Pamela Anderson stars on front cover of last ever nude Playboy magazine

Pamela Anderson has posed for the front cover of the last ever Playboy magazine featuring nude images - closing a 60-year run of women featuring naked in the glossy men's publication.

The 48-year-old former "Baywatch" star will be on the cover of the January/February 2016 edition, in which she is interviewed by the actor James Franco.

Playboy, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, announced in October it would stop publishing photos of nude women, saying such images had become outdated due to the plethora of free pornography on the Internet.

Playboy's circulation has dropped from about 5.6 million in 1975 to around 800,000 in recent years.

The new issue will mark Anderson's 14th appearance on the Playboy cover since 1989, more than any other celebrity.

"I got a call from (Hugh Hefner's) attorney, who said, 'We don't want anybody else. There's nobody else, could you do the last cover of Playboy?'" Anderson told celebrity outlet Entertainment Tonight.

The actress and model said she had checked first with sons Brandon, 19, and Dylan 17, before agreeing because for years the boys had been "teased and made fun of, and had a few fistfights over their mom."

This time both of them encouraged her to do it, she said.

Anderson said she made the most of her last Playboy photo shoot.

"I took off all my clothes, and I rolled down the hill as fast as I can," she said.

"I was just screaming, and hair and boobs were flying, and shoes were going everywhere."

Playboy featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, and printed a nude centerfold of the Hollywood actress.

But the photo was bought by Hefner from a printer who made calendars, and Monroe did not pose nude specifically for the magazine.

Playboy said its March edition would feature a new design and its mix of interviews, fiction and long-form journalism.

It will continue to publish "sexy, seductive pictorials" of women, including its iconic Playmates, but they will not be nude.