Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505310053
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Debbie Goff even has an old ``Monroe Scents'' car scent display she got from a closed-down gas station in Hollywood. ``An alluring fragrance for the car and home,'' the vintage-'54 display sign reads.
``They still smell, even - rose and jasmine,'' Goff enthuses in the basement of her Southwest Roanoke County home.
Basement is one word for it. Shrine is another.
So is hobby - which is what Debbie Goff calls her fascination and fixation with Marilyn Monroe, that beacon of blondness, that sex kitten of cinematic flair.
In honor of Thursday's release of the U.S. Postal Service's first Marilyn Monroe stamp, Goff invited the media in for a rare glimpse at her gargantuan collection, which fills an entire room, not including the 100 Marilyn biographies and picture books that line her living-room shelves.
What Marilyn and Goff have in common: Both are/were blond, both are/were childless, both can/could wear the bejesus out of a pair of faux-leopard platform shoes.
Where Marilyn and Goff differ: Marilyn was married for brief periods three times, whereas Goff has been married to the same man for 20 years. Her husband, Andy, who runs a heating-and-cooling business, was her Jefferson High School sweetheart. (Their garage showcases his hobby: collecting vintage Corvettes.)
Also, Marilyn was a bit Rubenesque - ``beefy,'' Goff puts it, pointing to a puffed-out pair of thighs on one of her myriad cardboard cut-outs. Whereas Goff is a size 6.
And then there is the sad fact that Marilyn - unlike Elvis - is dead. Whereas Debbie Goff, 38, is very much alive and staking out her claim to memorabilia mania at the base of Bent Mountain.
Think of this story as an essay on glamour - a middle-aged woman's quest for beauty.
For glitz.
For a Roanoke version of that white dress blowing up oh-so-sexily above the subway grate.
Except Roanoke doesn't have subways, and, alas, Goff doesn't own that famous frisky dress.
``When I was a kid, I wondered why I was born here; I wanted to be in Hollywood,'' says Goff, playing with her wrist-full of bangly gold bracelets.
``And I still do, but I'm too old now.''
So she finds glitz and glamour where she can - in a Marilyn salt and pepper shaker, in a (nude) Marilyn TV tray, in her favorite Marilyn movie, ``Some Like It Hot.''
And for the time being, she collects.
|n n| Goff caught Marilyn Mania seven years ago. She was standing in the check-out lane at Kroger, where she picked up the paperback, ``Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe.''
``It was this picture that did it,'' she says, flipping to a photo of Marilyn in the book, taken shortly after her 1962 death. Naked except for a sheet, Marilyn lies on a morgue table, her face swollen, her skin blotched. Goff wondered, how could someone that gorgeous look so grotesque?
Goff's curiosity was piqued.
She bought the book, read it twice, and the star was reborn.
She lives on in Goff's 100 magazine covers, featuring Marilyn's lips-moistened, eyes-squinted smile. She lives on in Goff's Marilyn dolls - dozens of them. And she sings and dances in the taped movies Goff watches when the cable shows get boring.
Goff owns Marilyn neckties, Marilyn puzzles, iron-on Marilyn transfers and Marilyn outdoor thermometers. She owns Marilyn commemorative plates and Marilyn commemorative stamps from places like Gambia, St. Vincent and Tanzania - places that mimicked Marilyn Mania long before the U.S. Postal Service got the clue.
Goff and her husband travel to Hollywood twice a year, frequenting antique stores for rare Marilyn finds and paying homage at her grave, which lies in a small cemetery tucked between two huge banks.
For the record, ex-husband Joe DiMaggio no longer leaves flowers on Marilyn's grave, Goff reports, although plenty of others do. So many bring flowers, in fact, that people share them with Natalie Wood, whose grave lies nearby.
One of Goff's favorite finds: a jack-in-the-box with a porcelain Marilyn head. ``It took me two days to convince this guy in a leather shop to sell it to me,'' she says. By the time he relented, she'd even talked him down from $350 to $185.
Goff figures she has $8,000 to $10,000 worth of Marilyn memorabilia, not counting a silver picture frame engraved with Marilyn's signature. Goff spent her personal record of $2,500 on the frame - because it had been touched by Marilyn's hands.
The star had given it as a gift to Anita Loos, the screenplay writer for ``Gentleman Prefer Blondes.'' Goff says Sotheby's once offered her $10,000 for the piece, but it's not for sale.
``She's my only hobby,'' Goff says. ``I'm not fanatic about her, but if I see something that's Marilyn I usually buy it - or I at least go take a look.''
Goff admires Marilyn's renegade appeal. ``She was just before her time. She fought all her life to make more money. She started her own production company.
``Most people think she's just a dumb blonde, but she really had a head on her shoulders.''
|n n| Goff talks about Marilyn the way soap-opera viewers talk about their characters - like they're best friends.
On Marilyn's relationship with JFK: ``She was really in love with him. Jackie knew. They used to meet [at the house of] Peter Lawford, who was married to a Kennedy sister, and they partied there. But Bobby didn't like it.''
On her death: ``She died of an overdose; she was a drug addict and an alcoholic. But I don't think she killed herself, I think it was a conspiracy.'' Reports indicated she'd swallowed 75 red sleeping pills, Goff notes, but there was no trace of dye in her intestines.
On the beauty that became her demise: ``She died when she died because she'd lost her beauty, and she knew it, too. It was meant to be. ... I wouldn't want to see her today.''
On her depression: ``They laughed at her when she founded her own production company. They laughed at her when she wanted to do serious roles. People saw her only as a sex kitten.
``She felt used by the system.''
Goff relates to Marilyn's story because she, too, feels like an outsider. ``Roanoke's home, but I feel like I don't fit in because I'm kinda an artsy person, and it's hard to express that in Roanoke. I feel kinda held back here.''
She was partners in a South Roanoke clothing boutique for a few years in the late '80s. ``We had a lotta glitzy stuff, but we never could tap into that neighborhood .''
A Roanoke native, she's lived here all but three years, when she and her husband moved to Sarasota, Fla. ``We expressed ourselves down there all right,'' she says, laughing. ``I mean, we lived through the disco era!''
People have always given her ``funny looks,'' she says. Maybe it's her glitzy style they're staring at. Or then again, maybe it's her tiny resemblance to Marilyn Monroe.
``In Hollywood, some people say, `You kinda look like Marilyn.' But no, I really don't. I wish I did look like her, but I don't.''
Goff can't wait to see the new Marilyn stamp. She says it's high time Marilyn got some attention from the federal government - other than from JFK.
``Elvis gets all the press,'' she says. ``But then of course he's still alive!''
The public is invited to celebrate what would've been Marilyn Monroe's 69th birthday Thursday at 11 a.m. Roanoke's main post office at 419 Rutherford Ave. N.E. will provide a birthday cake with 29 candles - one for each of her films. 985-8738.|
by CNB