Funeral Home In New York Caters To Stars

NEW YORK - If New Yorkers are right in believing their town is THE place to live, then the Frank E. Campbell funeral home is most certainly THE place to end up.

In its 100 years, luminaries of every stripe have passed through its doors in death, from Judy Garland to Rocky Graziano, John Lennon to Henry Cabot Lodge, Notorious B.I.G. to George Balanchine.

When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died, Campbell's carried the former first lady's body from her home. When Muppet master Jim Henson was felled by a fatal virus, Campbell's handled the details.

And when a homeless man befriended by the tony Upper East Side community was found dead, Campbell's arranged and helped pay for his funeral.

"Though people think of us as a celebrity funeral home, that really is only about 10 percent of our business," said General Manager Paul Horvath.

It's hard to find a New Yorker who hasn't known someone buried by or memorialized at Campbell's. Yet it remains a private, almost secretive, place.

The media are normally barred from the inside, but for the centennial celebration The Associated Press was given a rare tour days before an even rarer neighborhood open house.

"We keep the cloak of privacy around us on purpose, for ourselves and our families," Horvath said.

Just another business

That hint of mystery extends even to its facade.

The putty-colored building on Madison Avenue and East 81st Street is stately yet sedate, blending in with the neighboring upscale shops, galleries and hotels. The name is spelled out in simple gold letters over a Corinthian-style arch where a uniformed doorman stands at the oak door, nodding pleasantly at arriving guests.

Campbell's is part community funeral parlor, part final resting home to the stars. It's also a hugely lucrative business, charging anywhere from $1,995 for a bargain funeral to more than $100,000.

To illustrate its community roots, Horvath tells the story of Travis, the homeless man found dead in the neighborhood of natural causes. Neighbors and local businesses collected about $700 to bury him. "We donated the casket, the flowers, the burial plot and held the funeral," Horvath said.

While its image has remained that of a family-owned business, it has not been owned by a Campbell since 1949.

It belongs to a Houston-based mortuary conglomerate, Service Corp. International, the largest funeral-services company in the world, with more than $1 billion in sales and 4,000 funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

The `father of modern-day funeral services'

Founder Frank E. Campbell would be proud. Campbell was a master at promotion, said Eugene Schultz, Campbell's president and an expert on funeral history.

The man Schultz calls "the father of modern-day funeral services" opened the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Church on 14th Street in the spring of 1898.

At the time, funeral services were traditionally held at home. But Campbell, just 21, realized that families squeezed into city apartments needed more room and came up with the idea of combining the undertaker's services, viewing rooms and a nonsectarian church under one roof.

His mentor, Stephen Merritt, a prominent funeral director, allowed his name to be put on the sign outside. Merritt's name and Campbell's business savvy and new ideas brought in the customers.

Campbell was the first to send written obituaries to newspapers, Schultz said. Before that, grief-stricken relatives spread the news by word of mouth.

He also was the first to use automobiles as hearses, in 1911, Schultz said, and to scatter cremated remains by airplane, over New York Harbor in 1916.

Campbell's ideas didn't sit well with Merritt, and the two soon split. In 1921 the business moved to Broadway, where Campbell began cultivating a celebrity following, ingratiating himself with the theater community and working with fraternal and business organizations.

He even gave a yearly Christmas party for orphans, dressing up as Santa Claus and doling out presents at the funeral home. He died in 1934, and four years later the business moved uptown to Madison Avenue.

"He had a big following among Broadway organizers. So it was only natural that when someone they knew died, they came to Campbell's," Schultz said.

Valentino provides claim to fame

The name became synonymous with the stars in 1926, when nearly 100,000 mourners jammed the streets outside for silent-screen legend Rudolph Valentino's funeral, causing a near-riot.

Similar scenes followed through the decades. In 1969, Campbell's stayed open all night while 20,000 mourners filed past Judy Garland's casket.

Police closed the streets around the funeral home nearly three decades later for the funeral of murdered rapper Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls. Though it was invitation-only, with private guards, Campbell's never bars fans from standing outside and on rare occasions, like Garland's funeral, they are welcomed inside as well.

"The families dictate what they want, and we do our best to comply," said Horvath. No legal request is refused, he said.

One of the least traditional services was requested by an artist's family and friends who set an airplane tire on an easel in the front of the room. "The entire service was mourners taking turns painting this tire," Horvath said. "There was no music, no words spoken."

At another funeral, two Doberman pinschers stood stock-still at the foot of their master's casket. They were extremely well-behaved. They didn't move the entire service," Horvath said.

When New York Yankees manager Billy Martin died in a truck accident in 1989, baseball fans filed for hours through Campbell's chapel past a coffin blanketed in tulips depicting the Yankee logo.

At Vladimir Horowitz's funeral the same year, the pianist's recordings of Mozart, Chopin and Rachmaninoff were played throughout the service.

And when John Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980, Campbell's fooled the media with a decoy hearse and coffin while Lennon's body was quietly driven to a crematorium.

While some industry figures put the cost of the average funeral at $5,500, Horvath insists there is no such thing as average in his business. "There are just too many variables."

In particular, he said, baby boomers shun tradition. So standard funeral song favorites like "Amazing Grace" have given way to "My Way" and "Candle in the Wind."

The chapel, in hues of cream and soft blue, is devoid of religious paraphernalia. It seats 300 and has standing room for 200.

With a full-time staff of 25, Campbell's list of services includes providing transportation, hiring clergy, buying flowers, arranging cremations, finding burial plots and building crypts.

A Web site page will soon offer a video tour of the funeral parlor and of caskets priced from $3,000 for vinyl pressed board to $100,000 for cast bronze.

"Let's face it," Horvath said. "We have a society that wants the convenience of being able to shop at home for anything they wish."

And speaking of convenience, he says Internet funerals will soon accommodate mourners who can't attend. They will be able to log on with a password and watch the funeral unfold.

Will they be interactive? "We haven't figured out how to do that," Horvath said, "yet."

------------------------------- Who's Who in buried celebrities -------------------------------

The Frank E. Campbell funeral home lists among its celebrity clients:

Arts and Entertainment: Fatty Arbuckle, Isaac Asimov, George Balanchine, Irving Berlin, Yul Brynner, James Cagney, Montgomery Clift, George M. Cohan, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Lillian Gish, Rex Harrison, Rita Hayworth, Jim Henson, Vladimir Horowitz, John Lennon, Ethel Merman, Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), Igor Stravinsky, Ed Sullivan, Rudolph Valentino, Mae West, Tennessee Williams.

Politics: Gov. Thomas Dewey, Sen. Jacob Javits, Bernard Baruch, Sen. Kenneth Keating, Henry Cabot Lodge, former New York City mayors Robert Wagner Sr. and Jimmy Walker.

Business: Elizabeth Arden, Perry Ellis, Marshall Field III, William Randolph Hearst, Howard Johnson, J.C. Penney, Charles Revson, John Ringling, F.T. Steinway, Frank Woolworth.

Sports: Arthur Ashe, Jack Dempsey, Rocky Graziano, Billy Martin.

The Associated Press