Jessica Alba Threatens Playboy

FEBRARY 28--Actress Jessica Alba, who appears in a bikini on the cover of Playboy's March issue, is threatening to sue the magazine, claiming that Hugh Hefner & Co. are trying to make it seem that she appears in a "nude or semi-nude pictorial." In a February 23 legal threat letter, a copy of which you'll find below, Alba's lawyer demands that Playboy cease distributing the magazine and provide the 25-year-old actress with a "monetary settlement" for its unauthorized use of her image for commercial purposes. According to Brian Wolf, Alba's counsel, the venerable men's magazine has caused the young star "immeasurable harm" by placing her on its cover (Alba appears next to a cover line billboarding a story on the 25 sexiest celebrities). Wolf charges that Playboy initially offered to pay Alba to appear on the cover, but that they were flatly turned down. The magazine, he added, then resorted to a ruse to obtain a promotional photo of a bikini-clad Alba from Columbia Pictures. That sultry image, from the film "Into the Blue," appears on Playboy's cover. Along with the legal letter from Wolf, a partner at the Los Angeles firm Lavely & Singer, Playboy also received a February 24 letter from a Columbia executive expressing the studio's dismay over the "outrageous, unethical behavior utilized by Playboy personnel to obtain" the Alba promotional photograph. While reserving its legal rights, the studio is demanding an apology for both it and Alba.