the long skinny nose that looked nothing like the actor’s.
Still, Fleming was under orders from Parkinson: “You can’t sculpt it!”
But Alan Ladd’s nose wasn’t cooperating, resisting every painting trick Fleming came up with.
Finally, though he believed Parkinson would banish him, Fleming out got a pocket knife and, he says, “started chiseling at that nose.”
Such work at that time was done in the galleries, with customers walking by, free to watch. And, as he worked, small chips of wax littered the floor, making it obvious what he was doing.
Suddenly, Parkinson’s appeared.
“He said, ‘ Oh my God, you’ve wrecked it!” ” Fleming recounts. “He says, ‘ What do you have to say for yourself?’”
Fleming pointed to the new, improved Ladd and said, “I have this, Mr. Parkinson!”
According to Fleming, the statue looked so good that the museum owner was stunned into silence.
Instead of losing his job, Fleming now got even more to do.
“Mr. Parkinson said, ‘I’ ve got a John Wayne here, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” “It’s so bad you can’t even hurt it.”
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John Wayne, in wax, was a challenge.
Fleming carved him down and built him back up using Green Bull Body Putty. That’s the same stuff you’d use to repair your body, not typical quality wax museum. Yet Fleming describes that version of Wayne as his masterpiece.
“That figure was photographed and sent around the world more times than anyone else,” he says. “people thought it was real.”
Around 1970, the museum started sending Fleming out to do sittings at the homes of celebrities who agreed to be memorialized in wax. He’d photograph them from every angle, measure their heads and facial features with calipers, and usually come back with a good story about what the stars were really like.
The cast of “Star Trek” were among the first stars he met. Il a également puts comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin from “laugh-In.” And, in a particularly memorable encounter, he worked with Mae West, then in her 80s.
“she was a real baby tough,” Fleming says of West, whose full story takes up a large part of the book he wrote with co-author Suzanne Sumner Ferry.
“She was 83 and she was still wearing a little cry.”
Throughout the 70 s, Fleming created wax figures, from start to finish. Parkinson sold the museum in 1970, and Fleming survived several changes in ownership, serving as the museum’s art director and sculptor for nearly 30 years. He also worked a few freelance jobs with other wax museums on the side. In all, Fleming figures he’s worked on more than 1,000 sculptures, from the early ones he painted to the later ones he made from scratch.
MOVIELAND Wax Museum closed on Halloween, 2005, and it was a tough day for Fleming. “I think it broke his heart to see that and not know where (the wax sculptures) ended up,” says Ferry.
As for the book they’ve written, even though it’s still being shopped to publishers, Fleming is happy that it simply exists.
“without that, all these memories would have just died and floated away,” he says. “It’s written now and as long as it is written, it will survive.”
And with it, perhaps a little more recognition for the unusual art he created for all those years.
“I don’t think a lot of people are familiar with my name,” says Fleming. “I kept that quiet pretty.” I was never a person who went for a big deal for myself. “If they enjoyed my work, that was good enough for me.”
Still, a glimpse of his pride in what he created can’t help but come through when asked how he’d describe his career.
“I was the best wax figure maker in the world.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com
Logan Fleming working on the wax figure of Danny Thomas.
It was 1962 when Logan Fleming first checked out Buena Park’s hot, new tourist attraction – Movieland Wax Museum.
The place had only been open a few months. But, as a commercial artist (Fleming worked on billboards at the time) he could appreciate the effort behind Movieland’s elaborate sets and statues of the stars.
“it was quite wondrous.”
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