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Long live the royalties
26/10/2004 20:53 - (SA)
New York - What do Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe have in common? About 69 million dollars of combined income last year, according to Forbes magazine.
Death it seems is no barrier to celebrity wealth and, in some cases, can even result in a spike in earnings.
Singers, authors and composers dominate this year's Forbes annual list of top-earning dead celebrities, with Elvis on top of the pile for the fourth year in a row.
The Presley estate pulled in $40m, five million dollars more than "Peanuts" cartoon creator Charles M Schulz and almost twice the $23m generated by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkein.
Beyond the grave wealth
Presley has been dead 27 years and his perennial dominance is all the more extraordinary given that his beyond-the-grave wealth owes nothing to music sales.
His manager sold the rights to his pre-1973 recordings to RCA, now part of Sony Music, for a paltry five million dollars.
Instead, the king's income comes from the hundreds of thousands of courtiers who pay to visit his Graceland mansion home in Memphis, and the millions of others who snap up Presley merchandise around the world.
Elvis Presley Enterprises, owned by his daughter Lisa Marie, has always been fiercely protective of the Elvis name and image and is a notable copyright litigator.
Three other late musicians - former Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison and reggae legend Bob Marley - owe their places in the Forbes top 10 to continuing royalty payments.
In the top 20, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are the only actors, suggesting that the myth and mystique that often accompanies premature death is both an enduring and valuable commodity.
Because actors don't own the rights to their films, their post-mortem earnings are derived almost exclusively from licensing and merchandising.
"It's not easy to earn when you're gone. That's partly why our list doesn't change dramatically from year to year," Forbes said.
However, the magazine said a name to look out for in future lists was that of actor Marlon Brando, who died in July.
According to Forbes, the executors of Brando's estate are already seeking trademark protection against individuals trying to profit off his name and image without permission.
- SAPA
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South Africa
