In 1966 my father, Harry Streets, who has died aged 92, wrote to the directors of Madame Tussauds waxworks museum in London, offering to make their amusement arcade, which visitors passed through at the end of the exhibition, much more profitable – if they would give him a seat on the board. His confidence came from experience in the family amusement arcade business, and he felt he had nothing to lose.
The board must have been persuaded, because they agreed to Harry’s suggestion and he remained a director of Madame Tussauds until his retirement on his 65th birthday, 30 years later.
Starting straight away as an executive director, he ended up working three days a week as an adviser to three successive managing directors, spending the other two days at the family arcade.
At Madame Tussauds he was responsible at various times for the Planetarium, where he introduced the laser light show, the Laserium, which ran from 1977 to 1990; and the waxworks studio itself, overseeing a dramatic improvement in the quality of the waxwork figures.
Harry was born in Hastings, in Sussex. His parents worked on the fairgrounds for many years – Harry Sr running stalls and Rosie (nee Vallus) as a contortionist act – but finally settled in Worthing, where they established New Amusements, an arcade on the end of the pier. Harry went to Aldenham school in Hertfordshire as a boarder, and then, in 1951, to Cambridge University, where he studied French and Spanish, but spent more time acting in the Footlights company than studying.
He returned with a third-class degree to work alongside his parents on the pier before buying them out in 1972 to allow them to retire. He sold the business in 2001 and, no longer tied to the south coast, moved to London to indulge his passion for the theatre and contemporary art, interests he shared with his wife, June (nee Iball), whom he had married in 1955. He bought many pictures and sculptures, mainly from then largely unknown artists, and never made his purchases with an eye to making money. Over the years he saw nearly every new play in London, favouring fringe venues rather than the West End.
A wonderful storyteller, Harry was an optimist, and even as Alzheimer’s gradually stripped him of his acute mind, he would regularly repeat his mantra: “I’m a very lucky man.”
He is survived by June, by three children, Charlotte, Matthew and me, and 12 grandchildren. His eldest child, James, died aged 13 from acute asthma.
