Video shop boss Laurence Norman has spent the past two years surrounded by the biggest stars of Hollywood's golden age.

Now he is creating his own, slightly smaller, tributes to the legends of the silver screen.

Laurence, 40, is turning his shop, Movies-A-Go-Go, in Kemp Town, Brighton, into a workshop where he can concentrate on changing his hobby into a successful career.

The figures, which stand about 18in high and have moveable joints, sell for between £800 and £1,200 and are dressed in handmade couture fashions.

So far, he has rendered Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich in porcelain and comedienne Lily Savage and the cast of Star Trek in clay.

Each model takes roughly six months to complete - from an initial sculpture, through moulding, firing, painting and dressing.

The dolls are complete to the finest-detail, with mohair hair-dos and diamante cuff-links. Even the leather shoes are hand-stitched.

Laurence worked as a professional dress designer in London for 18 years before opening his shop, which specialises in classic films, in George Street.

He said: "I had reached the stage where I thought if I saw one more bride, I would go mad. I love films so I thought it was time for a career change."

He began making his figurines of stars at a small table in his shop window while customers were browsing.

Crowds gathered to watch and a friend was so impressed with a series of Marilyn Monroes, he told him to contact the organisers of a national doll fair at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre.

Laurence said: "It was the first exhibition I'd done and they caused a bit of a sensation."

Now, 18 months on, he is working on a doll of of Diana Ross, who he des-cribes as "my Spice Girl".

Laurence sells his dolls through his web site, www.icondolls.com and said his biggest market was in the US.