Top-Earning Dead Celebrities 2014 | Nx717

Top-Earning Dead Celebrities: The Ones Who Almost Made The List

Our annual Dead Celebrities listis purely based on earnings — only the top 13 make the list. In the past the lowest earners on the list have brought in about $5 million per year. But the dead celebrity business is looking up. This year our lowest earners brought in $7 million.

That means some estates that are earning big money didn’t make our list. That includes artist Andy Warhol’s estate, which brought in $6.4 million in the past year, up from the year before.

Beatle George Harrison was 13th on our list last year with $5.5 million. We estimate his earnings rose this year to $6 million, but it wasn’t enough to make the cut this time. The late Harrison wasn’t as prolific a songwriter as Lennon and McCartney, but he still penned hits including “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Our near miss list also features some up and comers. Albert Einstein has cornered the market on “smart” for years but now it looks like he might have some competition. Thomas Edison is on the rise thanks to a line of ads with Cree Lighting. John Wayne also debuts on our list. Corbis Greenlight, which manages Wayne’s estate, hopes to make the most of the star’s all-American image.

James Dean

Dean was the ultimate rebel but now he’s working with a bank. Deans’ likeness appears on a line of pre-paid Visa cards through Card.com, which also offers Care Bear and Walking Dead cards. The actor, who passed away in 1955 at the age of 24, has 500,000 fans on Facebook.

George Harrison

Perhaps the most underrated Beatle, the late Harrison wasn’t as prolific a songwriter as Lennon and McCartney, but he still penned hits including “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” His $6 million in earnings left him just shy of the Top 13.

Jimi Hendrix

After landing on our list thanks to the success of posthumous Valleys of Neptune (2010) andWinterland (2011), Hendrix narrowly misses the Top 13 for the second year in a row. But continued sales of his music and merch should keep him in the running for years to come.

Tupac Shakur

The “California Love” rapper’s postmortem output slowed in recent years as his reservoir of unreleased tracks dried up. But he still makes millions from music and merchandise sales. Rumor has it that there’s still an album’s worth of new material floating around—a release could land him back on our list.

Top-Earning Dead Celebrities 2014 | Nx717