Forbes.com: Top-Earning Dead Celebrities In The Past 12 Months

1. Kurt Cobain $50 million
2. Elvis Presley $42 million
3. Charles M. Schulz $35 million
4. John Lennon $24 million
5. Albert Einstein $20 million
6. Andy Warhol $19 million
7. Dr. Seuss $10 million
8. Ray Charles $10 million
9. Marilyn Monroe $8 million
10. Johnny Cash $8 million
11. J.R.R. Tolkien $7 million
12. George Harrison $7 million
13. Bob Marley $7 million

Although Kurt Cobain died on April 5, 1994 at age 27 as an apparent suicide, he technically tops the list of top-earning dead famous people. In actuality, it was Kurt’s widow, Courtney Love, who received the fruits of Kurt’s artistry. After Courtney spent many millions on drugs and paid her dog walker a $100,000 salary, she was forced to get off her ass and sell a 25% stake in the Nirvana song catalog. Primary Wave is the New York publishing joint that happily paid Courtney $50 million for its share in Kurt’s future wealth, which includes approximately 1.1 million units sold in the U.S. each year from the Nirvana catalog alone. In addition, Kurt’s image and likeness sells in the form of tasteless action figures (below left). Nice.

Courtney visibly enjoys the role of the long-suffering rock n’ roll widow, and she recently even posed with a lookalike of her dead husband. It seems almost impossible that she was never considered a suspect in the death of her husband considering all of the unanswered questions surrounding Kurt’s death. Yet while Courtney continues to live the life of a multimillionaire, she can rest assured that images of Kurt’s alleged suicide note (below center) along with the suspect document found in her backpack (below right) remain on the internet.

Scans of the above documents courtesy of Justice For Kurt