Celebrities on the newstand/Has an A-lister ever posed when they were A-list?

[Brian Wallace]

Celebrites are such the norm now on magazines for
Playboy to go the non-celebrity route would be so
radical it's almost impossible to imagine. 

Not just Vogue.  When was the last time ANY major
women's fashion magazine had a non-celebrity on the
cover?  Cosmopolitan, Allure, Glamour and Marie Claire
have been strictly celebrity for quite some time.
Even Esquire almost always has some sort of famous
actor or actress on the cover now.  A fashion/
health magazine like Self is all celebrity now.
Rebecca Romijn is on the cover of the new one.

Just like the poor, I think celebrities in Playboy
will always be with us.  The concepts of A,B and C
list celebrities is so transient anyway.  Are the
really hot actresses of three or four years ago
hot now?  Katie Holmes?  Jessica Alba?  I don't think
either of them posing in Playboy today would be QUITE
the draw they would be three years ago.  Levels of
celebrity change quite quickly.  I can almost
guarantee that Britney Spears and Anna Kornikova
won't be as famous in a couple of years as they are
now.  Which made me think of something.

Has an "A" level celebrity ever willing posed in
Playboy when they were at an "A" level?

I can't really think of any.  Pamela Anderson became
famous after she was a Playmate.  Jenny McCarthy didn't
pose for Playboy again after her PMOY responsibilites 
were over.  Farrah Fawcett posed and the pictures were
nice but she was at her celebrity peak about fifteen
years earlier.  Gena Lee Nolin would have been a bigger
draw about five years earlier.  Belinda Carlisle,
ten years.  Marilyn Monroe and Madonna didn't really
"pose for Playboy".

MAYBE Cindy Crawford but her two pictorials sort of
bookended when she was everywhere. She was everywhere
between about 1990 and 1995.  Her pictorials were in
1988 and 1998.

This may all seem cruel but I just want to make the
point that maybe you are wishing for something that
never really existed in the magazine.  I don't think
a top tier female celebrity has ever willingly posed
nude for the first time in Playboy at the height of
her popularity.

Brian Wallace