Titanic Cast
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Many characters in the Titanic movie
were based on real characters and
depicted as such. Some of the
passengers on the Titanic were
incredibly famous figures in history and
included some of the major players in
the construction of the vessel. Here is a
quick comparison between the
characters as they were portrayed in the
film and the real versions.
Captain Edward J. Smith
In the movie:
Bernard Hil
In real life:
Captain Edward John Smith
Captain of the Titanic, Edward John Smith was in
charge of its course and maneuvers during the night of
April 14, 1912. Some believe that he could have taken
measures to avoid the collision with the iceberg by
maintaining lower speeds throughout the north
Atlantic.
Margaret "Molly" Brown
In the movie:
Kathy Bates
In real life:
Margaret "Molly" Brown
Also known as Unsinkable Molly, she was a
philanthropist, socialite, and activist aboard the RMS
Titanic during its sinking. Known for bringing lifeboat 6
back to rescue other survivors.
John Jacob Astor
In the movie:
Eric Braeden
In real life:
John Jacob Astor
The first multi-millionaire in the United States and
responsible for the first trust within the country. Making
his fortune off of fur trading, opium, and real estate.
When he died it was estimated that he was worth over
$20 million which equates to $110 billion in 2006 dollars
making him the 4th richest man in American history.
Thomas Andrews
In the movie:
Victor Garber
In real life:
Thomas Andrews
Builder of the Titanic he was an was an Irish-born
businessman and shipbuilder; managing director and
head of the draughting department for the shipbuilding
company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland.
Bruce Ismay
In the movie:
Jonathan Hyde
In real life:
Bruce Ismay
English businessman and director of the White Star line.
One of the survivors of the Titanic, many remember him
as a coward who saved himself from the sinking ship,
while others believe that he was a scapegoat for the
disaster with many influential enemies.
Were Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater
Real?
The characters in the Titanic film played by Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate Winslett were not based on real
characters and the love story itself was created for
dramatic effect. A few other characters associated with
Jack and Rose were also fictional including Rose's fiancé
Caledon 'Cal' Hockley, his valet Spicer Lovejoy, Rose's
mom, and Jack's friends Tommy and Fabrizio. Some of the
third class passengers who played small roles in the film
were modeled after real passengers on the Titanic. There
was a J. Dawson aboard the Titanic during the night of
April 14, 1912, but his real name was actually Joseph
Dawson. He was a member of the Titanic crew and his job was to even out the piles of
coal that were to be shoveled into the Titanic's furnaces.
J. Dawson is buried at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ship's
manifest also lists a Thomas Ryan (same name as Jack Dawson's friend) who worked
as a steward in third class. His body was never recovered, and if it had been, it
remained unidentified.
Were the Titanic Wreck Pictures Real?
Most of the pictures in the movie
concerned the Titanic wreck were in
fact real footage of the fallen vessel.
Director James Cameron hired a
Russian vessel and two of its
submersibles for close of footage of the
Titanic shipwreck. The dive lasted
fifteen hours and pictures were taken
using a special camera at 1,500 feet.
Due to the great preparation and plenty
of footage of the Titanic's watery grave,
few of the underwater shots had to be
fudged, and most were 100% genuine.
Did the Titanic Band Really Keep Playing?
33-year-old Wallace Henry Hartley was a violinist and
the leader of the Titanic band. As soon as the impact
from the iceberg landed, Hartley assembled the eightpiece band who ended up on the boat deck near the
entrance to the grand staircase. They began playing
ragtime waltzes including "Alexander's Ragtime Band"
and "In the Shadows". Nobody knows for sure what the
last song played was, but newspapers reported it was
"Nearer, My God, To Thee", and survivors say it was
"Song d'Automne". All of the band members died in the
sinking of the Titanic.
Did the Real Isador and Ida Strauss
Choose to Go Down With the Ship?
Nearing the end of the Titanic film, there is an
old couple embracing in bed as the ship is in
the latter stages of sinking into the Atlantic.
This is based on the real characters Ida and
Isador Strauss, who was the co-owner of
Macy's department store. Both were offered a
place on the lifeboat but Isador refused to go
as long as there were still women aboard. His
faithful wife refused to leave his side. The
couple wasn't actually in bed when the ship
went down, but rather on a pair of deck chairs.
Is the Heart of the Ocean Real?
The Heart of the Ocean in the Titanic film is
based on the Hope Diamond and added it to the
plot in order to give Bill Paxton a reason to hear
Rose's story. The actual diamond which is
currently in the Smithsonian Natural History
Museum in D.C. and has nothing to do with the
history of the Titanic. Many Heart of the Ocean
necklaces have been created to emulate the
piece of jewelry from the film.
FACT & FICTION: TITANIC (1997)
James Cameron’s Titanic is regarded as one of the most
successful films of all time.
Titanic is an interesting piece of fiction to
consider. James Cameron, the director, is hailed
as ‘hugely respected Titanic expert’. The film
itself was, at the time, heralded as one of the
most historically accurate versions of the ship
ever to be put on the big screen and yet despite
this it is riddled with glaring inaccuracies.
So how can it claim to be both fact and fiction at
the same time? James Cameron has visited the
wreck frequently and the film’s depiction of the
ship as a physical specimen is indeed
historically accurate. The events that unfold
upon the ship as it sinks and the characters
involved, however, are twisted and dramatized
until they bear no resemblance to what actually
happened. Some characters and events are of
course completely fictional, but this is where the problem arises. When the words
‘James Cameron’s Titanic is the most historically accurate Titanic film ever made’
appear they are rarely followed by the qualifier ‘but only in regards to the design
specifications of the ship’.
For a film that does not claim to be an accurate depiction of events, it certainly
leaves a lasting impression in the public consciousness about what happened the
night of April 14th 1912. The result is that many people will happily accept
Titanic as an accurate account of the sinking, when it is simply untrue. I don’t
intend to nitpick and point out the minor issues like John Jacob Astor dying on the
grand staircase (he actually died under funnel #1 when it collapsed), but I will focus
on the gravest inaccuracies that have filtered into general acceptance and have the
most damaging repercussions, namely the actions of the Titanic crew.
The senior officers of The R.M.S Titanic, most
of whom went down with the ship.
Titanic is, first and foremost, a
love story; the fictional Jack and
Rose fall in love against the
backdrop of the disaster. Further
more, we have the thinly veiled
‘American Dream’ metaphor
prevailing over the stuffy,
conservative and above all, elitist
metaphor. The American boy from steerage shows the English rich girl how to love
etc. Without exception the English are shown to be the worst kind of aristocratic
stereotypes, looking down on everyone around them, while arrogantly assuming
themselves to be untouchable.
However by presenting the English crew and passengers in this way, Cameron is
then faced with a problem. Historically these morally unsound characters showed
themselves to be heroic and fearless in the face of certain death, something which
we cannot expect from his dramatized caricatures. Cameron chooses to ignore their
actions as recorded in history and instead the bumbling Englishmen are shown to be
just that; bumbling, inept fools who descend into chaos and panic the moment the
ship begins to sink, unable to maintain order without resorting to shooting the
passengers.
This is so far from the truth it is insulting. Indeed, so offensive was the portrayal of
First Officer William Murdoch to his surviving family, that the vice President of
Fox personally made the journey to Murdoch’s hometown to apologize and donate
£5,000 to the William Murdoch memorial prize hosted at Murdoch’s local school.
As well as suffering from general ineptitude by dint of being English and indeed,
the officer who failed to avoid the iceberg, Murdoch is also presented as a corrupt
murderer and then a coward. After accepting a bribe to let a man onto one of the
lifeboats he then shoots two passengers dead, before, overwhelmed with guilt and/
or despair he shoots himself in the head. This is a far cry from the man who went
down with the ship, his last moments spent filling the lifeboats with women,
children and indeed men. In the DVD commentary Cameron justifies the decision to
include this scene by saying that officers did fire shots to prevent passengers rushing
the lifeboats. While an officer did fire two shots into the air to prevent a small group
of Italian steerage passengers leaping into one of the boats, the officer in question
was not Murdoch, he certainly did not kill anyone and there is nothing to suggest
that he was bribed to allow men into the boats. On the contrary, Murdoch was one
of the few officers who, in the absence of any willing women, allowed men into the
lifeboats anyway.
While Murdoch gains the most notoriety from the film, the other officers do not fare
much better. Second Officer Charles Lightoller is shown to be so panic-stricken that
he launches boats with hardly anyone in them, far below their capacity. It takes a
stern admonishment from ship builder Thomas Andrews to convince the dismissive
Lightoller to fill the boats, the suggestion being that he is holding back passengers,
sending boats out with just a handful of people because of his fear and panic.
Actually, the boats were sent away half full because the passengers simply could
not grasp the seriousness of their situation. Lightoller emerged as one of the more
heroic men on the ship. After the ship had sunk he gathered survivors from the
water onto an overturned collapsible lifeboat. Under his direction the men balanced
upon it until the Carpathia arrived four hours later. Lightoller went on to present
evidence at the various inquiries into the disaster.
The crew of the Titanic, most of whom went
down with the ship, but in rather different
circumstance.
If Lightoller is presented as
panicked, the Captain, Edward
Smith can only be described as
catatonic. After allowing himself
to be pressured into exceeding safe
speed limits by the ship designer,
Bruce Ismay, the captain seems to
have a type of mental breakdown
when faced with the enormity of
the situation. Lightoller has to suggest courses of action to which he numbly agrees,
repeating what Lightoller says without any feeling or input. After being asked by a
steerage woman with a baby where she could go to save herself and her child, he
merely turns away and locks himself in his cabin waiting for death. The two are
later seen in the water, presumably killed by the captain’s inaction. Again,
historically Edward Smith filled the lifeboats until there were no more to be filled.
Nobody is sure how he died, though there were rumors that he swam up to
Lightoller’s overturned boat, placing a baby in the arms of a passenger before
swimming away to his watery grave, wishing them luck. While this is probably just
hero-worship it is far more believable than him simply giving up and leaving his
crew to fend for themselves.
And these are just the senior officers! Titanic had literally hundreds of crew aboard;
stewards, stewardesses, engineers, firemen etc the majority of whom lost their lives
aboard, ensuring that the passengers had the maximum chance of survival. Their
stories are not told in Titanic, some of the most heroic actions that occurred aboard
are omitted.
A blue plaque marking 2nd officer Lightoller’s childhood home. One of
many such memorials that exist for the Titanic crew.
Why is this then the most damaging of inaccuracies?
The problem in this instance is that these men are
hailed as heroes in their local communities and far
more importantly by their families. These men and
women are the subject of statues, memorials, streets
and schools in their communities, we have already
seen that Murdoch’s childhood school has a ‘William
Murdoch Memorial Prize’ and this is far from
uncommon. Further, the families of these people are
still alive. How upsetting it must be to watch such a well received film and watch
your uncle/aunt/grandfather/grandmother etc being traduced on screen.
While there have been other fictional portrayals of the crew, as we can expect from
such an historical event, none have been dramatized to the point of being
unrecognizable as the heroic men and women who gave their lives to ensure the
safety of as many passengers as possible. Indeed, it seems Cameron has created an
incapable, fictional crew and simply given them the names of the actual officers,
rather than portray any of them with the least modicum of respect. It is a shame that
in an epic such as Titanic, which actually focuses more on the dramatic love
between two make-believe characters it is the pomposity and ineptitude of the
people tasked with their safety that people will happily fall upon as historical proof,
given to them by an ‘expert’ claiming that it is at least in part, accurate.