Leo, Fashionably Late

Leonardo DiCaprio has employees who attend to him hourly; making sure not a hair is out of place and limiting access to the star.

“If guests come around and kiss Leo every day, we’ll have to make sure that that lipstick is cleaned off,” said Brett Pidgeon, Director of Operations for Madame Tussaud’s New York.

Of course, we’re talking about Leo’s wax likeness. We have no idea how often his real handler’s check him for lipstick stains.

Today, the wax museum unveiled the long-awaited sculpture of Leo, in the “VIP Lounge,” opposite Paris Hilton, and next to Beyonce.

(Here are more pictures and an interview with Tussaud’s director of operations)

But what took so long?
“A lot of people have requested for him to be here,” said Pidgeon. Indeed, Rachael Ray, Usher, and Shakira received wax tributes before DiCaprio. The London museum even had a Leo before the “Gangs of New York” star was re-created stateside. As Americans, we should be ashamed.

Mr. Pidgeon was coy about why Leo was appearing only now. But a museum employee said that the actor didn’t sit for the museum’s London artists, who fashioned the sculpture based on 250 photos.

Even without DiCaprio’s cooperation, the statue was eerily lifelike down to a mole on his left cheek, and dimples on his forehead. Pidgeon explained that four months and $125,000 go into each figure. Oil paints are used to match skin tone, and red silk creates the veins in the sculptures’ acrylic eyes.

Leo may date models and make over $20 million per picture, but a glassy-eyed replica of him to greet Times Square tourists proves he’s truly arrived.

~Claudia Cruz, Francesca Levy, Stephen Bronner, Daniel Macht