Valentino Dies, and Broadway Loses Its Mind

Rudolph Valentino, the actor who had the whole country swooning over The Sheik, was rushed to Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan in mid-August 1926 for surgery on a ruptured appendix and gastric ulcers. Doctors thought he'd pull through. Instead peritonitis set in, and he died shortly after noon on August 23, at 31, with fans already keeping a vigil outside the hospital doors. When his body went on view at Frank E. Campbell's funeral home on Broadway and 66th Street, tens of thousands came to see him, and the crowd got so unruly that windows were smashed and police had to fight through the mob to hold the line. By the time the funeral service wrapped, 100,000 people had lined the streets outside the church.