Powers of Celebrities?

WALLACE: ... He -- he -- he wrote this: he said, "The pandemonium that ensued in those other years whenever Vallee made a public appearance or even walked the city streets, the women who vowed they would kill themselves for his favor, the housewives who neglected their homes to invade the theaters where he crooned" ...How can you fly in the face of the man who was there?

VALLEE: Mostly poppycock, Sobel isn't accurate at all because it wasn't. I saw the people in the audience at the Eighty-first Street Theater the first day that we made our debut and I saw them, I saw them stand and cheer and there were as many men as there were women, ...there were young boys and young girls and adults. I would say that it is the thinking of all of them and not the female hysteria that has been the columnistic delight, of course they've got to write something of that nature and they've always exaggerated it.

WALLACE: Well, actually, Louie Sobel was -- has been very complimentary to you. He goes on ...

VALLEE: Oh no, I don't say that he's uncomplimentary, he's just not accurate. He doesn't know because he may have maybe seen one performance where there were preponderance of women and felt that was the average but it wasn't.

WALLACE: In other words, you felt at that time, you feel that you were in a sense the ideal of youth, male and female.

VALLEE: I think my appeal is very much as Sinatra's and Sinatra's appeal is to all types of persons and I ...

An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York City to pay their respects at his funeral... handled by the Frank Campbell Funeral Home. The event was a drama itself: Suicides of despondent fans were reported. Windows were smashed as fans tried to get in and an all-day riot erupted on August 24. Over 100 mounted officers and NYPD's Police Reserve were deployed to restore order. A phalanx of officers would line the streets for the remainder of the viewing. The drama inside would not be outdone. Polish actress Pola Negri, claiming to be Valentino's fiancée, collapsed in hysterics while standing over the coffin,.. and Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist Blackshirt honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini. It was later revealed as a planned publicity stunt. Media reports that the body on display in the main salon was not Valentino but a decoy were continually denied by Campbell.


Valentino's crypt
Valentino's funeral Mass in New York was held at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, often called "The Actor's Chapel", as it is located on West 49th Street in the Broadway theater district, and has a long association with show business figures.
After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Valentino had no final burial arrangements and his friend June Mathis offered her crypt for him in what she thought would be a temporary solution. However, she died the following year and Valentino was placed in the adjoining crypt. The two are still interred side by side in adjoining crypts at the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now the Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, California.