Funeral Director. Born Frank Ellis Campbell in Camp Point, Illinois. Frank got his training making caskets in what he called “an undertaker’s shop,” and when he was 20, he came to New York and worked in funeral parlors owned by a minister. He soon opened his own parlor, on 23rd Street near Eighth Avenue. Before Campbell, funerals were usually held in the homes of the deceased, where horse-drawn wagons usually carried the deceased, Campbell began using motorized hearses and limousines. Campbell began to garner his reputation as the funeral director to the stars when he conducted the memorial services for opera great Enrico Caruso. Caruso’s services brought Campbell International recognition and media coverage. But the funeral that changed everything was the sudden death in 1926 of 31-year-old silent-film idol Rudolph Valentino. The day he died, following surgery for a perforated ulcer, was termed by the press “the day Hollywood wept.” In New York, Valentino’s body was laid out for viewing, and craziness ensued. There were reports that some fans had even attempted suicide, and rumors spread of fears that the star’s body was on the verge of being damaged by mad fans throwing themselves on it. After Valentino, Campbell’s became known as the funeral home of the stars. Campbell never stopped innovating, he introduced the use of death notice’s, he bought a fleet of Rolls Royce’s, he used his private yacht The Hour Glass transporting remains from all over the east coast and for the spreading of ashes in the ocean. Campbell introduced women into the funerary business, having some of the first female embalmers, his wife Amelia was a funeral director. Campbell died January 19, 1934 his remains were placed in an oversized solid bronze casket, and as he wished he was to be entombed with his mother in Bergen Crest Mausoleum in North Bergen, New Jersey. in 1986 when the current president Eugene Schultz of Frank E Campbell the Funeral Chapel read an article about the conditions at the cemetery in which its founder and namesake was located. Schultz traveled to the cemetery to see for himself the conditions of the mausoleum and that’s when he learned that Campbell and his mother had never been entombed in the crypts due to their oversized caskets, they would not fit, and sat in a closet under a set of stairs for over 50 years. Schulz spent the next few years trying to get the cemetery to make the necessary repairs and little was done, Schultz started searching for relatives finally finding Frank Jr’s widow now in her 90’s living in Florida. Schultz finally reached Anne Campbell, Frank Jr’s daughter living in Washington State, he sent her photos of the conditions and gained permission to do the reinterment. Schulz worked out the financial details and got the ok from SCI the current owners of Frank E Campbell and they chose historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Schulz set out to get Campbell and his mother’s caskets moved from New Jersey to Woodlawn, each casket weighing 1400 pounds, Schultz himself spent an entire day cleaning the now black as coal caskets, on October 3, 2001 after a proper funeral service Frank E. Campbell and his mother Malvina were finally at rest in a proper grave.
(Bio by Bobby Kelley)