Playboy honors Marilyn Monroe with nude photo special spanning her career

Marilyn Monroe, Playboy’s first cover girl, is back gracing the front of the magazine for a December issue timed to the 50th anniversary of the death of the famous femme fatale.
Showcasing pictures from beginning of her career to a few months before her demise at age 36, Playboy unearthed a treasure trove of photos from its archives. including Tom Kelly’s legendary shot of Monroe baring more than her soul on a red velvet cloth.
"She was most in control when she was in the nude," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said in a statement. "What would be a position of vulnerability for others was a position of power for her.
It took six months to sift through the magazine’s archive of more than 10 million photos,” Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jellinek told the News.
But it was a labor of love considering how much the magazine owes to Monroe.
For the first issue [founder Hugh Hefner] wanted to do a 3-D issue with the glasses, but couldn’t afford it, so he opted for outakes of a nude shoot with a little known actress,” says Jellinek of the January 1952 issue, which was published before Monroe became a household name.
You didn’t need 3-D glasses to see the results: the issue immediatley sold out, and the rest is history.
She helped elevate nude photography into a higher art form,” says Jellinek.
And 50 years after Monroe’s nude, lifeless body was found on her bed next to a bottle of pills - an apparent suicide, though conspiracy theorists think otherwise - the global fascination with the former Norma Jeane Mortenson hasn’t ebbed.
The former Mrs. Joe DiMaggio and Mrs. Arthur Miller was voted the Sexiest Woman of the Century by People Magazine. And last year, Forbes listed her as the third highest-earning dead celebrity, with an income of $27 million.