Mad About Marilyn : Collectibles: Fans flock to post offices as stamps bearing sultry star’s image are released on 69th anniversary of Monroe’s birth.

With a sexy smile and a sultry stare, film legend Marilyn Monroe wooed thousands of gaga fans to post offices across the country Thursday as sales of her commemorative stamp nearly matched the mad rush for the Elvis Presley stamp two years ago.

Passing up serviceable stamps featuring Richard Nixon and a prisoner of war dog tag, buyers headed straight for the $6.40 sets of Monroe collectibles--20 identical images of the glamorous movie star in a spangled sleeveless dress.

“Her movies stand for fun-loving, happier times,” said stamp buyer Bentley Christian Asberry, 32, in line at the Hollywood post office.

Careful not to make the stamps too fun-loving, the U.S. Postal Service went with an alluring but refined portrait of Monroe. No bathing beauty pose. No overtly puckered lips. Not even a copy of the famed skirt-billowing-above-the-knees photo.

“We try to keep it in good taste,” Postal Service spokesman Robin Wright said.

So New Orleans artist Michael Deas selected an old-fashioned glamour-girl stance, calculated to appeal to a wide audience with its blend of nostalgia and seduction. Postal officials, who printed 400 million of the Monroe stamps, expect the portrait will prove a winner.

The Elvis stamp earned a $33-million profit because many of the 500 million stamps printed landed in collections rather than on mail. Since the price of each stamp reflects the cost of delivering a letter, the Postal Service takes in a tidy profit for each stamp purchased but not used.

“Pure profit,” Wright said of the Elvis release. “We’d love to do it again.”

Hitting post offices on what would have been Monroe’s 69th birthday, the stamps sparked celebrations and buying binges across the country.

At a glamorous dedication ceremony at Universal Studios, Zsa Zsa Gabor, who co-starred with Monroe in “We’re Not Married,” attracted almost as much enthusiasm from the audience as the colorful stamps. Some fans pushed and wrestled to secure a clear view of the flamboyant actress.

Others, eager to get down to business, jostled through the crowd to hit the white tents loaded with $2 million worth of Monroe stamps. To stoke the buying binge, officials played a recording of Monroe singing “I Want to Be Loved by You.”

“The world loved Marilyn Monroe,” U.S. Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon commented as the buying began at Universal. “On the silver screen, she floated in our imagination. In real life, she was a special talent with a deep yearning to do more and to be more.”

Whether the stamp will help Monroe do more than the king of rock ‘n’ roll remains to be seen.

Several postal officials reported bumper sales Thursday, but the clamor was more subdued than the footloose frenzy that accompanied the release of Presley stamps in January, 1993.

In Long Beach, where two Asian investors bought 10,000 Monroe stamps apiece, Postmaster Ed Jenkins predicted that the star of “Some Like It Hot” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” would not quite top Elvis.

In Hollywood, however, window clerk Joyce Jones fiercely defended her hometown hero: “Elvis wasn’t really Hollywood,” she said. “[But] Marilyn was one of Hollywood’s legends. I think more people are interested in Marilyn than in Elvis.”

Apparently, some people are interested in neither Marilyn nor Elvis.

The Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee receives about 40,000 proposals for new stamps each year--including some wacky offerings that stray far from the standard subjects of entertainers, historical figures, athletes, holidays and flowers.

A Southerner once nominated a local stinkbug as a potential honoree. A cartoon junkie pushed for a portrait of spiky-haired rabble-rouser Bart Simpson. And one eager bar-hopper suggested a stamp featuring a pretzel on the front and beer-flavored glue on the back.

The painstaking stamp selection process at first failed to impress Paul Statman, a Los Angeles messenger who stopped by the Hollywood post office at lunchtime. Statman said he did not care a whit whether he bought a red rose stamp or a “Love” stamp or a stamp honoring African American aviator Bessie Coleman.

“All I want,” he said, waving a package, “is for this to get to England.”

But when he noticed everyone around him demanding Marilyn Monroe, Statman caved in.

“Might as well go whole hog,” he said cheerfully, as he directed a postal employee to mark his mini Monroe portraits with the Hollywood Post Office cancellation stamp.