Volume 33

Death can earn you quite a living, if you’re a celebrity. In fact, many famous people earn much more when they’re dead than they ever did while alive. And it all started with the King.

Four years after the death of Elvis Presley in 1977, his estate was close to bankruptcy. So the overseers hired lawyer Mark Roesler who had helped the Saturday Evening Post prohibit reproduction of the 300 covers painted for the magazine by the late Norman Rockwell. After his success with the Rockwell and Presley files, Roesler started CMG Worldwide, a company that protects the rights of dead celebrities. Today, it has hundreds of clients, including the estates of Princess Diana, baseball great Ty Cobb and General George S. Patton.

Years ago, it was assumed that when someone famous died, it also meant the demise of their “right of publicity” — the legal ability to control their image and likeness. But Roesler argued those things were assets, so exclusive control should be passed down to heirs. The courts agreed. By 2002, Elvis Presley’s estate was raking in $37 million a year from companies using the singer’s picture on everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs.

Other estates are doing just fine, too. The family of baseball slugger Babe Ruth makes about $100,000 a year, thanks to Roesler’s company. “It’s funny that in daddy’s best year, he only made $80,000,” says his daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, “and now I’m receiving more than that.

”It’s a similar story with the estate of actor James Dean. He made Rebel Without A Cause and just two other movies before his death at 24 in a car accident. By licensing his famous face, his heirs have pulled in more than $30 million since 1984. In one bizarre deal, the Dean family permitted Porsche dealers in New Zealand to use his image to sell a limited-edition sports car, capitalizing on the fact that Dean died in another Porsche model.

More recently, the family of rapper Tupac Shakur has cashed in. The singer released only four albums before dying in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996. But he left 200 unreleased songs and his mother, Afeni, won control of them from his music company. By 2002 she had put out five new albums, making $40 million from music and merchandising.

That same year — in the months after race-car icon Dale Earnhardt died in a crash at the Daytona 500 — fans scooped up $20 million worth of goods featuring his face and name, everything from model cars to commemorative Coke cans. It was a corporate resurrection.

One day, there will be an entirely different kind of corporate resurrection. “For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus comes, God will bring back with him all the Christians who have died.” (1 Thess. 4:14 ) This one, too, will begin with the King. Only it won’t be just for celebrities and spiritual superstars. It’ll be for all those who embrace Jesus as the sinless, selfless Son of God.

When the unrestrained love and irresistible power of the Lord take us into eternity, our worth will be far greater than anything we attained here. That’s because we’ll finally be the image and likeness of Jesus Christ himself. It will be his essence that permeates our spirit.

Disgusted with the false piety of his day, Jesus was a rebel with a cause, and He wasn’t just acting. He called his followers to truth, sacrifice and service, not a faith that’s commodified and commercialized. He challenged them to exchange the crass for the cross and to find hope and meaning in his third-day rise from the dead.

His name and likeness are invaluable. “There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name... people can call on to save them.” (Acts 4:12) In other words, the heirs of Jesus have exclusive rights. So death does have its benefits. When his name and likeness are ours, we’re set for Life.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at rgamble@bfree.on.ca