Forbes just put out their list of Top Earning Dead Celebrities, a compendium of noteworthy names from the fields of science, film, literature, and music. And of the 13, the top two earners (and more than half of the list overall) are rock stars! Boy did pre-Napster musical legends have it sweet. Here’s your list:
1. Kurt Cobain ($50M)
2. Elvis Presley ($42M)
3. Charles M. Schulz ($35M)
4. John Lennon ($24M)
5. Albert Einstein ($20M)
6. Andy Warhol ($19M)
7. Dr. Seuss ($10M)
8. Ray Charles ($10M)
9. Marilyn Monroe ($8M)
10. Johnny Cash ($8M)
11. J.R.R Tolkien ($7M)
12. George Harrison ($7M)
13. Bob Marley ($7M)
Last year The King was king, but Cobain took over the top spot in his first appearance on the annual list. And Forbes tells us that we can look forward to Nirvana tunes popping up “in some unexpected places,” thanks to C. Love’s selling 25% stake in the band’s catalog to Primary Wave, a publishing company that has already agreed to have some of Cobain’s work in an episode of CSI: Miami. Classy! But as with Ray and Johnny, posthumous biopics are a serious boon to that bottom line.
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Just so long as we avoid casting Fran Drescher in any of these roles, it’s all going to work out just fine.
cheers, baby
http://www.musichawk.com
I’m surprised Tupac isn’t on this list considering how many posthumous albums have been released. Isn’t there another coming out soon?
How the hell did Einstein make 20 mil last year? That’s crazy? Does his estate get a kick back everytime gravity is used or something?
There’s a lot of Einstein merchandise if you think about it, t-shirts, posters, mugs. I wonder if the name “Albert Einstein” is trademarked, cause that would explain a lot.
Damn.. Kurt Cobain must be rolling in his grave right now
Rolling in money, do you mean?
I’m surprised Marilyn Monroe didn’t make the top 10
I love the irony though. Kurt killed himself because he felt Nirvana were too comercial, and since his death, he has become ridiculously over-commercialized. I mean they even have kurt cobain action figures now, and there is so much Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain related junk which is the type of thing he probably would have hated
No, just rollin in his grave. Courtney might as well just dig up his grave and stab his dead corpse in the back …