--- title: Playboy's First Naked Centerfold Photo: How It Happened description: The publication has announced that a new redesign will mean no more nude pictures in its pages canonical: https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-13T15:02:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:44:35.447Z article:section: History og:title: How Playboy's First Naked Centerfold Got Published og:description: Playboy's new redesign will no longer include nude pictures in its pages og:url: https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ac466d0f90b7655/69886809cd1bba97406fd9c6/1101670303_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 400 og:image:height: 225 og:image:alt: Mar. 3, 1967 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Playboy's First Naked Centerfold Got Published twitter:description: Playboy's new redesign will no longer include nude pictures in its pages twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ac466d0f90b7655/69886809cd1bba97406fd9c6/1101670303_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How _Playboy_’s First Naked Centerfold Got Published > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 13, 2015 3:02 PM UTC  The Mar. 3, 1967, cover of TIME The Mar. 3, 1967, cover of TIME  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 13, 2015 3:02 PM UTC In a coup for all those men who read _Playboy_ for the articles, the long-lived men’s magazine [has announced](http://time.com/4070955/playboy-nude-naked-photos-redesign/) that, as of next March, nude photos are out. As part of a redesign, the publication will lean more toward lifestyle and literature, acknowledging that readers who are interested solely in nudity could more easily find what they want on the Internet. Whether or not the magazine continues to run its famous centerfold remains to be decided, the New York _Times_ [reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html). If the centerfold is out, this wouldn’t be the first time there’s a _Playboy_ minus the iconic spread. In fact, while the magazine’s first issue in 1953 featured nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe that had not previously been seen in non-calendar form, the centerfold feature wasn’t added until two years later. As TIME described in a 1967 cover story about _Playboy_‘s then-growing success, the invention of the centerfold came about in somewhat random fashion, combining Hugh Hefner’s media savvy with an interaction that would surely be deemed workplace harassment today: An “average though well-endowed girl named Charlene Drain” who worked in _Playboy_‘s subscription department asked her bosses for an Addressograph machine, a tool for printing address labels. Hefner said that he would purchase the machine for her if she would pose nude for the magazine. Drain agreed, though she used a pseudonym (“Janet Pilgrim”), and was the centerfold for the July 1955 issue. Drain also received a promotion and, even after she got married and left the business, continued to be listed on the masthead as one of _Playboy_‘s employees. The style that Hefner established with that photo of “Janet Pilgrim” would soon become synonymous with the publication: --- > “” --- Even now, the magazine’s name will likely be forever linked to pictures of naked girls—partially because _Playboy_ was instrumental in helping such photos permeate the mainstream media in other ways, too. “The magazine has many things to offer, but the basis of success is the nude or seminude photograph that Hugh Hefner has made respectable in the U.S. prints,” TIME commented. “America was undoubtedly ready for it anyway, but Hefner seized the moment. He was the first publisher to see that the sky would not fall and mothers would not march if he published bare bosoms; he realized that the old taboos were going, that, so to speak, the empress need wear no clothes.” Case in point: that 1967 TIME story was illustrated with a picture of _Playboy_ “Bunnies” in their natural state. **_Read the 1967 cover story, with its original layouts and art, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Think Clean](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-03-03/page/1/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/"},"headline":"How Playboy’s First Naked Centerfold Got Published","datePublished":"2015-10-13T15:02:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:44:35.447Z","description":"The publication has announced that a new redesign will mean no more nude pictures in its pages","url":"https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/","keywords":["Media","Playboy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ac466d0f90b7655/69886809cd1bba97406fd9c6/1101670303_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ac466d0f90b7655/69886809cd1bba97406fd9c6/1101670303_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mar. 3, 1967","caption":"Mar. 3, 1967","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/media/","name":"Media"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4071282/playboy-centerfold-1967-history/","name":"How Playboy’s First Naked Centerfold Got Published"}}]}] ```