Crypt above Marilyn Monroe sells for $4.6 million

[August 25, 2009]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The price for spending eternity above Marilyn Monroe is more than $4.6 million.

That's how much the crypt directly above the actress went for in an online auction that ended Monday.

The eBay.com listing says the space at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery above Monroe is being vacated, making room for someone else. The listing also offers the detail that the current occupant is "looking face down on" Monroe, who was laid to rest at the cemetery in 1962.

Bidding for the auction started at $500,000 on Aug 14. The final bid was $4,602,100.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the seller was Elsie Poncher, who was putting her late husband's crypt up for auction to help pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her Beverly Hills home.

Poncher told the newspaper that her husband, Richard Poncher, bought the crypt from Monroe's former husband, Joe DiMaggio, during his 1954 divorce from Monroe. Her husband died 23 years ago at 81.

Jolene Mason, the cemetery's general manager, told the newspaper there is one empty crypt left in the mausoleum where Monroe is buried, available for $250,000 and located two spots above the actress and to the left.

A message left for Poncher was not returned Monday.

But she earlier said that, when she sells the crypt, she'll put her husband's remains in the one reserved for her, and when her time comes, she'll be cremated.

[Associated Press]

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