Ex President Bill Clionton , George Bush , and President USA Obama with Secretary of State attending the funeral.
A motorcade bringing the body of US Senator Edward Kennedy has arrived at a basilica in Boston, where his funeral Mass is to be celebrated.
President Barack Obama is to deliver a eulogy in the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica.
Mr Kennedy, who died of brain cancer on Tuesday, will later be buried in Washington near his assassinated brothers, ex-President John and Robert.
An Irish wake-style memorial was held on Friday for Mr Kennedy, who was 77.
Earlier, some 50,000 people paid their respects before the Massachusetts senator's flag-draped coffin during a two-day public viewing at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library.
In keeping with the Kennedy family's Irish heritage, the service featured laughter and music, as well as tributes to the senator, who had long been the leader of one of America's great political dynasties.
"Now Teddy has become a part of history, and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country," said his niece Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John.
In the US, Mr Kennedy's death has been seen as the end of an era, following the assassinations of his brothers in 1963 and 1968.
Many of Kennedy's fellow senators, and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, are attending. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended with her husband.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is married to Kennedy's niece Maria Shriver, entered the church shortly before the funeral was scheduled to begin.
The actor Jack Nicholson was also present, as was civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
Other mourners included Vice President Joe Biden and former Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dan Quayle, all veterans of the Senate, where Kennedy served for 47 years.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was due to attend, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent regrets.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and several Cabinet members also turned out to pay their respects.
Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, chatted with Sen. Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, in the pews before the ceremony began.
Honorary pallbearers at the service include Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Democratic Sens. Dodd and John Kerry, of Massachusetts, and long-time Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey, also a Democrat.
Actual pallbearers will include Kennedy children, nieces and nephews, while Kennedy's son Ted and nephew Patrick are scheduled to deliver remembrances.
In a televised tribute on Wednesday, Mr Obama said Mr Kennedy had achieved "extraordinary good" and was "one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy".
But others have noted that his legacy of public service was counter-balanced by heavy drinking in his early years - and the death of a female companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, in 1969 when he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick in Massachusetts and fled the scene.
Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening at Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington -- 95 feet south of the grave of his brother Sen. Robert Kennedy, which is in turn just steps away from brother John Kennedy's burial site.
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