The last centrefold: Pamela Anderson is Playboy’s final nude model, 26 years after her first appearance

Pamela Anderson is the last person to pose nude for Playboy magazine, closing a more than 60-year tradition that has seen women ranging from Madonna to Kim Kardashian and Cindy Crawford strip off for the glossy men's publication.

Playboy magazine said on Thursday the 48-year-old former Baywatch star will be featured on the cover of the January/February 2016 edition that will hit newsstands on December 11. She also gets a 12-page photo spread and is interviewed by actor James Franco.

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in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, announced in October that it would stop publishing nude photos of women, saying they had become outdated due to the plethora of free pornography on the Internet.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