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The best 10 Top earning "dead" Celebrities
A little bit late but still intersested who dead Celebrities earn there money (thanks to Forbes)
It's one thing to read the Forbes list of "World's Richest People" or their List of Billionaires articles. You can't feel too bad about royalty, media moguls or trust fund babies making more thanyou. But when even the dead earn a bigger paycheck than you? It's hard not to feel bad about that.
Think about how much money you made last year. Now add the annual salaries of 12 people you know. Does it even come close the 247 million dollars earned during the last year by the deceasedcelebrities on this list? Probably not. Forbes used criteria even for this list, I guess even when you die you are subject to meeting monetary specifications to make "the list."
The business of digging up dead celebrities to pitch products is getting cutthroat, with management firms now taking a much more aggressive approach to licensing and marketing the iconic images. Rather than waiting for the phone to ring, rights managers are actively marketing dearly departed stars to advertisers and vendors. It's helped transform posthumous peddling from a niche business into the realm of mainstream marketing - fueled by growing competition, staggering licensing deals and digital technology that can resurrect the dead.
"It's a huge business," said Ryan Schinman, chief executive of Platinum Rye Entertainment, which represents celebrities. "There are so many points of distribution and so many ways to make money."
Exhuming dead celebrities to appear in commercials - think of Audrey Hepburn dancing in that Gap ad - or slapping their name on all sorts of merchandise is nothing new. However, what has changed is the mad scramble behind the scenes among companies that specialize in dead celebrities - thanks to the lucrative fees that the growing business now offers. Also boosting the business is a move to market personalities that fall outside the usual realm of entertainment and sports, such as civil rights leaders, politicians and famous intellectuals.
| 1. Elvis Presley | |
{google}4407528896921059697{/google} | Earnings: $49 million Occupation: Musician Died: Aug. 16, 1977 Age: 42 Cause: Heart attack Thirty years after his death, the King once again reigns supreme. Plans to overhaul the once-lethargic estate are paying off big-time for publicly traded CKX Entertainment (nasdaq: CKXE - news - people ), which owns the bulk of the empire. (Presley's daughter Lisa Marie retains a 15% interest.) Attendance and spending at Graceland are up thanks to a new ad campaign, renovations at the sprawling complex and a new premium VIP tour program. The Presley estate has also inked new licensing deals with Cirque du Soleil, American Greetings and Hershey (nyse: HSY - news - people )'s. |
| 2. John Lennon | |
| {google}8086785798894908281{/google} | Earnings: $44 million Lennon's posthumous income was buoyed considerably over the past year thanks to resolutions of long-standing lawsuits. In February, the remaining Beatles and their heirs settled a trademark dispute with Apple Inc. (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), reportedly for as much as $100 million. (The Beatles' commercial interests are overseen by a firm called Apple Corps.) Two months later, the band finally resolved a 30-year battle with record label EMI over alleged unpaid royalties. Both pacts clear the way for the Beatles to begin selling their iconic catalogue of hits online. |
| 3. Charles M. Schulz | |
| {youtube}mjKhCk4jqKs{/youtube} | Earnings: $35 million Occupation: Cartoonist Died: Feb. 12, 2000 Age: 77 Cause: Colon Cancer Peanuts might be the understatement of the century. Snoopy and his posse, featured on some 18,000 cartoon strips during Schulz's 50-year career, are the lynchpin of a massive merchandising empire that encompasses television and newspaper syndication, as well as hundreds of performances of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown each year. United Media, on behalf of Schulz's widow, oversees a portfolio of sterling deals, including a 20-year-long campaign with Metlife (Schulz coined the term "security blanket"). One out of every five Hallmark cards sold features a Peanuts character. And in October, Warner Home Video won exclusive rights to distribute Peanuts videos. |
| 4. George Harrison | |
| {youtube}ABIHB1uJKQY{/youtube} | Earnings: $22 million The "Quiet Beatle" enjoyed a substantial bump in his post-mortem income thanks to one-off settlements from Beatles lawsuits with Apple and EMI. Harrison's estate also gets royalties from the modest sales of his solo work, plus deals like Cirque De Soleil's Beatles-themed Las Vegas show. Harrison's heirs can look forward to more consistent and sizable royalties once the iconic Beatles catalog finally hits Apple's iTunes, likely sometime next year. |
| 5. Albert Einstein | |
| {google}2364168934490655125{/google} | Earnings: $18 million The world's most famous celebrity scholar has become a leading trademark in child education thanks to the Disney-owned Baby Einstein brand of videos and toys. In recent years, the brand has targeted toddlers with the hit animated series Little Einsteins. All royalties from Einstein's name and image go to Jerusalem's Hebrew University, which was bequeathed the estate. Word is that Lionsgate is developing a film based on the personal life of the Nobel prize-winning genius. |
| 6. Andy Warhol | |
| {google}2364204865999752371{/google} | Earnings: $15 million Twenty years after his death, the art world is in the throes of Warhol mania--in May, a 1963 Warhol painting of a car crash collected $71 million at auction, four times the previous record for his work. The estate, guarded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, generates income for artist's grants by selling Warhol originals and through licensing deals. Warhol iconography peddles, among other things, Seiko watches, Levi's jeans and Burton snowboards. Warhol was declared "the patron saint of retail" by an executive at Barneys, which last year built its entire holiday shopping campaign around the pop artist. |
| 7. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) | |
| {youtube}RdR0LXOiEB8{/youtube} | Earnings: $13 million Some 250 million Seuss books have been sold to date, and in over 20 languages. (Odds are good there's at least one Seuss tucked away in just about every child's library.) The Seuss estate is fiercely guarded by Geisel's widow Audrey. How the Grinch Stole Christmas returns to Broadway in November. And in March, Jim Carrey and Steve Carell will provide voices for an animated big-screen adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! |
| 8. Tupac Shakur | |
| {google}1549518763452037626{/google} | Earnings: $9 million A stake in the West Coast hip-hop kingpin's gritty catalog was sold in May to EverGreen Copyrights by Shakur's mother Afeni. Already in development are a Tupac biopic, a Broadway musical and a Tupac-themed videogame. (A pitch for Tupac action figures was roundly rejected.) The bestselling rapper in history--with 75 million albums sold to date--is still profiting from his Makaveli line of sneakers, do-rags and sweatshirts. |
| 9. Marilyn Monroe | |
| {youtube}p0FDGnAIWpk{/youtube} | Earnings: $7 million Occupation: Actress Died: Aug. 5, 1962 Age: 36 Cause: Overdose from sleeping pills The breathy, blonde bombshell is at the center of a legal debate over who retains publicity rights to her celebrity image. In May, a New York judge rejected claims by CMG Worldwide, which oversees the Monroe licenses, that it held exclusive post-mortem publicity rights. (The case was inspired by the family of Monroe photographer Sam Shaw, which allegedly licensed its own Monroe image to Target (nyse: TGT - news - people ).) Now the California legislature is taking up the issue, debating whether to pass a bill that would allow celebrities to secure post-mortem publicity rights even for non-relatives. Meantime, the Shaw case paves the way for rightful owners of Monroe photos to sell them without approval of her heirs. |
| 10. Steve McQueen | |
| {youtube}0WO0bBOyh58{/youtube} | Earnings: $6 million Occupation: Actor Died: Nov. 30, 1980 Age: 50 Cause: Cancer The "King of Cool" is enjoying renewed popularity 40 years after the release of Bullitt. In the past year, GQ named the low-key tough guy one of the 50 Most Stylish Men; the Motorcycle Industry Association voted him the all-time "top biker;" and an anonymous fan shelled out $2.3 million at auction to ride off in McQueen's 1963 Ferrari Berlinetta Lusso. McQueen's image peddles Ford Mustangs (of course) and Tag Heuer watches. Last winter, an auction of McQueen collectibles fetched nearly $3 million, including $70,200 for a pair of Persol sunglasses McQueen is said to have worn in The Thomas Crown Affair. |
http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/26/top-dead-celebrity-biz-media-deadcelebs07-cz_lg_1029celeb.html
