Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy said in a statement about Monroe, “She was most in control when she was in the nude … What would be a position of vulnerability for others was a position of power for her.”
NYDaily News reports that to create the issue, the editors had to sift through the magazine’s archive of more than 10 million photos.
Talking of Marilyn’s first tryst with Playboy, Jimmy Jellinek, the editorial director of Playboy, told the NY Daily News that for the first issue of Playboy in January 1952, Hughner wanted to do a 3D-issue, but settled for “outtakes of a nude shoot with a little known actress.
That actress literally took over the world in days to come.
Dead at 36, even 50 years after her death, Marilyn Monroe continues to hold her sway in the minds of people across the globe. The People Magazine has voted her the Sexiest Woman of the Century, and last year she was listed by Forbes as the third highest-earning dead celebrity, earning a revenue of $27 million per year.
Nobody would say Playboy doesn’t have business sense, and they know Norma Jeane Mortenson still sells as the ultimate pinup girl, and outclasses anyone else on the cover of Playboy.