Babette March was the first person to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1964.
Sports Illustrated introduced its Swimsuit Issue in 1964 as a special publication focused on resort and swimwear photography. March, a German model, appeared on that inaugural cover, establishing a tradition that later became one of the magazine’s most commercially successful annual features.
The issue’s later celebrity models included Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, and Elle Macpherson. Those later appearances are often more familiar to modern audiences, which can lead to mistaken answers about the inaugural cover.
Babette March’s cover predates the supermodels era by several decades, but it is an important predecessor to the highly visible model culture that became prominent in the 1980s and 1990s.