Eve Goldin poses with her movie collectibles at her home in London, Ont.GEOFF ROBINS/The Globe and Mail
Eve Goldin's office at the Toronto International Film Festival's headquarters, before it moved to a swankier address on King Street, was a haven for staff in need of peace and quiet. The librarian would return to her tiny seven-by-10-foot corner in TIFF's Film Reference Library to find someone from marketing fiddling with Gorgon, one of her toys (from Marvel's Royal Family of the Inhumans); another from human resources adjusting Spock's blue tunic; or a student eating a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with King Kong and Fay Wray.
"TIFF is a fast world," Goldin says. "People moved 1,000 miles an hour. Sometimes they just needed to be quiet, and my door was always open," says the 59-year-old, who retired in 2014 after 23 years with the organization. "I loved having them come to my office and enjoy them …
"I wanted to share them, and make people smile. I'd come from an extremely corporate place – the nuclear-engineering library at Ontario Hydro – so a lot of blue suits. God bless TIFF. They saved me."
She eventually amassed roughly 300 pieces – basically any pop-cultural touchstone she could lay her hands on. They were big, small, cute, but mostly ghoulish. And she got started her first day on the job, in 1992, after a previous employee left behind Miss Piggy riding a tricycle, from a McDonald's Happy Meal.
"It looked so lost," Goldin recalls. "Then I realized it was part of a train set so I began hunting for the rest. It seemed to take on a life of its own from there."
A single mother at the time who lived with her daughter in Toronto's Beaches neighbourhood, Goldin began rising early on Saturdays to be the first at garage sales. "I'd look in the newspapers to figure out which neighbourhood had more kids per capita," she says with a laugh.
Money was tight, so she'd bargain. Soon, her quest took her to Value Village (where she found the mid-1960s Spock in a bargain bin), Goodwill and, when she was a bit more flush, Toronto's comic store Silver Snail.
One of her big-ticket purchases, King Kong ($19.99), is wrapped in chains, with a screaming Fay Wray in the foreground. The big gorilla now holds a place of honour in her living room. "My husband is a saint and he humours me," says Goldin, who exchanged vows with Adam Orton three years ago, with a Star Wars-themed wedding cake featuring Chewbacca in a dress made of white fondant icing on top.
Over the years, friends and family passed on their toys. Her sister brought home kids' trinkets from Burger King and McDonald's. She added the odd Polly Pocket, a Big Lebowski bowling ball, Dracula descending a staircase (Bela Lugosi, 1931), the Invisible Man (from the black-and-white film version, 1933), a Pee-wee Herman doll (1987). Of particular sentimental value is a Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure, who makes a stern "shushing" noise when you push a button.
Sadly, Goldin says the bulk of her collection is now in boxes, pulled out from time to time when she needs a pick-me-up. "I just couldn't bring myself to sell them. They came with the first job I loved. The first job where I became a manager and had responsibility for other people."
In other words, the toys were there for her milestones: the disappointments as well as the successes.
"We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so I guess I finally got the toys I'd always wanted. Some people might have walked into my office and seen clutter. I saw fun, whimsy, the unexpected." Goldin says.
"My toys made me feel calm, happy. And for me, that was enough."