Losing Bidder Sues to Halt Movieland Museum Sale

A losing bidder has sued to reverse the sale Tuesday of the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park to the operator of the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

The Buena Park attraction was sold for more than $5 million to F and P Operations, operator of the San Francisco wax museum. But shortly after the transaction, another wax museum owner, Spoony Singh, sued to stop the sale by Six Flags Corp., which had owned the Movieland museum since 1969.

Singh, who owns the Hollywood Wax Museum, contends that he had an earlier agreement with Six Flags, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Bally Manufacturing Corp., to buy the Orange County tourist attraction. The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, names Six Flags, F and P, and Thomas L. Fong, principal owner of the San Francisco company. Singh claims a previous suit by Fong “coerced” the sale to F and P.

Singh’s suit seeks a court order to force Six Flags to sell him the museum for $5.3 million, the price he claims Six Flags had accepted. Singh was unavailable for comment Tuesday evening.

The museum’s new owners, although voicing sympathy for Singh, are going ahead with plans to revive the 21-year-old Buena Park museum, which relies heavily on nearby Knott’s Berry Farm for its patrons. Movieland has seen its attendance decline for at least six years; last year, about 400,000 people came to gaze at the 217 wax figures of celebrities. At its peak in the late 1970s, as many as 1 million visitors stopped at the Beach Boulevard landmark each year.

Ronald M. Fong, the new general manager of the Movieland museum and son of its new owner, said F and P’s plan to bolster attendance included remodeling the Beach Boulevard entrance and adding a so-called Movie Chamber of Horrors.

He said, “We’ve got to give tourists a reason to come here. We can’t give them the same old show.”

‘Mystery on Both Sides’

Although a few managers have been dismissed, most of the museum’s 56 employees have been retained. Hourly workers were given pay increases, and the new owners say they will increase staff by 25% for summer business.

Ronald M. Fong said that during negotiations, Six Flags never told his father that another company was negotiating to purchase the museum. “I feel a little sympathetic” to Singh, he said. “The way Six Flags handled the sales left mystery on both sides.”

Singh’s lawsuit claims that Six Flags officials agreed in late February to his purchase of the museum but that on March 1, Six Flags called off the deal, saying that Thomas Fong had threatened suit if the sale to Singh was completed. Singh’s suit claims that Fong did file suit March 8 in Orange County Superior Court to force Six Flags to sell to F and P.

Ronald Fong said he was unaware of Singh’s bid until F and P’s purchase of the museum was nearly complete. “If we had known there was someone else, we would have hastened the pace” (to buy it), he said.

In addition to the wax museum, Thomas Fong owns a number of other attractions at Fisherman’s Wharf, including the Enchanted World of Old San Francisco, a mini-cable car ride depicting San Francisco history. Fong’s minority partners in the purchase of the Buena Park museum are Varnum Paul and Dr. S. Barre Paul.

Declining Industry

Although its owners said Movieland has always been profitable, one industry expert said the attraction “will never be a dominant property.” Steve Clark, a partner at Management Resources, a Tustin firm that has done consulting work for the museum, said the wax museum industry has been declining steadily from its peaks in the 1960s and 1970s.

The one exception to this, he said, is Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London, which draws 3.5 million visitors a year. Clark said that, on a square-foot basis, Madame Tussaud’s “may be the most successful tourist attraction in the world.”

Times Staff Writer Jerry Hicks contributed to this story.