Top earning dead celebrities

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,michael jackson,Elvis Presley Top earning dead celebrities

Michael Jackson is breaking records from beyond the grave. His estate has just signed the most expensive record deal ever this week worth up to £170 million. High time for us to take a look at the top earning dead celebrities then…

Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent,celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,celebrity lives yves saint laurent Earnings: £175 million
Fashion Designer Yves Saint Laurent died from brain cancer in June 2008 at 71 years-old. Over a three-day auction art lovers clamoured to buy Matissees and Mondrians that Laurent owned with his partner Pierre Bergé. The fashion designer’s Mercedes Benz and Greek and Estruscan antiques are up for auction at a later date, and his Moroccan house is on the market separately. Talk about cashing in as you cash out.

Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,richard Rogers,oscar hammerstein richard Rogers and oscar hammerstein

Earnings: £117 million
Musical composers Rodgers and Hammerstein earned $235million (combined) in 2009. The creative geniuses who died in 1979 (Rodgers) and 1960 (Hammerstein) had their income boosted from the reported $200million acquisition by Imagem Music Group of The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, and the pair’s creations. Through the sale Imagem gained ownership of musicals like Oklahoma!, The King and I and South Pacific. There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow for Imagem then.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson,celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,celebrity lives michael jackson

Earnings: £45 million
He only passed away in June 2009, but Michael Jackson is already making the top earning dead celebrities chart – and that’s not even taking into account the £170 million deal his estate just made with Sony Music Entertainment. Michael’s posthumous earnings were boosted in 2009 by a merchandising deal and the rights to the use of his name and likeness in documentary This Is It. Jackson’s estate also earned millions from the radio airplay and music video marathons in the weeks following his death. We’re sure there are many millions more to come.

Elvis Presley

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,celebrity lives,Elvis Presley elvis presley Earnings: £35.95 million
Elvis’ income hit £35.95m in the last year, thanks to Graceland admissions and his portfolio of licensing and merchandise deals. There was even a Jailhouse Rock-themed Barbie doll. Next year should be a good one for The King too, Graceland is celebrating 75 years of Elvis, complete with new exhibits and a birthday celebration. There’s also going to be an Elvis Presley Cirque Du Soleil spectacular in Las Vegas. That old hound dog.

J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien,celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,celebrity lives jrr tolkien Earnings: £25 million
Lord Of The Rings J.R.R Tolkien may have died 36 years ago, but he’s still raking it in. The Tolkein Estate and publisher HarperCollins recently reached a settlement with New Line Cinema over allegedly unpaid royalties from the Lord Of The Rings Movie. The agreement in September reportedly saw the estate and publisher paid over £65.2m, and his earning potential is about to get even better with The Hobbit pencilled for release in 2011.

Charles M Schulz

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,snoopy,Charles M Schulz charles m schulz Earnings: £17.5 million
The creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang, Charles Schulz has putting a smile on our faces for as long as we can remember. Having passed away in 2000, Charles certainly isn’t making peanuts, as the cartoon was recently revisited in a line of New Balance trainers in America and the Peanuts catalogue was purchased by Warner Brothers.

John Lennon

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,john lennon john lennon Earnings: £7.5 million
Having been the songwriter behind many of the Beatles most famous songs, it was a big year for John Lennon. In September 2009 Electronic Arts and MTV Games released The Beatles: Rock Band, so you can Jam with your favourite musicians, while the band’s music was repackaged and remastered in a box set that went on sale in September. LOVE, the Las Vegas Cirque Du Soleil show, proved that All You Need is Beatles music to draw the fans in.

Dr Seuss (Theodor Geisel)

celebrity gossip,celebrity,Jim Carrey,celebrity news,dr seuss dr seuss Earnings: £7.5 million
The children’s book author Dr Seuss still remains in the highest earning dead celebrities nearly two decades after his death. In 2008 the author sold five million books, and repeated the feat in 2009. The big-screen adaptation of his book The Lorax is set to hit 3D cinema screens in 2012, and next Autumn, American channel PBS is debuting a science learning series geared towards children, named The Cat in the Hat Knows About That.

Albert Einstein

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,albert einstein albert einstein Earnings: £5 million
In 2009 Albert Einstein turned up in a McDonald’s Happy Meal, as part of the Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian tie-in, which is pretty good going seeing as he’s been dead for 55 years. We’re pretty sure that when he came up with his theory for general relativity, Einstein didn’t imagine he’d end up as a bobble-head toy. The scientist’s name is still used by Baby Einstein products, a Disney-owned venture designed to “make infants smarter”. His estate have got video brain games slated to be released in the near future, and he lends his name to Nestle and Toyota Prius in Japan. There’s also a mall named Das Einstein in Germany, which beefs up his portfolio.

Michael Crichton

celebrity gossip,celebrity,celebrity news,celebrity pictures,michael crichton michael crichton

Earnings: £4.5 million
Even though author Michael Crichton died from cancer in 2008, he continues to publish his work. His latest book, Pirate Latitudes, was discovered by his assistant after his death. Steven Spielberg recently acquired the rights to turn the book into a movie and the author had one more unfinished book on his hard drive at the time of his death, which is slated to be published next autumn.

\r\n\r\n

See the rest of the list at Forbes.com