This month, a quarter-century after James Cameron’s blockbuster debuted in December, 1997, offers yet another moment to contemplate why and how one shipwreck mattered so much—as well as to revisit the film when a remastered version is re-released in theaters early next year. Beyond the personal dramas and tragedies enacted on board that night, and reenacted in rigorously true-to-life form in Cameron’s film, the loss of the Titanic cast a global shadow. It was the first disaster to play out almost in real time around the world (thanks to new wireless telegraph technology), and served as a larger-than-life example of the ways industry could be toppled by the ancient power of nature. Ultimately, it marked the end of an era of cultural progress and eye-popping wealth, an era that exploded into chaos just two years later with the first world war.
Today, 13 years after the death of the ship’s last survivor, there is still more to learn about the Titanic catastrophe and the film. And now you can actually visit (for a price) the shipwreck, dine off of replicas of the ship’s china and explore full-scale reproductions of the ship. So, if you’re thinking you know everything there is to know about the Titanic film and fabled ship and its one and only voyage? Read on. You may discover some startling details.
FACT The ship might not have gone down if it had hit the iceberg head-on instead of taking evasive action, according to recent computer simulations conducted by Harland & Wolff, the firm that built the Titanic. Not only did the bow of the ship have the most heavily reinforced steel, but a head-on impact would likely have torn a hole in only one or two of the watertight compartments. The side impact scraped along the berg, creating gashes in six compartments, which sealed the ship’s swift doom. FACT Another “if only”: On its way out of Southampton harbor in England, the Titanic came within three or four feet of smashing into another ship, which had been pulled from its moorings by the suction of the gigantic Titanic propellers. If they had crashed, the ship would likely have been held in England for repairs—and missed its date with the iceberg.
FICTION The White Star Line never explicitly called the Titanic “unsinkable.” That phrase came from a 1911 special edition of The Shipbuilder magazine, which called the ship “practically unsinkable.” FACT, BUT… The Carpathia came to Titanic’s rescue, but it was 58 miles away and hours after the sinking, when many had already perished in the icy waters. There was another ship, the Californian, not too far from Titanic as it sank (their wireless operator had gone to bed and no one received the SOS). But there is some debate about how far away the Californian really was; within 10 miles (and even within sight of its sinking) or farther away.
FACT It sounds like fiction but in the 1890s, a novel called From the Old World to the New follows the transatlantic crossing of a White Star ship called the Majestic—a real ship, helmed from 1895 to 1904 by none other than Captain E.J. Smith, who died piloting the Titanic in 1912. Mid-ocean, the crew rescues the lone survivor of a shipwreck caused by an iceberg. Even more eerily, that book’s author, William T. Stead, was a first-class passenger on the Titanic 20 years later—and went down with the ship.
FICTION There is a “J. Dawson” buried in one of the three cemeteries in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that contains graves of Titanic victims. But it’s not that Jack Dawson, the fictional character played by Leo DiCaprio. This Dawson was a coal tender on the ship, and a Titanic producer told the Huffington Post that no one on the project knew about him until after the movie came out—but that hasn’t stopped scores of (mostly young and female) fans from visiting the site.
FACT At least 10 Titanic survivors later committed suicide, including the crew member, Frederick Fleet, who spotted the iceberg from the crow’s nest, and a doctor traveling in first class who was derided for entering a lifeboat when so many women and children died.
FICTION Contrary to James Cameron’s depiction in 1997’s Titanic movie, a crew member did not shoot himself in despair while loading lifeboats, although a few shots were fired in the air at one point to calm the crowd.
BY THE NUMBERS
6 How many iceberg warnings the Titanic received the day before the wreck
2.3 That’s how many miles underwater the wreck was discovered
100,000 The number of people who watched the ship’s launch from Belfast, Ireland
20 Number of lifeboats on the Titanic (although there was the capacity for 64)
0 That’s how many engineers survived the wreck. All engineers on board, even those who were off duty, locked themselves into the electric plant and worked to keep the motors going and the lights on until the ship went under
1,000 Bottles of wine on board
$100,000 Inflation-adjusted price of the most-expensive first-class ticket
3 The number of times ladies in first class changed clothes each day: morning outfit, luncheon dress and evening ensemble
33 The number of nationalities represented among the passengers
25 That’s the survival rate percentage for third-class passengers, compared to 63 percent for first class, and 41 percent for second class.
4 That’s how many hours it took rescue ship Carpathia to reach the site of the Titanic
4 That was the number of smokestacks on the ship. But that 4th one? It was fake and designed to make the ship look grander.
1985 The year the wreck of the Titanic was discovered on the ocean floor off the coast of Newfoundland by a joint French-American expedition.
SURVIVOR STORIES
Dorothy Gibson
Twenty-two-year-old model and actress Dorothy Gibson was hustled onto the first lifeboat launched (#7), still wearing her evening clothes. A month later, she wore the same clothing to play herself in Saved From the Titanic, a one-reel silent film she also wrote.
Lucky Dogs
You can imagine that in a disaster where there were not enough lifeboats for people that pets wouldn’t have made the cut. But the story goes that three small lap dogs, possibly wrapped up in blankets, did make it onto the boats. One of the surviving dogs, a Pekinese named Sun Yat-Sen, made it to safety with its owners, Myra and Henry Harper, of Harper & Row (publishing company) fame.
Millvina Dean
The youngest survivor of the Titanic, Dean was nine weeks old when she was loaded onto a lifeboat with her mother and little brother. Her father, who’d been hoping to start a tobacco shop with a cousin in Kansas City, Missouri, died in the disaster. Dean’s mother couldn’t face America without her husband, and the family returned to England a week later. Dean died 13 years ago, the final survivor to pass.
Unsinkable Molly Brown
There really was an “unsinkable Molly Brown,” although her name was Margaret, and her friends called her Maggie. Her heroic efforts after the iceberg hit earned her the “unsinkable” moniker decades later, but Brown always had shown an indomitable spirit that was honed on the western frontier. She lived in a log cabin in Colorado and at 18 married a poor miner, J.J. Brown, who went on to strike it rich in gold—enabling his wife to travel the world in first class and gain a toehold in society (though she would always be “new money”).
As the Titanic was going down, Brown helped load women and children into lifeboats until a crew member insisted she join one. She then helped row Lifeboat 6 and, after the Titanic sank, begged the crew member to return and pick up passengers from the icy water; he refused, fearing the boat would be swamped.
Once onboard the rescue ship, Carpathia, Brown organized a committee to help secure basic necessities for second- and third-class survivors. And back on dry land, she exhibited her trademark sense of humor when she wrote to her attorney about the trip, “Water was fine and swimming good.” Such a colorful character cried out for spirited portrayals, and the women who played her did their best, including Thelma Ritter in Titanic (1953), Tammy Grimes and Debbie Reynolds in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Broadway, 1960-62; film, 1964) and Kathy Bates in Titanic (1997). THE MAKING OF JAMES CAMERON’S TITANIC
It’s easy to forget now, after 11 Oscars and box-office gross revenue in excess of $2 billion, that Cameron’s project was almost a laughingstock before it came out. Plagued with massive cost overruns, a six-month delay in release date and rumors of a chaotic and stressful set, Titanic was primed to be a massive boondoggle, the most expensive flop in movie history. “Epic-Size Troubles on ‘Titanic’” blared a headline in the Los Angeles Times, eight months before the film’s release.
Instead, of course, Cameron’s Titanic made a different kind of history. Movie goers loved it and critics were rapturous: New York Times film reviewer Janet Maslin called it a “grand, transporting love story set against a backdrop of prideful excess, cataclysmic upheaval and character-defining trial by fire…”
Here’s a bit of what was happening behind the scenes.
1987 The year director James Cameron became inspired by oceanographer Robert Ballard’s documentary, Secrets of the Titanic (1987). He jotted down this idea that became his Oscar-winner: “Do story with bookends of present-day scene of wreck using submersibles intercut with memories of a survivor and recreated scenes of the night of the sinking. A crucible of human values under stress.”
100 days That’s how long it took to build a 90-percent-scale model of the Titanic on Rosarito Beach in Mexico, including a 17-million-gallon horizon tank that provided 270-degree views of the ocean. A 50-foot lifting platform enabled the replica ship to tilt during the sinking shots, and a 45-foot-long miniature ship was created for long shots. $200 million The highest budget ever for a film at the time. Where did the money go? Cameron’s crew was granted use of the original blueprints from the Titanic’s builder, Harland & Wolff, to reproduce the ship down to its timbers. Interiors were crafted to meticulously match the ship’s original designs, from carpeting and upholstery down to the White Star Line crest on china and cutlery.
Not Leo’s Hand That’s James Cameron who drew the sketches of Rose in Jack’s portfolio, including the sexy “Heart of the Ocean” picture with the infamous necklace. That nude scene was the first shot between Winslet and DiCaprio, which Cameron later said contributed to the “nervousness and an energy and a hesitance in them” that made the scene pop.
7 That’s how many visual effects and production design Oscars Titanic won at the 1998 Academy Awards (in addition to four other awards!). Role Recall Kate Winslet lobbied hard for the role of Rose, but there were many other actresses in the running, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. At one point Winslet sent Cameron a single rose with a card signed “From Your Rose,” and later called him on his car phone to protest, “I am Rose! I don’t know why you’re even seeing anyone else!” Leo DiCaprio was less eager, and initially even refused to read for the part; other actors Cameron considered included Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, and Christian Bale.
A Different Ending? There was an alternate version to the film’s ending shot, in which treasure- hunter Brock Lovett joins the elderly Rose (Gloria Stuart) at the stern of the boat, fearing that she was about to commit suicide. In the scene, Rose shows Lovett the Heart of the Ocean and allows him to hold it before tossing it into the ocean.
12 The number of trips director Cameron made in a submersible down to the shipwreck in 1995 to shoot footage for the film.
