Playboy at 60: The hottest covers in the magazine's history

As the famous magazine turns 60, here's looking at the sexiest covers that have turned up the heat in all these years.

The much-awaited anniversary double issue of Playboy is here and it features Kate Moss in an 18-page spread shot by photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

(See the pictures here)

As the magazine celebrates 60 years of circulation, it seems as good a time as any other to look back at its hottest covers.

We start with Sharon Stone who has appeared on the cover of Playboy twice over -- first in July 1990 and then for this one in December 1992, the year that saw the release of that film most of us know her by -- Basic Instinct.

British model-turned-actress Kelly Brook's September 2010 cover in which the bowler hat and umbrella never looked better.

Gold medal at Olympics? Check!

Hot body? Check!

Posed for Playboy? Check!

Swimmer Amanda Beard on the cover of the July 2007 issue.

She may be all grown up now but at 19 Drew Barrymore was still a wild child and led a rockstar's life. Back then she even flashed David Letterman on his show... and went full monty for the January 1995 issue of Playboy.

The cover was this very, very demure version of the pictures inside.

Kiana Tom was the next best thing to happen to American fitness since Jane Fonda. In the '90s she hosted a very popular exercise programme on ESPN. Needless to say, not everyone watching the show did it to get fit. Tom appeared on the cover of the May 2002 issue that carried perhaps the most provocative-bordering-on-crass cover line. (Spot it in the picture above).

Long before Aaron Sorkin picked her to play the financial journalist with a double PhD in The Newsroom, Olivia Munn was the geek you'd probably have seen in lesser-known magazines. But it was in the July/August 2009 issue that someone from the Playboy spotted this hottie and boy what a find it was!

At a time when the world threatened to come to a halt thanks to some silly thing called the 'Y2K problem', the good folks at Playboy were living it up by putting Naomi Campbell in a white gift wrap for the final issue of the millennium.

What 'hot' list can ever be complete with Kim Kardashian? Here she is on the December 2007 cover of the magazine.

Having appeared on the Playboy cover 13 times, Pamela Anderson is clearly the magazine's favourite model.

Here she is making her debut on the magazine and breaking all codes of school uniform conduct on the October 1989 cover!

The supermodel appeared on the May 1994 cover of Playboy to show just why she was called The Body. Elle Macpherson's cover photograph was supposed to be a tribute to the '60s French actress Brigitte Bardot.

19 years later, she recreated the magic on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, appearing in little more than a pair of stockings but looking as stunning as ever.

Playboy had already featured African American models Jennifer Jackson in 1965 and Jean Bell in 1969. But the distinction of becoming the first African model to feature on the cover would go to Darine Stern in October 1971.

Marilyn Monroe unwittingly became the first major celebrity to feature in Playboy in December 1953.

The photographs of Monroe weren't shot by the magazine but rather by the celebrity photographer Tom Kelley.

Kelly paid Monroe $50 in exchange for the pictures that she agreed to shoot because she was flat out broke.

In turn, Kelly too didn't make a lot of money when he sold the pictures to Western Lithograph Company.

But when Hugh Hefner purchased them and used one of them for his magazine's first centrefold, all hell broke loose because by then Monroe's career was beginning to flourish.

But as the scandal broke, Monroe did what few others have done since -- she came out clean and gave an interview admitting that she needed the money for the rent. The star won sympathy and all was well.