Did Marilyn Monroe ever pose for 'Playboy'? She appeared on the cover of its inaugural issue. Here's the complicated story at the back of it all.
By Pippa RagaJan. 24 2022, Published 12:Forty p.m. ET
A&E's new sequence, Secrets of Playboy, displays viewers the fine details of Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion and empire, exposing the darker side of the writer's lifestyles and love of horny young women.
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But whether or not or now not Hugh Hefner, who died at 91 in 2017, made his mark on American tradition is indeniable. Just how did he begin his large empire? The media tycoon launched his magazine in 1953 with an overly recognizable face on its cover: Marilyn Monroe's.
So, when did Marilyn Monroe pose for Playboy? Did she willingly? It's a curious tale. Keep reading to be informed extra.
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When did Marilyn Monroe pose for 'Playboy'?
The first time that Playboy hit the stands used to be in December 1953. Back then, the ticket was 50 cents, according to Biography, which notes that an exquisite black-and-white smiling photograph of Marilyn Monroe atop an elephant graced its cover.
If you had been to ask Hugh Hefner, as E! Online as soon as did, the businessman described Marilyn Monroe as the "very first playmate of the month, very first cover." She "kind of set the standard," in accordance to him, as the "Sweetheart of the Month." But Marilyn, who appeared on both the cover and nude in the magazine's "first-ever centerfold," by no means in reality posed for the factor.
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In reality, though the issue gave the impression three years after Marilyn's movie occupation started to take flight, the pictures were taken in 1949 when she used to be a suffering actress short of cash. "In 1949, she posed nude for photographer Tom Kelley in exchange for $50," Business Insider writes.
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The photographer then offered his photographs to the calendar company Western Lithograph, which is how Hugh Hefner obtained them. In different words, Marilyn Monroe was once never requested nor informed about the sale or e-newsletter. And most shockingly, the Some Like It Hot megastar used to be by no means paid greater than the initial 50 greenbacks she initially made for posing for the photos.
"The picture was something that had been shot before," Hugh admitted to E! Online. "It was a calendar photo shot by Tom Kelley. Most people had heard about it but almost nobody had seen it and nobody had seen it because the post office had taken the position that you couldn't send nudity through the mail. And I'm the kid that didn't think the post office had that right."
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"So we published that picture and it caused a sensation," he continued. Marilyn was left so in the dark about her cover appearance in the debut Playboy issue that even she had to "buy a copy of the magazine to see myself in it," she once published.
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As somebody who's heard of Playboy would possibly bet, Marilyn's inclusion in the issue brought about the magazine to turn into an instant success, and luckily, by no means negatively impacted the actress's occupation. While the two, at that point, had never even met in individual, The Independent writes that they ultimately went on to have "a very close relationship."
Their relationship was once so shut and their legacies so intricately connected that when Hugh died in 2017, he used to be buried in a plot subsequent to Marilyn's in Los Angeles's Westwood Village cemetery. This was once no coincidence: the Playboy editor-in-chief secured his crypt in 1992 for $75,000.
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