Trivia: Bernard Fox, who portrayed Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, also played Frederick Fleet in the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, another film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Frederick Fleet was the first person to notice the iceberg and shouted the warning to the crew.
Trivia: Gloria Stuart was the oldest person ever to receive an Oscar nomination for her role in "Titanic". At 87, she was also the only person on the set who was alive at the time of the real "Titanic" disaster.
Trivia: Gloria Stuart (old Rose) and Kate Winslet (young Rose) were the first two actresses to be Oscar nominated for playing the same character in the same movie. Kate Winslet did it again in 2001, when she was nominated Best Supporting Actress for Iris - she played young Iris Murdoch, while Judi Dench played old Iris.
Trivia: When Jack Dawson says, "Sit on the bed....I mean the couch," it says in the script "Sit on the couch." Leonardo DiCaprio really made that mistake. (01:22:05)
Trivia: Rose asks Mr. Andrews if he is going to make a run for the boats. The real Mr. Andrews was actually asked this question; it is rather clear what his answer was. Also, he is seen carrying a small notebook which he uses to note down reminders, tips, and pointers as to how to repair, replace, and improve certain areas of the ship. That notebook has survived and is in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum near Belfast.
Trivia: In 1898 (14 years prior to the Titanic tragedy), Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called "Futility." This fictitious novel was about the largest ship ever built hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean on a cold April night. The fictional ship (named Titan) and the real ship Titanic were similar in design and their circumstances were remarkably alike. Both ships were labeled "unsinkable." This uncanny foresight by Morgan Robertson was mentioned at the beginning of Walter Lord's book "A Night to Remember" on which the 1958 British film was based. The comparisons and similarities are stunning, right down to the findings of an investigation after the sinking which blamed "excessive speed" for the tragedy.
Trivia: Using DVD frame-by-frame, one can see the one-legged prostitute's full body picture, not just the ones of her hands. Watching at normal speed, the page is turned just as the camera switches to it, too fast to actually see it.
Trivia: The last shot in which we see Molly Brown asking Jack if he knows what he is doing for dinner on the promenade deck, you see a couple on the right hand side walking towards them. The man is Edward S. Kamuda, the President of the American Titanic Historical Society. The woman is his wife.
Trivia: When the Titanic splits and the rest of the ship begins to sink, next to Jack and Rose there is a man in white drinking whisky. This man actually existed. He was the chef who put on loads of layers of clothes and stole a bottle of whisky from the kitchen. He drank the whisky to keep warm, and he survived the ice.
Trivia: It seems director James Cameron had some inspiration from an earlier Titanic movie. When Jack enters the grand staircase for the first time, "On The Beautiful Blue Danube" is playing courtesy of the band. And in "A Night to Remember" (1958) when a married couple walk down the grand stairs, the same song is playing. (00:57:00 - 00:59:30)
Trivia: Mrs Astor, who was in a 'delicate condition'- did actually survive and made it to New York on the Carpathia, along with a maid.
Trivia: At the end when Rose is lying on the wooden door she is looking at the sky singing "come Josephine..." When you look hard you see that the stars in the sky are symmetrical. You can actually draw a line in it. [That is not exactly the case. If you look VERY carefully (this is much more effective on a big screen), you can see that the stars form the outline of the famous necklace, The Heart of the Ocean. I guess Cameron was a little bored that day.]
Trivia: When Jack and Rose are on the deck after he saves her, Rose says the line, "Poor little rich girl - what does she know about misery?" "Poor Little Rich Girl" was the name of a movie in which Gloria Stuart (old Rose) played a part in 1936. (00:46:35)
Trivia: In one scene you can see Colonel Archibald Grace escorting two ladies to a lifeboat. Rose then asks if there are any lifeboats left and he replies, "This way, I'll show you." He did actually survive, a lot of people presumed he died. He wrote an autobiography stating that he climbed aboard the turned over lifeboat. You can actually see him in the film hanging onto the lifeboat wearing the top hat trying to cut the ropes.
Trivia: Director James Cameron initially wanted Gwyneth Paltrow to play Rose, but she passed on the role telling the media is wasn't "her cup of tea". Coincidentally, Kate Winslet rejected the role of Viola in Shakespeare in Love, which eventually went to Gwyneth.
Answer: Yes, it was. At the time, the big cruise lines were all trying to outdo each other with the largest and most opulent cruise ships. The Olympic class ships were the White Star Line's entry in the size race, with Olympic, the first built, taking the title in 1911, before losing it to her sister ship, the Titanic, the following year.
Tailkinker ★