Gays and Titanic

I know a few gay guys including myself who are/were obsessed with the Titanic as kids.

It's the drama and beauty and elegance that attracts the gays. All those beautiful people in beautiful clothes and elegant interiors, and class and money and snobbery and finally destruction. Gay heaven!

It would have been more realistic for the Kate Winslet character to be a male aristocrat having an affair with someone from steerage, because young women of her rank would simply not hooked up with a poor passenger like she did. Wheras a man of the same station could do anything he wanted pretty much.

Look up Major Archibald Butt and his lover.

Great observation, R3; let's recast the movie. I nominate Leonardo di Caprio as the effete male aristocrat sneaking around with rough-hewn 3rd-class passenger Billy Zane. Leo's genteel wife, played by Kate Winslet, starts getting suspicious when she finds charcoal sketches amateur artist Leo's been making of a Zane-like male nude.

r5 exactly. You know the EM Forster novel Maurice is set in the same period as Titanic? It is basically this plot.

There were several gay men onboard the ship too. Go go Encyclopedia Titanica. There’s an article about them.

For gay men, AIDS was our metaphorical Titanic.

OP, Where did You learn The rules Of Capitalization?

OP, you should visit Belfast. They have a great Titanic visitor attraction where the ship was built.

R4 I was thinking the same thing...there's a statue of Archibald Butt near the White House, in fact.

You might like to check out the 1953 version called Titanic. Stars Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb, Robert Wagner (this is where his story about sleeping with Stany came from), and a little Thelma Ritter for spice. Inaccurate as far as the true story, but good soap opera, and the ship does sink.

Algernon Henry Barkworth, who survived by using his fabulous fur coat…

Thanks, [R12], for giving the ending away!!!! ;¬}

[quote]Algernon lived in Tranby House for the rest of his life and was never married, some family indicating that he was not of that persuasion.

There's your answer, OP!

R8

Third class passenger Edward Dorking…he even did prison time…

I read the linked site, r17. Thanks. He seemed quite sweet and rather brave to be openly gay and just muddle through his life which didn't offer many opportunities.

In the stage musical and the pretty much ignored movie version of “Hello Again” by Michael John LaChiusa, one set of lovers are on the Titanic and are played by T. R. Knight and Tyler Blackburn. Knight is from the upper class and Tyler from steerage, this was written a few years before the Titanic movie. It’s one of the more heartbreaking sequences in the story. It’s the first section here.

Yes r18. His life ended sadly. It was a challenge to be openly gay back then. It sounds like it was a hindrance to gainful and steady employment for him.

There is a Memorial Fountain in DC to a male gay couple that died on the Titanic.

One of the guys was named Archibald Butt.

Butt's mother was a Boggs, of the Augusta Boggses.

Archy Butt? You can't make this shit up. Is it cruisy around that lovely fountain at night?

My best friend in grade school was an autistic girl who could make any subject go back to the Titanic. It was the only time her eyes would light up.

This was the 70s/80s and there were survivors still alive, and the only thing she wanted for her birthday one year was to attend the Titanic convention in Chicago to meet one, but her parents were WASPS, and refused her weird request. She dressed up as the stewardess on the Titanic who survived it, and another ship sinking for Halloween. She moved away before high school and before The Titanic (1996). I miss that bitch.

Your grade school best friend was a bitch?

R25 Actually, Violet Jessup survived three famous ship sinkings and was nicknamed Miss Unsinkable.

I learned about Violet above through this book that came out last year and was quite fascinating. Obviously they cover the Titanic extensively in the book.

I can imagine Molly Brown being a big old fag hag

She was!

[quote]Gays and Titanic

I'm gonna need some extra lube for that one.

They all went down!

I have suspicions that Eva Hart was a lesbian. YMMV.

Probably for the same reason as ....

Thanks for the links about Violet Jessop.

My friend WAS a bitch in grade school, and I loved her for it. If anyone picked on me for being gay as an Easter frock, she'd savage them with rather sophisticated (for grade and middle school) put downs. She had a mouth on her that DL would have absolutely loved, thanks to older sisters and a sassy mother.

Interesting that the Hindenberg disaster doesn't get as much attention.

Alice Berg Johnson was the survivor my young friend wanted most to meet. I recalled the survivor lived in St. Charles:

More famous rich people on Titanic.

So, this is the culmination of the Gays and Titanic connection?

Holy cow! Shelley Winters was only around 52 when Poisidon adventure was made. And she was fat, probably medically obese, but not huge by today’s standards. She’s no Lizzo.

I remember thinking she was really old and fat. And now I’m really old and fat! Sorry, Shelley!

Yes, I was obsessed since 1995 when I was about 5 years old. I’ve followed all the films and books. Now I’m currently awaiting the Titanic: Honor and Glory game release.

[R35], I have an encyclopaedic knowledge about the Titanic. Since the first episode of Time Tunnel in 1967 I've been enamoured of it. A friend I've known since 1972 (50 years) and went to junior high and high school with, tells me that when I'd talk about it the hairs on her neck would rise. I actually went to Godalming in Surrey to look at the memorial to Jack Phillips, the senior Marconi operator. Your friend from school sounds like she was a passenger on the ship. I don't say this lightly.

Viz. Violet Jessop, one detail about her experience that doesn't get mentioned much is that when she got into a lifeboat to escape the Titanic, she somehow found herself holding an infant. After she boarded the rescue ship RMS Carpathia, she threw the fucker overboard because it had puked all over her nurse's uniform, and if there was one thing she hated.... OK. After she boarded RMS Carpathia the little brat's mother comes up to Violet, and grabs her crotch fruit out of Jessop's arms without even saying thank you. I would've kicked that bitch up the cunt bone. But I imagine things were done differently in those days.

Another story of pure English understatement, before I get to the eerie shit, is the true story of survivor Henry Sleeper Harper. Like the other 705 survivors, Harper spent the night in an open lifeboat in 28F water after the ship sank and before the rescue. This next part is classic. Harper climbs up the side of the rescue ship (there were giant nets hung down the side of the ship), and when he scales the boat deck, he sees his friend Louis Odgen. What happens? Harper walks up to Ogden, and the first thing Harper says is, "Louis, how do you keep yourself looking so young?" THAT is one of my favourite lines of all time.

Something eerie occured to me i 1994. I was at a dinner party. The table was a T shape and I was on the upper left. I was the only person seated who had a direct view into the host's bedroom (the only bedroom in that house I hadn't fucked in, but that's another story indeed). Someone had given the host a framed piece of commerative coal from the Titanic's wreck site. I was sitting very close to the host. I tried to tell him in as urbane a tone of voice to get the fuck rid of it tout suite. The host later died from complications of HIV, but I was freaked out about seeing. I am certain it would only bring bad luck and tragedy to anybody who owned it.

(Before I finish this, anybody who writes TLDR can kiss my motherfucking entitled white American ass. You wish you could compose a paragraph of information that's concise and contains humour.

And to the cunt who claims I type off topic screeds, please see above and die in a fucking grease fire.)

[R35], I hope you can reconnect with your friend. I'm sure she's still fabulous.

I have a 1912 front newspaper page from the sinking. My older siblings fished it out of a wall from an old house we lived in(back in 196?). My mom framed it and hung it up wherever we lived, thereafter. The headline read "Unsinkable Titanic, 2200 Souls Lost...". I hang it now wherever I live. Between mom and myself, That thing has also made at least thirty moves over the many years.

Spoiler: It sank and people DIED.

WEHT to Billy Zane?

He works at a 7-Eleven R45. In Encino. I saw him slicing up Alpine Lace for the sandwiches.

Well at least I guess he doesn’t need a hair net.

R47, I needed that chuckle!! Thanks.

The reason Titanic, I think has lasting appeal is the complete Greek Tragedy. Something like the Lusitania went down on 18 mins and the ship kept moving after being hit by the torpedo. It was pure panic. The Electricity went out, people were stuck in lifts, they couldn’t lower lifeboats because the ship couldn’t stop moving. It awful and horrific and just senseless bloodshed.

The Titanic was all this as well. But it was something else as well. Until the last 10 minutes of the sinking it must have seemed to many on the ship and even in the lifeboats that this was not really happening. That the ship was the warmest and safest place to be. Then in the last few minutes everything changed. Panic, realisation and death.

Because the whole thing could have been avoided, even by a split second. The fact that everything went against it. The fact you could see a ship’s lights only a few miles away, but never came. The fact that every human emotion played out under that night,from nobility to selfishness. From supreme sacrifice to absolute cowardice. It all played out over nearly 3 hours.

It was in a way a microcosm of a society so sure of itself that was never going to be sure of anything again. It was hubris. It was a Greek Tragedy and finally a beautiful ship. What is for a Gay not to love!

Gays love Titanic because they think it was Dynasty at sea.

I know that Julian Fellowes version of the disaster was godawful in every way.

I actually wished for the Jack character in the film to die. That actor is such a wuss.

R42, I love it. Thank you!

You reminded me of Mireille just then. I am going to try and find her again online, if I can. This thread really made me want to find her. Something tells me I am going to succeed this time.

A lot of people onboard thought that she’d still stay afloat, even when the waters covered her bow. Many of the crew knew she was doomed but a lot of her passengers placed blind confidence in modern technology. The bought into the “unsinkable ship” PR malarkey.

[R44], you know that's just a ruse the production company is putting out to keep people from finding out the real ending!

[R46] Alpine Lace is supposed to be vile. It doesn't even melt in the microwave.

[R54], many of the crew might have known, but it was kept from the passengers. You're right, though. The thing is that Capt. Smith knew there weren't enough lifeboats for the 2220 souls aboard. So the fiction was kept up about the Californian coming to rescue them. One thing you must realize it that it happened very fast. The first lifeboat began loading at midnight. The ship foundered two hours and twenty minutes later. Even if there had been enough boats, the same number of people would've died because they were still lowering lifeboats when the ship sank.

The other thing is that you're correct, the literature of the day said the Olympic Class vessels were unsinkable, but White Star Line never made that claim. What sunk the ship was an area about the size of a car door from the bump bump bump and crumble of the iceberg banging against the hull. If the damage hadn't breached a sixth watertight compartment, the ship would've stayed afloat. Instead it was like an ice cube tray filling up from the front.

But the passengers reasoned it was better to remain on the largest ship in the world (it was so large it would've been hard to tell it was down at the head) than to get into a tiny little open boat and be lowered 70 feet in the dark freezing North Atlantic.

Why did the other ship not rescue them?

Because the captain couldn't be bothered and the one wireless operator was asleep.

As inaccurate as it was, I adored the 1953 film version. Maybe the FX don’t hold up compared with the 1997 version, but the script had great dialogue. And Miss Barbara Stanwyck…

When I was a kid I watched the 1953 version a couple years in a row on the 4:30 movie. That program turned me into a movie lover and it was a pretty good education - way before video tapes could have helped me.

My great-grandfather was an immigrant from England who came to America a month after the Titanic sank....in a ship from the White Star line

I read "A Night to Remember" at the age of 8 in 1968, only 56 years after the sinking. There were plenty of survivors still alive then, and I would see interviews with them from time to time.

I think I read the book three times while still in elementary school, and I was fascinated by the story. It was hard to find information about it in the 60s and 70s, since we could only rely on librarians, history teachers and newspaper editors to uncover the story from us.

I always identified with Lawrence Beeslay, a surviving schoolteacher who loved to read. I thought he was handsome when I was young. I suspect he might have been gay. Maybe it was just a hope.

How did any men survive?

[R58], the other ship, the SS Californian, was stuck in field ice. Think a fly in an ice cube tray. She would have risked bending her rudder, thereby rendering two crippled vessels instead of one, had she embarked to rescue the Titanic's passengers (wh. the captain should have automatically done anyway). She was also shut down for the night. Crew members did see the Titanic's rockets. The captain blew it off, although white rockets at sea means the vessel firing them is in distress.

Even if SS Californian had gone to rescue the survivors, it wouldn't have saved one extra life. This isn't addressed as frequently as it needs to be. The first SOS was sent around midnight. In order to get the engines running it would take approx. an hour. So, SS Californian begins sailing towards RMS Titanic at 0100. It takes an hour to reach the sinking vessel. It's now 0200. Let's say a lifeboat loaded with 70 civilians unloads its passengers to SS Californian. That would take about an hour. RMS Titanic sank at 0220.

The captain of SS Californian was what we could call a tool today. A total asshole, feared by his crew.

[R63], Beesley suffered from pronounced PTSD. Later in life, when his family would visit the seaside, he always faced away from it. If somebody began discussing the sinking he fled the room. It's of note that he never married. Everybody got married in 1912. Maybe he was a 'confirmed bachelor'.

Back in the day One Step Beyond did a Titanic episode

Why were ships so unafraid of ice? Couldn't they sail further south for extra time, and avoid ice?

It wasn't a gay cruise ship.

A bunch of gay party boys hopped up on meth would find surprising creative and effective flotation devices.

Can you imagine getting on a ship and seeing Violet on the same ship and knowing the last 3 she was on sunk?

The 2 halves are in solid pieces thousands of feet down. Did anyone survive a few minutes in air pockets. Its not like all the walls crushed inward.

Water pressure would have crushed them r72.

Would water pressure crush them behind a steel walls? What if they were in a area of the ship that was strong steel on all sides, and the water was just coming in quickly but not instantly?

The air would be quickly at the same pressure R74.

I see

[R71]: "Captain, I'll give you the best blow job of your life if you could just turn this floating coffin around and let me off at that nice dock over there..."

Mostly a fascinating thread.

I, too, read A Night to Remember as a kid and have been fascinated by this story my entire life.

Does anyone remember a Dorothy Malone film, The Last Voyage? ship foundering, Malone trapped under debris from a boiler explosion, freed only moments before the ship sinks.

Yes r78, there’s an old thread about that movie somewhere. Supposedly the plot is based on the ANDREA DORIA disaster where the woman was trapped in the wreckage and her husband attempted to free her. Unfortunately, she died. And the ship that they used as the floating set, the ILE DE FRANCE, was the same ship that rescued the bulk of the DORIA survivors.

The Lusitania was in some ways a much more interesting foundering. I wonder why that one hasn't been Hollywoodized.

The less said about millionaire Henry Sleeper Harper and the tall dark and handsome " Dragoman" he picked up in Egypt the better.

My ex bought me tickets to come to see him in North Carolina and on the envelope he wrote" I told you I would come through" And drew the Titanic with a little stick figure with a big arrow pointing him out and his name "I am the king of the world!" I still have it. When we lived together I must have gotten him into The unsinkable Molly Brown because he would watch it one to two times a week. He said he liked Harve Presnell's singing.

"The less said about millionaire Henry Sleeper Harper and the tall dark and handsome " Dragoman" he picked up in Egypt the better."

At least he had a cool house!

R66, Beesley was a widower with a school aged son at the time of the sinking. The boy’s grandparents were watching him at the time. True, though, that he never remarried.

Thanks for the data R79.

Erik Larson’s book on the sinking of the Lusitania, Dead Wake, is eminently readable, as are all his books. They are perfect for people who say the do not like nonfiction, only fiction, as they read like novels. There’s a fascinating sequence where as the ocean liner is sinking a woman gets sucked into one of the smokestacks, the Lusitania had four, while most ships of the time had three. There’s an explosion that spews her out, causing her to be covered in soot. She lands near a life boat that her husband is actual in and pulled into the boat. Because she is black head to toe, her husband thinks she is one of the African American woman who were on board and doesn’t recognize her at all.

r24, interesting link. I wonder if Joseph Fynney went down on William Alfred Gaskell before going down on the Titanic

The TITANIC and the film THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE made me a fan of ocean liners. And I am mad for the Art Nouveau and Art Deco liners of the 20s and 30s.

Off topic, but the 1953 film contains one of my favorite dialog exchanges ever.

Stanwyck tells Clifton Webb that when they get to America, she is going to divorce him and take their son.

Webb: You'll never take my son from me! NEVER!

Stanwyck: He's not your son.

Maybe when the Germans warn they will sink your ship people ought to have listened.

Free for Amazon Prime members: "Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic" (2007), starring (hot) John Hannah.

^ Thanks looking for something on AP before I cancel.

That Lusitania movie is on YouTube too IIRC.

the titanic? more like the Queen Mary.

They secretly shot large portions of this video in period costumes onboard the Queen Mary:

"Bitanic

The Story of Rosebud and her mother in the sea, Ships aren't the only thing to go down in this all out balls to the wall, bi-sex fest. No stray man or woman is left unscathed."

^ Did that one win Best Picture, too?

Bitanic was a very CLASSY porno.

R80 because they would have address the fact that Churchill steered it into into harm's way to draw the US into WWI.

[quote] I have an [bold]encyclopaedic[/bold] knowledge about the Titanic.

I've been [bold]enamoured[/bold] of it.

[quote]can kiss my motherfucking entitled white [bold]American[/bold] ass.

Something doesn’t add up.

I go through phases every few years or so where I fall down a rabbit hole and get interested in Titanic all over again. It's such a fascinating story. A Night to Remember remains the best book on the subject.

Re: First Officer Murdoch -- from what I've read, I think he most likely DID shoot one or two passengers and then turn the gun on himself shortly afterwards. Lightoller wrote to Murdoch's widow and told her that he had died a hero while trying to free a collapsible, but his testimony at the inquiry indicated that he was in no position to see this. I can't see why he would lie unless there was an unpalatable truth he wanted to cover up.

However, I don't believe it happened as portrayed in the James Cameron film, where he shoots himself out of remorse. I think it's likelier that once he had fulfilled his duty as an officer, he shot himself because he preferred a quick death over drowning. By 1912 standards, I doubt shooting men who were attempting to swamp the lifeboats would be considered shameful, but suicide would ("the coward's way out").

R69, it's called having a multi-cultural vocabulary. You're an idiot who thinks your posts are clever by attacking others who just post. But you yourself don't post anything of value that contributes to the discussion. You're also showing signs of stalking. You're a fucking mean girl who thinks she has the most cake. Piss the fuck off.

Any love for Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, played by DL fave Ioan Gruffudd in his dewy youth?

Is this an encyclopedia entry or a fan letter, R102?

R19 I'm not a big fan of musicals (odd for a theatre person, I know), but I appreciated gay/bi men being played by gay/bi men in those sequences. I just wish it hadn't been a musical, and that the gay/bi actors had been attractive. T.R. Knight was kinda cute circa 2008, though. I think it's both age and weight loss that robbed him of his cute visage.

R102, Lowe was an absolutely no nonsense seaman. He was in charge of lifeboat 14. After the ship sank, as 1500 people were freezing to death, he heard Second Officer Lightoller's whistle and rowed towards the sound. What he saw he found difficult to believe: Lightoller was standing on top of the water. Actually, Lightoller was standing on the keel of an overturned lifeboat with about 30 others, They were transferred to Lowe's boat. After that Lowe rowed back amonst the 1500 peoeple and rescued, I think, five survivors, one of whom died. The survivor who died was a victim of a broken neck wh. would happen if you jumped into the water from any height. The design of the lifejacket would give you fatal whiplash. Wh. of course you wouldn't know about until after you'd jumped.

The other thing about Lowe was when his lifeboat was unloading passengers at the side of RMS Carpathia, a female passenger was too slow to move for his liking. He shouted something like, "Would you move, GODAMMIT!" He then proceeded, after everyone had vacated the boat, to fold the sail, and put everything in order because, in his words, "I like a tidy boat."

It sank on it's madien voyage. It was the most expensive ship (passager) ever built to date. marketing blitz. Every wealthy person wanted on that ship. It was covered on every radio news program.

[quote]It sank on it's madien [sic] voyage. It was the most expensive ship (passager) [sic] ever built to date. marketing blitz. Every wealthy person wanted on that ship.

J.P. Morgan, one of the wealthiest men on earth, who owned International Mercantile Marine, which owned The White Star Line, canceled his scheduled booking three days before the sailing. (Yes, Titanic was ultimately an American owned ship.)

[quote]It was covered on every radio news program.

There was wireless telegraph in 1912 but no radio.

[quote]Every wealthy person wanted on that ship.

Experienced travelers avoid maiden voyages. There are too many architectural problems to be sorted out and corrected (which is why the ship's architect Thomas Andrews was onboard) and crew and service staff need a voyage or two to get settled in too.

[quote] Every wealthy person wanted on that ship.

Titanic sailed with many empty berths. She was far from filled in all three classes.

R89 I love the scene where Webb's daughter has breakfast served in the stateroom, and he asks her if he can "bone her kipper."

I read an article saying that the ship will eventually disintegrate from a form of under water rust.

I forget the actual scientific term.

I don't think Lawrence Beesley was gay, but he wasn't probably against giving a few jack handys in the lifeboat.

R112 For warming purposes only.

I was 4 when the movie came out and was OBSESSED, I would watch it on tape over and over. I never really understood why I was so obsessed with it but looking back it makes sense; it was a beautiful, camp tragedy.

R114 You we’re four when Night to Remember came out?

Sorry, I should've specified, the '97 movie.

R116 For me it was much more believable that you were very old, then very young. This is DL.

[quote] you were very old, then very young.

Oh, dear!

Count me as another Titanic-obsessed person. Also books and movies about Mt. Everest.

Now Jack Thayer was gorgeous. Killed himself in 1945 after his son was killed on war and his mother died

Millvina Dean, the last survivor to die, also never got married. Hmmm…

Jack Thayer, I think, suffered from major PTSD. The story of his surviving the sinking is a miracle.

Titanic virtual tour:

The very handsome Alfred Vanderbilt, then one of the richest men in the world, was booked to sail on Titanic but changed his mind at the last minute which likely saved his life. The irony being he died only 3 years later on the Lusitania, spending the final moments of that disaster trying to recover any children left aboard with his manservant. This is why we need a Lusitania thread as well, becuase there are just as many compelling stories.

Like the Titanic, I too am known for going down.

Alfred's grandson was one of my high school teachers.

This is computer generated from the book “ Sea of Glass “ which I have ordered. It shows the sinking from beginning to end watch the last 20 mins. It is haunting. No wonder people couldn’t believe she was sinking

Comparison Lusitania sinking in 20 mins. Could not think of anything more terrifying

If one ever finds oneself in Augusta, GA, one may have a gay ole time crossing the Augusta Canal by way of the rather ornate Butt Memorial Bridge.

Lusitania leaves New York on May 1 1915

I do wish someone would create the Lusitania thread.

r131, here you are.

I always played Barbara Stanwyck weeping and smiling that my husband and bastard son were holding each other as the Titanic went down with them.

Buh Bye. Bye. Buh Bye! With one of Grandma's fine hankie waving.

That real time Titanic animation is horrifying. I think it helped slow the panic that the lights remained on, but it added a surreal aspect.

From the original unused trailer for the 90s Titanic: "It was the largest moving object ever constructed by the hand of man. A vision of glory. A symbol of pride. A ship of dreams..."

Headline: Inside the mansions that were left empty after the sinking of the Titanic

The title is misleading but some great old mansions from people with connections to the Titanic at the link.

OP, I didn't know that Walter Lord was gay. I read all of his books when I was in high school and learned so much from them. An excellent writer.

He was fascinated by Titanic. Of course he was gay.

The 1996 Titanic miniseries was a camp hoot, with plenty of gays (Tim Curry, Roger Rees) and DL faves Marilu Henner and Catherine Zeta-Jones

Marilu Henner should to a long oral history interview about everything she remembers about filming it for the archives.

cane face indeed

Does it need a new battery?

It's rather astonishing how often the DL "lesbian-cane" motif comes true.

There was a lesbian with a cane on the Titanic?! They need to make a movie about this

Ella Holmes White, redefining caneface as she holds her Gandalf beacon aloft in Lifeboat 8.

I’m sensing a Kate McKinnon sketch on SNL’s weekend update for the anniversary this year.

We need a gay and lesbian version of Titanic.

R146 Is that what those Rosie O’Donnell cruises are?

R146, see r95.

I was a babygay with a Titanic connection. I interviewed a survivor, May Futrelle, for my fifth grade history class.

She was about 85 then. I had to shout my questions at her because she used an ear trumpet.

May Futrelle knew Edith Wharton! Her husband was a well-known writer

Ben Whishaw IS Joseph J Fynney in Gaytanic

The real ending to the movie.

R149 there's a pic of our May on the pier in New York after she got off RMS Carpathia. Her husband died, and she's with another French passenger. I think her husband was older. I don't know why, but the pic looks suspicious, However, considering the circumstances, how anybody could look normal who survived is quite beyond me.

^ Love Cheri Oteri

[quote]Ever since I was a child I was obsessed by the Ship and the story.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

But "proud not to be alone" makes you sound like Hermey the Elf making goo-goo eyes at Young Rudolph's fine rump, OP.

R155 is really bringing the pointless bitchery. Accent on pointless.

Songs played on the Titanic

Have you seen what Honor and Glory has done recently?

R139 One thing about Marilu as Molly Brown is if James Cameron's first choice to play the part on the big screen, Reba, hadn't had to back out, both versions of Molly Brown would've been very similar. Whereas they turned out to be very different.

Marilu and Reba were both too skinny to be Molly Brown, Kathy Bates looked a lot like her. Debbie Reynolds looked nothing like Molly Brown.

Fun Home adult Alison, and out Lesbian Beth Malone, has starred as Molly Brown and is downright svelte, but adds another gay link to the big boat.

Oh look! A Hedda Hopper column proposing Judy was going to be Molly Brown! How gay!

I might be alone in this, but I feel no fascination for the Titanic, and I've never seen the movie. The unbelievable horror of how those poor people died makes me unable to think about it with anything but terror.

Cloris Leachman was Molly Brown once too

Cloris Leachman??? The star of *Someone I Touched*???

SOS Titanic, 1979, Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown. She was terrible

It's in our family lore, because my grandmother narrowly missed traveling on it in 1912 from Cork. Traveling on the Titanic was her original plan, but she knew she would never return to Ireland, (immigrants didn't in those days) so she decided to delay her passage by two weeks to visit relatives that she would never see again, and booked passage on the Franconia instead. The Franconia was just getting ready to leave Boston headed to Liverpool (before its return to Boston via Cork), when the Titanic sank. Newspapers sent reporters to board it to relay names of survivors and other news from the Carpathia (the ship that rescued Titanic survivors) to land stations. I imagine that some of those reporters were on the Franconia when it returned to Boston. My grandmother would have been in steerage of course, so I doubt that she would have encountered any of them. I think that these ships all used the same shipping lanes at that time of year, so the Franconia must have passed very close to the site of the Titanic wreck in both directions. My grandmother was totally freaked out when they released "a Night to Remember" as book and then film, according to my aunts and it was only then that she related how terrified she was about her voyage to America following so closely on the heels of the Titanic. Before that, her kids didn't even know that she had nearly sailed on it. We still have a copy of the picture postcard she mailed to her mother in Ireland when she arrived in Boston, with a picture of the Franconia. It would have been unlikely that she would have survived the Titanic as a steerage passenger because only 25% of them survived.

R167 Great story, just one loose thread, did she really never return to Ireland or did she at least travel back once?

R167, interesting story. I'm sure you know this but others may be interested to know of the Irish tradition of the "American wake": in the days when return travel was not common, those leaving for America would have a gathering of all the friends and family whom they'd never see again. Basically, it was all the people who would be present at the wake if that person had died but they weren't dead, they were emigrating, never to return.

After seeing R160's pic, I think Kathleen Freeman would have made a great Molly Brown.

R169 Interesting, I never read it, is this what James Joyce’s story The Dead is about?

I'm not sure this interesting factoid has been mentioned here.

And this caught my eye. Why did J.J. Astor have a handkerchief with someone else's initials on it? Resident Titanic experts, am I wrong?

Who was A.V.? Did Alfred Vanderbilt lend Astor a hanky for his "something borrowed"?

his children were Ava and Vincent.

r167 here. My grandmother never returned to Ireland. She married very well, and her husband (who was also Irish) asked her if she'd like to travel back there. Her answer - "I've seen Ireland". She was from a very large and very poor family on the Bere Peninsula of Ireland along Bantry Bay, all but one of whom eventually emigrated to America in what is now called chain migration). I don't think she wanted her husband to see the intense poverty into which she was born. She was widowed at age 46, (married at 31), but put 5 children through college, her only son a renowned thoracic surgeon, while the girls became successful teachers and professionals.. They're all dead now except my mother, the oldest, who is now 99. My mom also married late and had all of her children in her 30s, which is why I'm 39 going on my mid-60s in true DL style now LOL One of her biggest disappointments was that my mother married someone with an English surname. After several children were born to the union, she began calling him an "early American" rather than a "cousin Jack".

Wakes are definitely a strong Irish tradition, and I wouldn't be surprised if my grandmother had something of the sort when she left Ireland. We still observe them! I think 3 brothers preceded her and sponsored her passage and also brought several of her sisters. (There were 11 in all). Several of the boys died in the Spanish Flu epidemic. It's strange to think I'm not that far removed generationally from all these historical events, being so young and all.

The biggest problem with the Lord novel "A Night to Remember" and the subsequent movie is that most of his character research was done via newspaper articles and stories of the survivors. These people wanted attention and had no real idea what was going on, so they made themselves out to be victims or heroes. It wasn't until 70+ years later when they discovered the wreckage that some truth could be evidenced. imagine if one of today's tragedies' references were all based on Instagram influencers: that is the quality of Lord's research.

And yet it's still more realistic than any other project about the Titanic, probably because so many of them use the Titanic as a background for cheesy romance (1997's Titanic) or silly family melodrama (1953's Titanic)

Going into this rabbit hole today, I found this fantastic memoir from a crewman aboard the Carpathia. It's one of the clearest, best written accounts of the night and goes into a great deal of detail about communication, signals, lifeboats, and many other details that get glossed over in filmed versions.

r176 What you said reminded me of Edith Russel's account. Full of inaccuracies and full of self importance and arrogance.

'I had no one to mourn, having only casual acquaintances on board, but suffered extreme financial loss. I may say that the four days I spent aboard the Carpathia were acutely uncomfortable. The sight of food choked me, and lemonade and tea formed my principal diet. To realize the luxury of a toothbrush, and brush and comb, one must do without them for four days, and having no bed is a hardship for one unaccustomed to that.'

Never mind 1500 had just died, you selfish elitist cunt.

R176 It is preferable one is believed to be a fool then to open ones mouth and confirm it.

Why didn't the sequel do as well?

Eva Hart ate pussy like a champ.

The best movie version of Titanic

R167, the names of survivors was just about all the news the wireless operators on RMS Carpathia transmitted. They were under tremendous pressure (one of them was the surviving Marconi operator from the Titanic, Harold Bride). Even Howard Taft, the American president, was refused any information when he inquired about his friend Archibald Butt (who snuffed it when the ship sank).

R182 She sounds EXACTLY like my Gran.

I would have no problem marrying John Jacob Astor. He was worth $2.33 billion dollars (adjusted to today's standards). He's rather a dandy chap. I wouldn't care if his bush matched the density of his mustache, I'd still bury my nose in it.

This photo was published in Harper's Weekly several days after the sinking. His airedale did not survive the voyage, either.

He was pushing 50 and his wife was 18!

Yes, she was one year younger than his son.

R186, it was confirmed that the crew opened the kennels so the dogs wouldn't be trapped. But the water was 28f, and it killed 1500 people. Astor died when the forward funnel collapsed on him and hundreds of other swimmers as the watertight bulkheads between the bow and the hull gave way, separating the deck by a few feet and breaking the hawsers that held the funnels in place. His body had 35K in cash on it.

I must be a cold hearted bitch but I get more teary eyed thinking about the pets who drowned than I do the people..

At least 3 dogs survived. One was a Pekingese and another was a Pomeranian

[quote]The biggest problem with the Lord novel "A Night to Remember"

Lord's book is not a novel. Novels are works of fiction. A Night to Remember was as close to possible at that time a recreation of the events of that night. Libraries and bookstores put the book into either their non-fiction or transportation sections.

[quote] ...the forward funnel collapsed…as the watertight bulkheads between the bow and the hull gave way, separating the deck by a few feet and breaking the hawsers that held the funnels in place.

Zemen-Wambuis @ r189, I find your explanation of the bulkhead and funnel collapse intriguing. Is this based on technical data or paraphrased from a published account?

I’d be interested in reading a technical analysis of the ship’s sinking, focusing on the structural aspects.

R193, it's based on fact. I broke it down in reply, but I know too much about it and skip important facts. If anyone TLDRs me you will die a painful death, m'kay?

OK, R193... the bow is the front of the ship. There was punchy damage from the iceberg because the ship bump bump bumped from the momentum of the mass, like hitting a guardrail. There were vertical watertight bulkheads between the bow and the rest of the ship, where the superstructure starts. As the bow sunk lower, the watertight bulkheads kept the water out, as well as pumps in the engine room. At 0215, the PSIs on the bulkheads finally broke them. They all broke at once. The water rushing into the ship made the ship lurch forward. The volume of water was so great that passengers and crew on the boat deck were washed overboard by a huge wave. That's one motherfucking wave. Now do you see that the wires that held the funnels broke? They were pulled to a certain tension on the boat deck. When the boat deck lurched foward, the tension on the wires all at once relaxed. Due to the downward incline of the ship, the forward funnel fell into the water, where JJ Astor and hundreds of others had either dived in or fell in. They were crushed. This was the absolute end. The ship raised up to a near vertical position, and the back part of the ship was hollow from the bottom up because that's where the big engine was. Structurally the weakest part of the ship, never meant to be put to the stresses the metal was manufactured for. That part of the ship cracked backwards as the ship in front of it sunk, eventually pulling away entirely, and for a couple of minutes, floating level with the sea. Since the front of it was exposed decks, it to glunked forward, and sank. The velocity of its downward motion ripped the upper decks off like a tin can. When it hit the bottom it crushed the remaining decks like very wet pancakes. I hope this makes some sense.

Thank you r194!

There was a Turkish bath on board....I wonder if any of the guys got busy there!

Why were there Turkeys onboard, and why did they need baths?

Titanic obviously sideswiped the iceberg resulting in intermittent damage along her starboard side, but many survivors from below decks also reported water bubbling up from underneath leading to speculation that she may have also grounded on a spike from the berg and the damage to her bottom may have been what was fatal.

The ship's architect Thomas Andrews was onboard to check for maiden voyage issues; there are always a few. Immediately after the collision, Captain Smith asked him to go below and check the damage. He did so and came back to report that the ship had an hour to live.

He was a better maritime architect than he thought. The ship actually survived two hours and forty minutes after the collision.

Titanic historian Don Lynch is very queeny

Gay people have had it tough. We can relate to shit like the sinking of the Titanic.

This thread is unsinkable.

^ For sure, it's been bobbing along for more than two weeks.

Bobbing along, singing a song, on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea

Gay people have had it tough. We can relate to shit like the sinking of the Titanic.

I like dick and got bullied at school for being gay, therefore I know what it's like to freeze to death in a shipwreck with 1500 other people

Does anyone know if Titanic had actual gay passengers?

[quote]Does anyone know if Titanic had actual gay passengers?

There are several discussed in this very thread.

Does anyone know if there were men with big cocks on the Titanic?

All I know is that if you were openly gay and not in first class, you stood a strong chance of having your ass thrown overboard. Especially, reply 205.

r206 there was no such thing as a gay identity in 1912, idiot. There were men who participated in homosexual acts, but it didn't define them.

Yes, very few people on Titanic actually drowned, just the few trapped below decks when she went under. Most died from hypothermia in the freezing water after she sank. Most of her victims froze to death.

Survivors in the lifeboats said it took over an hour before the screams of the dying died out.

Didn't Wallter Lord report that one of the survivors ended up near the baseball stadium in Chicago and had to move because the screams from the ballpark during the games reminded her of that night?

Growing up in the 80s, I knew there were old action-disaster movies about it and that's all I ever thought about it. It did not appeal to me or take up any space in my head.

I was 18 when the movie came out and I went to see it with my first boyfriend. He has already seen it twice. I laughed in the end when Kate pushed Leo's frozen body away. I felt awful about it but I just thought the movie was so silly and the acting so melodramatic that it was hard to take seriously. And "the heart of the ocean"? Oy.

However, that said, the movie did humanize the tragedy for me and after seeing it, I thought of it as a mass human disaster.

A few years ago, I went to Ireland for the first time with my dad and sister the year my mother died. Her mother's family were from western Ireland. We met a cousin there and she said one of her nephews had just died emptying a lobster trap, and she explained how rough and cold the water is off the coast and how many people die there routinely. We took a boat to the Aran Islands and by the cliffs of Moher in April and it was so windy and freezing and I realized what a nightmare being in even colder water in the middle of the night would have been like. Someone could make a movie about the Titanic as a straight-up horror/terror film. It seems like all the old disaster films were just about spectacle and Cameron's movie was about spectacle plus melodrama. I feel like the people who perished deserve more respectful treatment.

[quote] Yes, very few people on Titanic actually drowned, just the few trapped below decks when she went under. Most died from hypothermia in the freezing water after she sank. Most of her victims froze to death.

I saw a video on YouTube by some military expert explaining how to survive at sea, and he said that water below a certain temperature makes the human body automatically breathe in when a person is dropped into it. He said there's no physical way to stop it from happening, and that's why most people who go down in ships in cold water drown, because if they are plunged into cold water, their lungs suck in the salt water and they have no way not to drown. He also said that the end scene of Titanic is impossible because Kate would have lost all manual motor functions after a very short while and it's almost impossible that she could have moved in such a way as to push Leo away, and it would be entirely impossible for her to grab the whistle and put it to her mouth to blow. He said that people could and did survive by climbing on top of floating things that supported them as Kate's character did but that she still would have been in physical shock and unable to move because of how cold it was.

Cameron's script for TITANIC is absolute dog shit. That insanity of the Billy Zane character going after Leo with a gun WHILE THE SHIP IS SINKING? And I've always hated how Cameron focuses almost entirely on the Leo and Kate characters and pays no attention to anyone else -- even the Strausses, with their heatbreaking story.

^ Old people aren't sexy. It would not have become the highest-grossing film until that point if the sex scenes had consisted of Isidor fumbling with Ida's hosiery. The script is very shaky at points, though, I agree. It was such a big film for us when I was growing up, though, that I do still love it.

R216 I agree. I have always thought the movie was modeled on old melodramas and that's why both the plot and the acting were so...off. Kate Winslet has been a phenomenal realistic actress since she was a teenager and up through to her most recent project, and Titanic stands out among all her other roles for the weird Judy-Garland-in-Wizard-of-Oz affectations. She had to have been made to act poorly on purpose, right?

Being gay was not legal then. No one was openly gay on the Titanic unless they wanted to be prosecuted and possibly killed.

I swear, I really wonder what “great educations” some of you received because you all claim to have those but then make posts like this shit.

R199, Andrews was correct. He didn't factor in the pumps that kept the ship afloat for longer than one hour.

[quote]Old people aren't sexy. It would not have become the highest-grossing film until that point if the sex scenes had consisted of Isidor fumbling with Ida's hosiery. The script is very shaky at points, though, I agree.

You may be joking, but I wasn't suggesting that sex scenes involving the Strausses should have been included. But including more of their story would have been a nice counterbalance to the (ridiculous) story of doomed young love between Jack and Rose (If those were the character names).

I hated the movie. Not a great contribution to this thread, I know.

But the pinnacle of my hate was a scene that I've since discovered has become famously known as "The Propeller Guy".

I thought the scene was gratuitous and grotesque. It was unnecessary. What was the point? To be edgy? If I didn't hate James Cameron and the movie before, that scene cemented my opinion of him. "Mary!" me if you must, but I just had such a visceral reaction to it.

Overreaction perhaps, but I'm wondering if anyone knows if that specific act is based on history, or did Cameron make that up to be cool and give CGI people a challenge?

R210, you are wrong. There was a gay identity and people certainly considered themselves "inverts" or "uranians" (two terms that were used back in the old days)

White Starr Line is often criticized for launching the ship without lifeboats for all. But they were within the legal limits, which were based on outdated 1890s standards based on the ship's gross tonnage, rather than on capacity.

At any rate, my point is that people think there were so many deaths because there weren't enough lifeboats. In fact, more boats wouldn't have helped Titanic. She sank with two boats unlaunched because there wasn't enough time. More boats wouldn't have helped,

[quote]She sank with two boats unlaunched because there wasn't enough time.

I've never heard or read that, BUT it's well documented that the first few lifeboats that were lowered to the water were only about half full, because people were too scared to get in them and many of them still couldn't comprehend that the ship would actually sink.

r223, that is only true in elite circles. Such terms were not known in the mainstream discourse of the time.

R216, one of the film’s low points, definitely. Zane’s cartoonish performance didn’t help matters either. I’m surprised that Cameron didn’t make him wear a fake mustache so he could twirl it a La Snidely Whiplash.

R222, it's highly probable. There's also a quick clip of somebody losing their grip as the stern moved to a perpendicular position. He fell and hit a capstan. It was disturbing to watch. Wh. is why I find any glamourization of the sinking (dressing up like the passengers &c.) to be revolting in the extreme.

R228

Yes, I hated that scene as well. I thought both were horribly gratuitous.

Even if both were historically accurate - though I'm not sure anyone would remember such a specific occurrence - they were only in the movie to shock. Scenes that were inessential to tell his story.

Trivializing a tragedy. Though I suppose that could be said about the entire movie. I know many people would argue otherwise.

^^^ R222

R226, even if the terms weren't used in the mainstream, people certainly knew that "queers" existed

I wonder if Edith Evans was a lesbian...she was one of four First Class women that died aboard. Her death was so unnecessary.

[quote]I find any glamourization of the sinking (dressing up like the passengers &c.) to be revolting in the extreme.

Years ago, I went on a Disney cruise. As we were boarding, I noticed that one of the little boys in the family ahead of me was wearing a T-shirt that said "RMS Titanic." I had to stop myself from speaking to one or both of the parents to tell them how tasteless and disgusting that was, and how they SHOULD NOT have allowed their kid to wear that shirt.

IMHO, the Cameron film trivializes the tragedy by making it ALL about that soapy, stupid, melodramatic romance between the fictional characters Jack and Rose, and all that idiotic nonsense with the Billy Zane character. I'm not sure I agree that there's anything wrong or trivializing about including horrific scenes like someone's body striking a propeller while falling into the ocean or, for that matter, those hundreds of people in the freezing ocean screaming after the ship sank. It was a horrible tragedy, and we know for a fact that the latter thing happened, and probably lots of other horrible little tragic moments like the former one as well.

i started watching this doc but can't pallet the gay voice of the narrator so had to stop

The Titanic actually had more lifeboats than the regulations called for. I think one of the main issues with the lifeboats was that until 20 mins before the final plunge the ship didn’t feel to all that they were about to drown. Hence the limited panic at the beginning.

There was a Lifeboat with only 12 people on board , which had a capacity for 65. In all there were 472 places in Lifeboats that went unused.

True, but the regulations fell far short of providing lifeboats for every passenger. Even if every seat in every lifeboat had been filled, 1100 people would have drowned. It wasn't until after the Titanic disaster that regulations changed to require enough lifeboats to have a place for everyone on board.

Molly Brown and J. J. Brown are buried in the Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury, Long Island. You can take a LIRR train out there from Penn Station.

Did Denver not want anything to do with them anymore?

No, her life took her elsewhere. She became a great philanthropist and activist, and she traveled a lot.

Molly Brown a lesbian? This from Wiki: During the last years of her life, Brown was an actress. She died in her sleep at 10:55 p.m. on October 26, 1932, in New York City's Barbizon Hotel. (The Barbizon Hotel for Women was always a hotbed of lesbianism.)

I thought she died in Hempstead, very close to Westbury.

R235, here's more info on that boat from Wpedia: Boat No. 1 was the fourth lifeboat launched from the RMS Titanic at approximately 1:05 am, well over an hour after the liner collided with an iceberg and began sinking on 14 April 1912. The lifeboat had a capacity of 40 people, but was launched with only 12 aboard, the fewest to escape in any one boat that night.[1] Most of the occupants of Boat 1 were men, despite Captain Smith's call for "women and children first." First Officer Murdoch, in charge of the evacuation effort on the ship's starboard side, allowed a number of First-Class male passengers to board lifeboats. Murdoch permitted five passengers and seven crewmembers to board Boat 1. The passengers included Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon; his wife Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon; her secretary, Mabel Francatelli; Abraham Salomon and C. E. Henry Stengel. The crewmen were: Lookout George Symons, whom Murdoch placed in charge of the craft, Charles Hendrickson, Samuel Collins, George Taylor, Frederick Sheath, Robert Pusey and Albert Horswill.

Boat No. 1 did not clear the side of the ship for some time, perhaps not until about 1:15 am, owing to a mishap encountered on its descent from the boat deck. A protuberance called a spar, at about the B-Deck level, caught on the boat's gunwales, arresting the lowering process. It was not until the crew used a wire cutter to chop the obstacle away that the boat was freed and able to reach the sea.

Boat No. 1 and its occupants were picked up by the RMS Carpathia sometime shortly after 4:10 am, being the second Titanic lifeboat to reach the rescue ship. The boat's occupants were subsequently photographed as a group on the Carpathia. The boat was hoisted aboard the Carpathia along with other Titanic lifeboats and brought to New York. One of the davits from which Boat 1 was lowered remains upright on the wreck of the Titanic in relatively good condition.

Due to rumors that Sir Cosmo had bribed the crew in his boat not to rescue people left in the water after the ship went down, some New York press reports dubbed Boat 1 the "Money Boat".[4][5] The appearance of Cosmo and Lucy Duff Gordon as witnesses at the British investigation into the disaster drew the largest crowds seen during the inquiry.

[quote]The passengers included Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon; his wife Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon;

Lady Duff-Gordon was a leading British fashion designer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I want to change my name to Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon.

The thing about Sir Cosmo is that out of a sense of compassion and charity he gave a fiver each to the crew members of his boat. Their pay stopped when the ship sank. They had nothing. He was brought up at the British Inquiry and treated like he was some snot nosed entitled shithead. Even his fucking lawyer was there. If I'd been his lawyer I would've argued that he and his wife had just witnessed a disaster. That it is human nature to want to put things back together again, and that he and his wife were in shock. But nooooooooooooo... he and his wife were finished in Society. And in those days that meant you moved away and disappeared. His wife mentioned in a letter to a friend how angry she felt about Society ostracising them. She was tough. Her husband I think was shamed into believing he did something wrong.

One woman, Mrs. Carter, divorced her husband because he evacuated the ship before her and their children did.

Another young boy (I think it was the Spedden spawn) evacuated the ship with his mother. As the lifeboats emptied and the survivors made it to the Carpathia's boat deck, imagine the angst felt by the survivors who were already there, looking for friends and family members. Nobody showed up, because 2/3 of those onboard drowned. But Mrs. Speddon and her son were on the boat deck and the small boy saw his father (who evacuated on a later boat) but didn't tell his mother, because he thought it would a fun game to let her figure it out for herself.

The thing about Sir Cosmo is that out of a sense of compassion and charity he gave a fiver each to the crew members of his boat.

The Duff Gordons payed the sailors not to go back for survivors. that's why they were banished from society

Prove it, R244. If you can't you're repeating 110 year old malicious gossip.

[quote]Prove it, [R244]. If you can't you're repeating 110 year old malicious gossip.

DL is the home of malicious gossip! But to describe alleged incidents from 110 years ago as "malicious gossip" seems rather odd. And don't forget that the people in the lifeboats survived. There would have been witnesses if Lord Cosmo had offered money to the crew members not to go back for the people still alive in the water. You think think they were shunned by society for no good reason? Why don't you try proving that? Get out of here with your "prove it" nonsense.

thanks r246

The Duff Gordons payed the sailors not to go back for survivors. that's why they were banished from society

Rubbish, Things like this never happen

[quote]payed

Oh, DEAR…

Lady Duff-Gordon discovered Dolores, Ziegfeld's most beautiful showgirl.

I can’t explain it, but this ship and all its stories are endlessly fascinating to me.

There was a pregnant second class woman who died because she was afraid to leave her cabin until it was too late. It’s in Encyclopedia Titanica.

R246, you think throwing the most sand in the playground means you're right. You're not right. You can't prove it. You're repeating shit you read or shit that goes on in your little head. Read the testimony at the inquiry, or have your mother read it to you if you can't understand the polysyllabic words.

Cameron dropped the ball on "Fabrezio". He disappears early, then returns at the end to help Jack. What the fuck was poor Fabrezio doing all that time? Give the kid a movie. Poor kid.

"Fabrizio's Story."

They cut out some scenes with Fabrizio and the Swedish immigrant girl who fancies him…the deleted scenes are on YouTube.

I've always said that one of the huge flaws of James Cameron's TITANIC is that, while there were a huge number of Americans and Brits involved in the real-life tragedy, all of the main characters in the film are American -- including the main female character, Rose, even though she was played by a British actress. One of many stupid decisions made by Cameron.

A lot of Fabrizio story was cut or probably uncut.

You sound nuts, R253.

I see what you did there, r258.

Today is the 110th anniversary of the night the Titanic hit the iceberg

^ and the 157th anniversary of Lincoln being shot (he would die the next day).

And my birthday! 🤗

R262, happy birthday 🎂!!!

The 110th anny of the collision with the iceberg at 1938 Pacific Daylight Time today.

R. Norris Williams and Karl Behr, champion tennis players, were on the Titanic.

Behr was chasing some pussy and Williams was chasing Behr.

[quote]and the 157th anniversary of Lincoln being shot (he would die the next day).

And the Titanic would sink the next day.

R265, I'll bet they played catch on RMS Carpathia's boat deck. Four days on that ship would have been a very long time.

[quote]Today is the 110th anniversary of the night the Titanic hit the iceberg

Titanic 110 Years later and Real Time Sinking.-

110th anniversary.

I am having coffee from my White Star mug and thinking about those who lost their lives.

You have a White Star mug? Seriously?

How did you acquire that?

Color me envious.

hon, it's probably a reproduction, you get them on ebay.

I got one from my ex. When we broke up, I destroyed every gift he gave me, except for the cup.

^^^I use the cup to hold my scouring pads.

In first grade in the mid 70s, I discovered Richard Boning's Incredible Series of books about amazing stories from history; my favorites were Titanic, Horror Overhead (the Hindenburg), and 17 Minutes to Live (the Halifax explosion), but Titanic was the best. I became obsessed with disasters: the first "adult" books I ever read were Paul Gallico's The Poseidon Adventure and Arthur Hailey's Airport, when I was 8!

Anyway, shortly after SOS Titanic aired on ABC in 1979, my father and I were visiting a family friend who had the 1976 illustrated edition of Walter Lord's A Night to Remember -- I was so entranced by the book that the friend actually gave it to me -- and I still have it to this day. I cannot count the number of times I've read it.

In the mid-90s, I got a job with an airline and one of the first things I did was take a personal ad out in the UK magazine Gay Times seeking gay penpals that I could eventually visit (I made 3 friends through it that I still am friends with to this day). In the ad I mentioned that I was a Titanic buff; one of the responses stated: "I'm bigger than the Titanic and ready to go down!"

I went to see Cameron's Titanic 11 times during its initial release, and have seen it many times since. Yeah, carp all you want about the melodrama and romance, but he gets the technical aspects pretty damn right and it's the most astonishing visual recreation of the disaster we've yet seen.

The one aspect that has most fascinated me is the story of the Californian, referred to above; one of the best recent books about the disaster is Daniel Allen Butler's The Other Side of the Night: the Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost (2009), which contrasts the reaction of Carpathia captain Arthur Rostron with Californian captain Stanley Lord -- the former (appx 58 miles away from the Titanic) turned his ship around, organized the ship and crew for rescue, and sailed like hell through the night and the ice to rescue the survivors, while the latter (appx 10-15 miles away) slept through the night, the engines off, the radio operator also asleep, not bothering to wake him when officers informed him of the rockets being fired into the night sky in the distance, then trying to cover up their inactivity.

[quote].....while the latter (appx 10-15 miles away) slept through the night, the engines off, the radio operator also asleep...

This is one aspect of the tragedy that has always boggled my mind -- the fact that there wasn't a radio operator on duty around the clock. As if everyone thought there was no possibility of an emergency happening between 11pm and 6am, or whatever the on-duty hours were. I can't imagine why that situation was ever allowed to exist, and of course, look at the result.

[quote] You have a White Star mug? Seriously? How did you acquire that?

I'm not the same poster but I picked up a couple of White Star Line mugs in the gift shop after seeing the Titanic artifacts exhibition. They're reproductions, of course.

I have a piece of coal from Titanic.

R270, there merchandise all over the net. I doubt it's one retrieved from the wreck site.

I'm pretty sure it's real. Cert of Authenticity from the expedition that brought it up and all that. There was a lot of publicity when they starting selling this batch 20 or 30 years ago.

It was a birthday present. I never would have bought it. I'm still uncomfortable having it in my apartment but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away either.

Better you than me, R279. I had dinner with someone who had a piece of coal from the wreck site. I was the only person who could see it due to the table seating. I wanted to say something. He was dead within a couple of years. It was complications due to something, it wasn't some freak accident.

[quote]I have a piece of coal from Titanic.

I have a small piece of wood from the original floor of the Harland & Wolff shipyard.

I have a piece of Titanic coal I bought at the Titanic exhibit 25 or so years ago. I'm doing fine, but both my husbands died young.

As long as you hid the evidence and have an ironclad alibi, R282, I congratulate you on your next walk down the aisle!

We should send some TITANIC coal to several members of the Republican Party 😈😈😈😈😈😈