DEEP STATE OF WAX REPAIR FOR TRUMP
Figure of former president in S.A. moved to storage after taking a beating
SAN ANTONIO — The Alamo City doesn’t have Donald Trump to push around — and claw — anymore. At least not for the time being. Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks on Alamo Plaza moved the wax figure of the former president to a storage room because a few museum visitors — with intense feelings and a lack of self-restraint — kept pummeling him.
They punched and scratched the figure, inflicting so much damage that management had it pulled from public view, said Clay Stewart, regional manager for Ripley Entertainment, which owns the wax museum.
The scratches to Trump’s face were deep.
“When it’s a highly political figure, attacks can be a problem,” Stewart said.
It’s unclear when the wax museum will repair Trump and put him back on display. Stewart said it likely won’t happen until after the museum receives a wax figure of President Joe Biden, currently in the works at Ripley Entertainment’s headquarters in Orlando, Fla.
“Wax figures are rotated all the time,” Stewart said.
With limited space, the museum decides which figures to display based on how the popularity of the politician, celebrity or star athlete has stood up over time. For now, Trump is in good company. He’s sharing storage space with W.C. Fields, George Washington and nearly 30 other wax figures.
Trump’s removal was the result of the damage the figure sustained, not the ebb and flow of his public status.
“Our wax figures will need repairing from time to time,” said Suzanne Smagala-Potts, Ripley Entertainment’s public relations director.
Visitors’ attacks on the wax Trump increased as the 2020 presidential campaign heated up early in the summer, according to Stewart.
Not even moving Trump to the lobby, where ticket attendants could keep an eye out for attackers, stopped them from taking shots at the statue, which is dressed in a blue suit and the Republican’s trademark red tie.
So Tussaud’s quietly trundled the presidential waxwork into storage in July. Museum employees confirmed the removal to the Express-News this week.
Trump was one of the most polarizing presidents in U.S. history. But beating up wax statues of former or sitting presidents isn’t an unheard-of property crime.
“We’ve always had trouble with the presidential section because no matter what president it was — Bush, Obama or Trump — they’ve all had people beat them,” Stewart said. “The ears were torn off Obama six times. And then Bush’s nose was punched in.”
He was referring to President George W. Bush, not his father, the late George H.W. Bush.
“People are just aggressive about their political party,” he said.
The wax Obama was shipped to Orlando, Fla., repeatedly for repairs. But Trump has been stuck in San Antonio because COVID-19 restrictions have caused a shortage of artists at the corporate office, Stewart said.
For Obama, at least, the abuse has stopped.
“He has not been beaten as much since he left office,” Stewart said.
Obama currently stands near Trump’s former domain in the wax museum — an empty podium with the presidential seal, backdropped by a wall-size image of the White House. The Democrat is decked out in presidential casual: white dress shirt and charcoal gray slacks, no jacket or tie.
The Trump statue has received much more respectful, gentler treatment at Louis Tussaud’s Palace of Wax in Grand Prairie, also owned by Ripley Entertainment. There’s not been a single attack on the figure since its installation in 2017, said Vera Davis, the wax museum’s manager/supervisor.
“He’s a big photo op here,” she said.
It’s unclear why Trump gets more respect at the Grand Prairie attraction than in San Antonio. Both museums draw visitors from all over Texas and other states.
Ripley Entertainment created three wax statues of Trump. The
Texas attractions received two of them, and the third went to the Louis Tussaud wax museum in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
The Niagara Falls museum is currently closed because of Canada’s COVID-19 rules. Smagala-Potts didn’t respond to a question about how Trump has fared in Canada.
Ripley Entertainment officials knew the Trump figures would be controversial.
At their unveiling in early 2017, before their journeys to Texas and Ontario, the company invited visitors to check out the three Trump figures at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! in Orlando.
“Just as in real life, wax Trump is polling at about 50% — loved by some visitors, loathed by others,” a Ripley’s press release said at the time. “Come by and show your love or dislike for the President-elect.”