Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel

Frank E. Campbell is known for handling many celebrity deaths and funerals including those of John Lennon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rudolph Valentino, Arturo Toscanini, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Heath Ledger, Aaliyah, The Notorious B.I.G.

Frank E. Campbell, the founder of the business, was born on July 4, 1872, in Camp Point, Illinois.

He moved to New York around 1892, and married Amelia Klutz in 1898, setting himself up as an undertaker near Twenty-Third Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.

His innovations in the business included the use of a funeral chapel, which he felt was preferable to having the services in the home of the deceased; advertising, which had previously been rare among undertakers, and the use of cars instead of horse-drawn carriages as hearses.

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