Marilyn Monroe, first cover, December 1953

This photograph of Marilyn Monroe, with raised arm, was the actual print used to create the first cover of Playboy mazagine, published in December 1953. There is a heavy white ink outline around the actress, deployed to separate her silhouette from that of the (subsequently) unillustrated crowds in the image's background. The photograph has been used throughout the magazine's history in a number of pictorials including: 'The Playboy Cover's Story' (April 1966); 'Twenty Years of Playboy' (January 1974); 'The Illustrated History of Playboy' (January 1979); 'The Last Nude Picture of Marilyn Monroe' (January 1984); 'Cover Stories' (February 1984); 'Marilyn' (January 1987); 'The Fifties' (January 1989); 'Golden Dreams' (January 1994 and cover); 'Forever Marilyn' (June 2001); 'After Hours: The Way We Were' (October 2008); '55 Beautiful Years: the 1950s' (January 2009).