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.
