29 April 1964: The Beatles are photographed with their Madame Tussauds wax figures

The London wax museum Madame Tussaud’s had unveiled effigies of all four Beatles on 28 March 1964. The Beatles were the first pop group to appear in the museum.

On 29 April the band were photographed with the dummies at the museum.

In 1967 the museum lent the wax figures to artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth to be used on the cover of The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Three of the heads – John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – used for the cover were rediscovered in 2005 after being lost for nearly two decades, and were auctioned for £81,500.

The Beatles’ changing image resulted in Madame Tussaud’s reworking the figures on several occasions throughout the 1960s.

Last updated: 13 October 2017

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Latest Comments

Sergeant 1967 Pepper Friday 21 September 2018
Has anyone else noticed that these ARE NOT the same figures that appear on Sgt Pepper – On Pepper, the faces of John and George are identical to these effigies, but notice Paul and Ringo’s faces are somber and sad looking, whereas here they are both grinning. I always wondered if it was airbrushing at the photo stage of Pepper that changed Paul and Ringo (as they were the happiest of being Beatles and Touring) however, looking at outtakes from that photo session show the same somber faces on their Tussaud counterparts. I realize that they were changed throughout the 60’s to reflect the changing natures of the Beatles, but it doesn’t account for John and George looking identical on Pepper to these figures at this initial photo shoot.
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Paul Snee Thursday 11 May 2023
Indeed, the original heads of the wax dummies of Ringo and Paul are not the ones “lent” to Peter Blake and Jann Hayward for the Sgt Pepper cover 1967. Time to make a correction to the description on this site me thinks.
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