Eternity With Marilyn (for $475k)

In 2017, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was buried in the vault next to Marilyn’s at Westwood Memorial Park. Now an adjacent space is being offered for $475,000, as Steve Lopez reports for the Los Angeles Times. (The photo shows Marsha Ebert, whose parents are also buried in a less expensive plot at Westwood, guiding Lopez to Marilyn’s final resting place. In keeping with these difficult times, Marsha removed her face-mask only when the photo was taken.)

“‘Be buried adjacent to Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner,’ said an ad that ran in the L.A. Times a couple of weeks ago. ‘The last prominent bench estate location in Westwood Village Memorial Park. Accommodates four people.’

I called the number in the advertisement and a gent named John Thill answered the phone in Florida, where he now lives. Thill, 66, writes textbooks in the business field. He told me he has lived in Los Angeles and San Diego, and that one of his favorite Marilyn Monroe movies was Some Like It Hot, which was filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego.

Now that Thill’s in Florida, he told me, the plot lost some of its appeal. He first listed it last year at $790,000 and then dropped the price recently. He’s gotten several nibbles, and said he stands to make ‘a little money’ if he can sell near the list price.”