OSCAR NIGHT SPURS AUTOGRAPH SEARCH

Bill Adams is thankful Marilyn Monroe never won an Academy award. If she had, it would have sent his roller-coaster checking account into another serious plunge.

"Right now I just couldn't afford it," said Adams, who has spent the last several years collecting autographs of Academy Award winners for best supporting actor/actress and best actor/actress.

Had Monroe won an Oscar for best actress, Adams would now be 17 autographs shy of a complete set. "I've got every autograph of the top four acting categories since Oscars were first given out except 16," said Adams, 44, a letter carrier with the Cape Girardeau Post Office. By Adams' calculations, his Academy Award autograph collection is at 194 and counting.

Like many movie fans, Adams will be anxiously awaiting the announcement of tonight's Academy Awards. But his interest will be part historical, part personal.

"I like movies, especially some of the old ones, but I'm more interested in getting a complete set," said Adams. "When you've got all those autographs, you've got a part of each person. If you can come up with a letter or document signed by that person, you've got a few minutes of their life."

Adams isn't likely to forget a few minutes spent with Charlton Heston.

"He was coming out of Busch Stadium when they were filming this picture about an aging quarterback in 1967," recalled Adams, his pensive demeanor distinguished even further by his neatly trimmed beard. "When I stopped him and asked for his autograph, I felt like I was looking at Moses before he was about to part the Red Sea. It was a real thrill to get that autograph, partly because I wanted it to go with the still picture I had of him in the film `Ben Hur,' but also because it was such a difficult chase. You wouldn't believe the thrill I got when I landed that dude."

To learn about the soul of Bill Adams, one must take a journey through the fascinating confines of his basement, where all but one signature (Craig Wood) of winners of the Masters golf tournament can be found. He has every signature of every astronaut to land on the moon but one, David Scott.

If you ask him who his favorite actor and actress are, the answer has little to do with the face value of their signature and more to do with who they are.

"Jimmy Stewart is my favorite actor and Susan Hayward my favorite actress," he confided. "Jimmy Stewart is just the perfect gentleman and Hayward is such a terrific actress."

A serious student of history since graduating from Scott County Central High School, Adams has also successfully chased down the signatures and letters from each American President with the exception of three. "I don't have George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson," said Adams. "But I'm still working on that."

One of the most coveted Academy Award autographs that has eluded his grasp is Humphrey Bogart's. "I need his autograph to go with the still of him in "African Queen," said Adams, who has been collecting autographs for 34 years. "That's one of the more expensive ones."

Adams has a thorough understanding of the network for procuring autographs of famous people since the first one in 1960.

"The first autograph I ever got was of Rory Calhoun in Sikeston," said Adams. "I got started collecting autographs of ball players and it just never stopped," he said. "What really got me going was when I found out by reading a book in the library that you can get autographs from famous people by writing to them.

He also learned to bargain with dealers and agents.

"I have a friend who is an autograph dealer in Hollywood and she gets me some of the autographs I need," said Adams. Some of the more interesting autographs are of actors and actresses few, if any, movie fans have heard of.

"Miyoshi Umeki won for best supporting actress in `Sayonara' in 1957 and was in the television show `The Courtship of Eddie's Father,' but there probably aren't too many people who know who she is," said Adams. "Robert Bonat, who was named best actor for the movie `Goodbye Mister Chips' in 1939 is another one of those names people just don't hear about every day. Bonat beat out the likes of Clark Gable, who was up for best actor in `Gone With the Wind' the same year `Goodbye Mister Chips' came out. "That was also the same year `The Wizard of Oz' was up for some Academy Awards," said Adams.

Regardless of how famous the name is, Adams is intent on pursuing the signatures that will give him his complete set.

"I've probably spent $100 or more on names people have never heard of, but they're important to me because they bring me that much closer to filling out the entire collection," he said.

Once he became immersed in the collection of Academy Award winners' signatures, Adams' curiosity to know something about their lives came into play.

"Harold Russell sold his Oscar because he needed money for medical expenses," noted Adams. "He played the soldier in `The Best Years of Our Lives,' a film from 1946. It seems like once you get involved in this, you pick up information that makes the collection even more interesting because now there's a story to tell."

Marlee Matlin won a best actress Oscar for her role in "Children of a Lesser God." "That was interesting in that it was her first role in movies," said Adams. "Then you have someone like Jessica Tandy, who has been acting for years and she finally wins for `Driving Miss Daisy.'"

One of the autographs Adams is still seeking is that of Hattie McDaniel, who played the black maid in "Gone With the Wind."

"Give me time," said Adams, who is a staunch believer in the mailman's credo: delivery through adversity. "I haven't given up on that one or others like Thomas Edison and Orville and Wilbur Wright just yet," he said with conviction, looking as though he was delighting in another difficult chase.