Elvis is dead, and still makes more money than you

By Stone Martindale Oct 31, 2007, 17:18 GMT

EPA/CLAUS FISKER Scanpix ImageID: 20070816-162658-6

The annual Forbes Dead Celebrity Rich List has been published, and it's been another classic year for Elvis Presley. He regained his number one slot from Kurt Cobain.

Elvis has managed to earn $49 million over the last year, $5 million more than his nearest rival John Lennon could.

Stu at Hecklerspray.com noted that "Elvis Presley was knocked into second place last year by Kurt Cobain, with industry experts claiming that this reflects the current public trend for favoring bloated corpses with blasted-open colons over miserable corpses with bits of their heads missing."

This year was the 30th Anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.

Elvis earned $49 million (£24 million) in the past year, his estate continues to generate millions from music royalties, DVDs, licensing deals and tourism at Graceland, the singer’s mansion in Memphis.

Forbes ranks 13 former celebrities according to income and proves that death doesn't put the kibosh on making the dough.

The group collectively made $232 million in the past year.

Here's this year's list of the richest dead celebrities, according to Forbes:

Elvis Presley $49 million
John Lennon $44 million
Charles M. Schulz $35 million
George Harrison $22 million
Albert Einstein $18 million
Andy Warhol $15 million
Theodor Geisel $13 million
Tupac Shakur $9 million
Marilyn Monroe $7 million
Steve McQueen $6 million
James Brown $5 million
Bob Marley $4 million
James Dean $3.5 million