In March 1968, American airwaves broadcast the final episodes of The Lucy Show, Batman and The Monkees, the UCLA Bruins—led by junior center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—set an NCAA Tournament record when they triumphed over the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and revolutionary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was planning the Poor People’s Campaign exactly one month before he was assassinated.

Although the societal backdrop was bittersweet, that month’s issue of PLAYBOY offered plenty of bright spots. Between the covers of our March 1968 edition, readers discovered a wildly imaginative body paint–themed pictorial (before tattoos were de rigueur), a fascinating Playboy Interview with literary bon vivant Truman Capote and a sartorial soliloquy on the season’s most covetable rainwear.

Read on to enjoy a visual tour of some of our favorite March moments, including some of the issue’s greatest hits, as well as unpublished outtakes that didn’t make it to the printer in 1968.

Behind the Cover

Cover model Sharon Kristie appeared on multiple PLAYBOY covers, but her 1968 collaboration with Mario Casilli, the longtime staff photographer who painted the rainbow Rabbit Head on Kristie’s back, “colors our memory most vividly,” as PLAYBOY archivist Joey Coombe once artfully put it.

Spirit of the Sixties

The “Provocative Art of Body Painting” cover line that hovers alongside Kristie’s hip on the front of the March 1968 issue teased a tongue-in-cheek, body paint–themed pictorial featuring models painted as everything from an owl to a topographical map of San Francisco to a “cellist’s bare Bach.” The collection of photos pictured above and below spotlights a combination of standouts from the published pictorial, as well as previously unpublished outtakes and behind-the-scenes images from the psychedelic session.

The Truman Show

The March 1968 Playboy Interview featured a lively sit-down with the unapologetically outspoken and ostentatious literary darling Truman Capote, famed author of In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms. Highlights of the conversation included a deep dive into the inspiration behind Holly Golightly, musings on heterosexual men’s fascination with lesbians (Capote himself was openly queer) and an exploration of how writing In Cold Blood heightened the author’s awareness of death and by extension fueled his love of drinking champagne and staying at the Ritz.

1968 was not Capote’s only appearance in our pages. For the December 1980 issue, Capote was interviewed by television reporter Nancy Collins for an installment of the PLAYBOY franchise 20Q. In the fall of 1983, PLAYBOY articles editor James Morgan asked Capote to pen an essay about Capote’s friend Tennessee Williams after the playwright’s death earlier that year. Remembering Tennessee, which was paired with portraits of Williams by Andy Warhol, was featured in the magazine’s 30th-anniversary issue in January 1984. The essay was reportedly Capote’s final published work prior to his own death in August 1984.

Miss March

From her name (Michelle “Mike” Hamilton) to her Playmate month (March) to her skills and passions (music and multilingualism), the profile that accompanied our March 1968 Playmate’s pictorial, Beautiful in Any Language was a study in alliteration. Mmm.

Right as Rain and Handsome to Boot

The photos above supported a style story starring “a trio of fashionable foul-weather foilers for the unquenchable gallant,” featuring “rainy-day regalia” designed by Robert L. Green. The issue’s other sartorial story focused on “high-fashion footwear that rises to most any occasion,” and was visualized with a fascinating multi-dimensional wood carving by an unknown artist named Richard E. Behner (pictured below).