Playmate of the Year

marianne gravatte takes top honors for 1983

Nothing Prepares you for meeting a girl like Marianne Gravatte. There is no rehearsal, no school of cool that will enable you to maintain an air of savoir-faire in her presence. Instead, you're more likely to stumble, to stutter or to lose command of the language altogether. She simply has that effect. Once you accept that, your frustration will dissipate as you joyfully, inevitably fall under her spell. We know, because girls like that are our business. Long ago, we acknowledged our weakness for stunningly beautiful women--without shame or regret. We can handle it. Problems do arise, however, when amateurs run up against the Gravatte whammy. In recent months, for instance, Marianne has notched two motorcyclists in separate incidents on the Los Angeles freeways. The scenarios were similar: High-speed traffic; the hapless cyclist pulls alongside the sports car; he glances idly at the driver; he is transfixed. The sports-car driver waves frantically. The warning is misinterpreted. One cyclist is still fumbling for his business card as his bike roars off the road into a ditch. The second winks seductively as he rear-ends a BMW. That is the effect of the girl we have chosen to be our 1983 Playmate of the Year. Fortunately, the accidents weren't that serious; still, Marianne is genuinely sorry about them. But what is a girl to do? "I try not to make eye contact," Marianne pleaded, "but sometimes you can't avoid it. Then it encourages them and it's all over." It was all over for us last October, when Marianne made her centerfold appearance. She was, in a word, enigmatic. Although she'd been told many times that she was exceptionally good-looking, she was reluctant to accept it, much less agree. Although she had a body that screamed, (text concluded on page 162)Playmate of the Year(continued from page 138) she was soft-spoken and shy. She had the potential to be a man-eater, but she was a homebody who avoided the limelight as if it were acid rain.

When she heard she had been chosen Playmate of the Year, Marianne's reaction was, "Are you sure?"

"I didn't believe it," she told us. "I didn't expect it. I was happy, of course, because I had been hoping for it and doing my best to get it."

Marianne's best, you'll understand, required an extraordinary effort on her part. Following her Playmate appearance, she shuttled across the country, hitting dozens of cities, including Sacramento, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and points in between. She had never previously left Southern California.

"Toward the end of my Playmate tour," she admitted, "I was ready to scream. We'd have three or four interviews a day and two or three other functions to attend. I went to Penn State to do a call-in radio show that lasted an hour! I was panicked. I couldn't imagine what I would say for an hour." Naturally, or perhaps unnaturally, she got through the hour and pushed on for a very successful tour.

"I had to get over my shyness," she explained. "I had no choice!"

If she had her druthers, you'd probably find Marianne most often behind the wheel of her new Porsche 928S. One of her passions is speed. She seems to enjoy moving at accelerated velocity in any number of vehicles.

"My boyfriend has a blown-and-injected racing boat. I wanted to race it when it was just blown and carbureted, but when he added the injection, I said, 'No, I'll pass.' The injectors are the kind you have to turn around and squirt; they catch fire all the time. But I have been in the boat when he's had it up to full speed. It'll do about 130. Speed on the water is the best. Then you really feel it. You can't see anything. Everything is just a blur."

When she gets home, however, Marianne is again just the girl next door, with the interests and concerns of any other 23-year-old. Right now, she lives with her parents and her fiancé in a suburb of L.A., but some of the cash she'll get from Playboy will go toward a house for her and her intended. Some may go for her other passion, a small menagerie. Indeed, Marianne relates to animals far more easily than she does to people. Her contingent of cats was recently reduced by one, thanks to a hungry owl, but that situation should change momentarily, since at least one of her seven cats is always pregnant. The latest expectant mom has chosen a unique delivery room: "I think she's going to have them in the top of my closet," Marianne said, laughing. "She goes up there all the time--climbs right up my clothes!"

Modeling has proved to be a marvelous tonic for Marianne, who more and more seems to enjoy being before the camera. She's good at it, and she is beginning to get recognition for her talent. She recently did a cover for the Mexican edition of Vogue. And when we talked, she had just completed her first rock video, in which she's featured on Something to Grab For, by Ric Ocasek. The job required a modest bit of acting, and though she pulled it off, Marianne learned her limits.

"I'm going to stick with modeling for a while," she concluded. "I'd like to try acting, but first, I'm going to need some lessons. I'd rather wait to know what I'm doing than just go out and make a fool of myself."

Whatever she does, we've a feeling Marianne will be welcomed. Her self-effacing, totally unpretentious manner seems to endear her to all who meet her; her confidence level is rising by the hour. And we've just given her the biggest vote of all.

" 'Toward the end of my Playmate tour.' she admitted, 'I was ready to scream.' "