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Marilyn Monroe crypt auction fails again

LOS ANGELES
Mon Nov 2, 2009 4:34pm EST
The crypt of Marilyn Monroe is pictured at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery in Westwood, California August 17, 2009. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A second attempt to sell a crypt on top of Marilyn Monroe's final resting place has failed, with not a single bid received for the burial spot in a celebrity-filled Los Angeles cemetery.

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Widow Elsie Poncher is trying to sell her husband's crypt to pay off the mortgage on her Beverly Hills home. On selling the crypt, Poncher had planned to move her husband, who died in 1986, to an adjacent crypt intended for her.

But a $4.6 million bid submitted through online auctioneer eBay Inc in August fell through when the unidentified bidder pulled out.

A second auction on eBay with a reserve price of $500,000 also failed, with a notice on the online trading website saying it had closed with no bids on the marble mausoleum where Monroe was laid to rest in 1962.

The crypt is located at the Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery, home to celebrities including Dean Martin, James Coburn, Roy Orbison, Truman Capote, Natalie Wood, Carl Wilson, Minnie Riperton and recent arrival Farrah Fawcett.

The space next to Monroe's vault was sold in 1992 to the publisher of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, for $75,000.
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