I’m a sucker for blondes, and she is the ultimate blonde.

That’s what Hugh Hefner was noted saying about Marilyn Monroe, the blond bombshell who appeared on the cover of his first Playboy magazine.

The 48-page issue came out in December 1953, and featured inside “a nude 1949 calendar shot of Monroe, which Hefner bought for $200,” reports Mashable.

All 70 000 copies of the magazine sold out within a few weeks.

But the two never met.

In fact, this image below that was shared extensively after news of his passing yesterday actually features English actor and director Laurence Olivier, lighting a cigarette for Monroe during a press conference for the 1957 movie Prince and the Showgirl:

When asked if he knew her, Hefner told Piers Morgan during an interview on CNN in 2011 that:

She was actually in my brother’s acting class in New York. But the reality is that I never met her. I talked to her once on the phone, but I never met her. She was gone, sadly, before I came out here.

But now, in his death, Hefner will lie next to Monroe.

He bought the neighbouring crypt at the Westwood Village Memorial Park, the celebrities’ cemetery in Los Angeles, for $75,000 (R1 million) in 1992:

Of course, the move has divided public opinion. Some see it has a sleazy intrusion, and others a touching gesture:

But when asked about his post-mortem plans, Hefner said:

I’m a believer in things symbolic. Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up.

Sweetheart? Just a little bit.

[source:bbc&mashable]