By: Joe Strupp In the 35 years since they broke the Watergate scandal, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have been cursed, praised, threatened, defended, and shared a Pulitzer Prize.
Now they're about to be waxed.
Madam Tussaud's Wax Museums, which operate six such locations worldwide, from New York to Shanghai, are about to open a Washington, D.C. location.
Among the figures planned for the new site are meltable sculptures of Woodward and Bernstein, according to General Manager Janine DiGioacchino. She said Woodward's figure will be among 50 likenesses at the museum when it opens Oct. 4, with Bernstein's image expected to join them in 2008.
Woodward could not be reached for comment, according to his office, because he is on vacation. Bernstein, contacted by e-mail, offered this brief response to word of his pending wax counterpart: "If that is indeed where we/I are headed?I think I?ll choose to be speechless for a change."
"His is completed," DiGioacchino said of the Woodward candle-like clone. "It was done this year, they are all in production."
She did not know if Woodward had posed for the likeness, or if sculptors had measured him, saying all production is done in secrecy through the London museum.
"They meet with all of the celebrities," DiGioacchino said, adding that the Washington Post pair were the only journalists in the D.C. collection. "It is considered to be an honor, imitated in wax."
DiGioacchino said both were chosen to be included in the Washington location through a pair of surveys done in 2005 and 2007. She said the first polling of local residents and visitors resulted in the first 50 choices, which included Woodward.
A second round of polling, which questioned 600 Washingtonians in July, found another group that included Bernstein, as well as former mayor Marion Barry, Martin Sheen, Halle Berry, Al Gore, and Oprah Winfrey.
"We try to include figures that represent locals and famous alike," she said. "We do what our customers want. We deliver."
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