Widow Resurrects Marilyn Monroe for Sales of the Crypt
Wanna spend eternity on top of Marilyn Monroe? The widow who owns the crypt in the mausoleum above the star's final resting place has put the plot up on eBay, even though her husband is interred there. Creepy!
Elsie Poncher, whose husband Richard Poncher, is entombed above Marilyn at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park in L.A., put her husband's plot of up for sale on eBay. According to the L.A. Times a Japanese bidder pledged $4,602,100, but went back on his offer shortly after he won the auction yesterday. The next highest bid was only $100 less than the winning offer. Poncher is giving the 11 other top bidders 24 hours to make her an offer for the coveted spot. She plans on using the money to pay off the mortgage on her $1 million home in Beverly Hills. At least she's not trying to blame "the economy."
Richard Poncher bought his final resting spot and the one next to it from Marilyn's ex, Joe DiMaggio, in the '50s, while the pair were divorcing. Elsie was going to have the spot next to her husband, but now she plans on selling one tomb and moving her husband's into the one next door. She plans on being cremated.
And for all of us who think we're clever for coming up with the "on top of Marilyn" joke, Poncher, who died in 1986, thought of it first and better.
[Elsie] said that when her husband was dying, he made a request. "He said, 'If I croak, if you don't put me upside down over Marilyn, I'll haunt you the rest of my life.' "
After the funeral, Poncher said, she conveyed her husband's wish to the funeral director. "I was standing right there, and he turned him over," she said. I guess she's no longer afraid of ghosts.