Hugh Hefner to be Buried Next to Marilyn Monroe, Playboy's First Cover Girl
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner will be laid to rest next to Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, the magazine's first cover girl.
"Spending an eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up," Hefner once said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Reports say Hefner paid $75,000 in 1992 for the plot next to Monroe's in Los Angeles' Westwood Village Memorial Park
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The crypts around the actress are prime real estate. The crypt above hers belonged to her ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, but when they divorced in 1954, he sold it. The general manager of the cemetery Jolene Mason said that one crypt, two spots above the actress and to the left, is still available for $250,000.
According to New York Daily News, Hefner previously admitted that Jay Leno told him to buy the crypt above Monroe's if he was to spend that kind of money.
"But to me there's something rather poetic in the fact that we'll be buried in the same place," the Playboy founder once admitted.
In the first issue of Playboy published in 1953, Monroe graced the cover. The magazine's issue sold over 50,000 copies, the start of many successful runs for Playboy.
"There's something unique when an iconic legendary figure is more famous 50 years after her death than at the height of her career," Hefner said about Monroe in an interview with CBS LA back in 2012.
Aside from spending eternity next to Monroe, Hefner admitted that being buried in that cemetery is significant for him because his friends like Buddy Rich and Mel Torme are buried there.
Many celebrities have been laid to rest at Westwood cemetery, including Natalie Wood, Dean Martin, Truman Capote, Merv Griffin, and Farrah Fawcett.
Hefner died Wednesday of natural causes at the age of 91. He passed away at his Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills.
The Playboy founder is survived by his wife Crystal Harris and his four children, Christie, David, Marston, and Cooper.
