Sex, celebrities and comedy have been important ingredients throughout Playboy's 25-year history. We need not remind anyone that Marilyn Monroe appeared in our first issue. What many may not remember, however, is that that first issue also contained a cartoon feature (Vip on Sex) and a nude pictorial with humorous captions (An Open Letter from California). Eventually, we hit upon blending all three elements in one package, and the celebrity sexcapade has become one of our more popular endeavors. As an anniversary treat, we're encoring scenes from some of those pictorials; if you're a longtime Playboy reader, there are sure to be a number of others that have tickled your funny bone and tantalized your libido. Between-the-scenes shootings on movie sets have been an especially good source of big names, bodies and belly laughs. Remember In Bed with Becket (February 1964)? Shot during the filming of Becket, it showed us how Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and French actress Veronique Vendell relaxed on the set between takes: They went to bed, that's how. We've always wondered if director Peter Glenville had any trouble getting his stars back to the script. Sean Connery and Jean Seberg had some good clean fun in Sean Connery Strikes Again! (July 1966) as they stirred things up in a whirlpool bath during the making of A Fine Madness. The late Zero Mostel seemed to have a penchant for choosing roles in movies that the theatergoing public never saw, at least in their original form. A sex-comedy film called Fourplay was to have had a segment in which Zero and Estelle Parsons were forced to ball on national TV in order to ransom their kidnaped daughter. Censors intervened and those scenes appeared in Playboy but not at your local cinema. Many of the shots from 37"-22"-37" Meets 50"-47"-50" (September 1969), in which Zero and Julie Newmar shared a bubble bath, were meant to be seen in Monsieur Lecoq; the film was never finished because of production problems. Woody Allen has made several appearances in Playboy, as author, scriptwriter and star. It's possible that none of his relatives have spoken to him since our November 1967 publication of My Family Photo Album, in which he told us that "a family characteristic was the craving to be trapped by muscular women, held down and breaded like a veal cutlet." Still more weird sexual fantasies were acted out in Woody's cinematic version of Dr. David Reuben's best seller, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. In the film (and, not incidentally, in our September 1972 feature), Allen depicted everyman's damp fantasies. Lest you think we're resting on our laurels, our cameras are already focusing on still more stars doing their uninhibited best for future issues.
