James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is widely praised for its historical detail, but how accurate is it really? While the film captures the grandeur of the doomed ship, it takes dramatic liberties with key figures like First Officer William Murdoch, Second Officer Charles Lightoller, Captain Edward Smith, and “Unsinkable” Molly Brown. This article examines what Titanic got right, what it got wrong, and why it matters to the legacy of real-life heroes and victims.

The RMS Titanic became my obsession as a teenager, even before James Cameron’s film was released. I watched all the movies and miniseries that existed about the ship. Saw all the biographies. Read all the books. I even listened to the recorded transcripts from the trials that followed. Not only the immense tragedy (one that could have been averted) but the people that went down with the ship and either survived or met their end in those icy waters fascinated me: historic names like Captain James Smith, William, Thomas Andrews, Margaret Brown, Charles Lightoller, Bruce Ismay, and many others.

Then TITANIC took the world by storm in Christmas of 1997, and remained in theaters for a further ten months. The exquisite film revolved around a fictional love story but used historical individuals to flesh out the side characters. It is incredibly detailed and accurate… except in its depiction of William Murdoch, First Officer, whose descendants threatened to sue James Cameron for slander. A delegation of filmmakers flew out to apologize to them.

Cameron said later he regretted how he had portrayed Murdoch. He did not realize his dramatization of events would offend Murdoch’s living family members, and if he could go back and do it again, he would change things. He also issued an official apology to Murdoch’s relatives.

But in my opinion, Murdoch is not the only “vilified” officer in Cameron’s film. Let’s dive in!

William Murdoch: Bribery, Bullets, and a Tarnished Legacy

The Real Murdoch: William Murdoch was born in Scotland, as the fourth son of a master mariner. He came from a long and notable line of Scottish seafarers; his father, grandfather, and four of his great-uncles, were sea captains. Murdoch was so competent, he passed his second mate’s Certificate on his first attempt!

The White Star Line hired him in 1900, and he progressed from Second to First Officer. He served on ten separate ships. In 1903, Murdoch averted a disaster on board the Arabic, when he spotted a ship bearing down on them at night. His superior ordered them to steer hard-a-port, but Murdoch rushed into the wheelhouse, pushed aside the quartermaster, and held the ship on course. The two vessels missed one another by mere inches.

Murdoch served on Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic, until a collision sent her back into the dock for repairs, then they transferred him to Titanic. Henry Wilde replaced him as First Officer, bumping him down to Second. Murdoch was on duty when they hit the iceberg, told them to steer hard to port, closed the watertight doors, and reported the collision to Smith. He launched ten lifeboats.

He perished in the disaster, and his body was never recovered.

In the film, striking the iceberg, closing the watertight doors, and reporting to Smith all happen as they did in history. But as he loads lifeboats, Murdoch accepts a bribe from a wealthy man desiring to get a position on the lifeboat, and throws the money back in the man’s face later, after a change of conscience (“Your money can’t save you any more than it can save me”). He allows Bruce Ismay to board a lifeboat without stopping him, even though he hesitates for a moment before ordering them to lower it. There is a rush for the last lifeboat, and in the scuffle, Murdoch shoots two passengers and then, horrified by his actions, turns the gun on himself.

Cameron based the shooting of the passenger on witness testimony by Abraham Hyman, a third-class passenger, who said, “… one man … pushed toward the boat and the officer fired at him.” A first-class passenger named George Rheims claimed in a letter to his wife he saw an officer shoot a passenger who was trying to force his way onto a lifeboat. A third-class passenger, Eugene Daly, wrote a letter to his sister in which he reported two men attempting to board a lifeboat and being shot by an officer. [source]

Since no bodies were recovered with bullet holes in them, there is no way to confirm any of these stories.

Colonel Gracie testified that he saw Murdoch wash overboard, not shoot himself.

Gunshots on the Titanic

More than a dozen survivors claim to have seen and/or heard shots fired from the Titanic in its last moments, but it could also have been the large steel cables on the first funnel snapping before it fell, which sounded like gunshots.

According to the testimony of passengers and crew given at the British and the US inquiries into the disaster, guns were fired three separate times:

• First Officer Harold Lowe fired three warning shots alongside the ship while loading Lifeboat 14. When asked by the British Commission of Inquiry why he did so, Lowe replied, “Because while I was at the boat deck, two men jumped into my boat. I chased one out and to avoid another occurrence of that short, I fired my revolver as I was going past each deck. The boat had about 64 persons in it and would not stand a sudden jerk.”
• First Officer William Murdoch or Purser McElroy fired two warning shots in the air while loading Collapsible C. Colonel Gracie and first-class passenger Hugh Woolner testified to this.
• Gracie reported Second Officer Charles Lightoller fired two shots in the air while loading Collapsible D.

The Suicide Controversy: What Really Happened?

Thirty-four named separate passengers reported a man shot himself; some claimed to have witnessed it, others said they merely heard about it. Some claimed he ate the bullet; others, that he put the pistol to his temple and fired. A few reported the suicide of two separate officers. Another eleven unnamed witnesses or hearsay reporters claimed the same, along with endless claims that people in third class were killed.

Among the officers people claimed shot themselves were Captain Smith, Murdoch, and Wilde.

Several survivors claimed they saw an officer salute and take his own life at the forward end of the boat deck, and one or two of them said it was Murdoch. However, he was not a Navy man. Officers Wilde and Moody were, though.

Testimony from fellow officers Charles Lightoller and Harold Bride said they saw Murdoch drown when the sea engulfed the final lifeboat. The son of a close personal friend of Murdoch said Lightoller told him in private later that Murdoch had “shot a man” on board Titanic.

We will never know the truth.

Suicide was illegal in England until 1961, and frowned on; to commit suicide in the face of a disaster would be seen as an act of cowardice, so even if one of the surviving crew members witnessed it, they might have denied it to protect the officer’s wife and his good name.

Or, it never happened at all.

Those who knew Murdoch described him “calm and courageous.” While it is true more men survived on his side of the ship, there is no evidence to support bribery and no conclusive evidence to support his suicide.  

In James Cameron’s illustrated screenplay, he is quick to highlight the virtues of Murdoch (and call his suicide “honorable”) and to remind us at the film’s conclusion, Murdoch is among the ghosts Rose encounters on board ship, implying his redemption and divine forgiveness for his actions.

Charles Lightoller: From Lifeboats to Dunkirk

The Real Lightoller: Born in England to a family that operated cotton-spinning mills, he began a four-year apprenticeship on board a ship at age thirteen. He got promoted to second mate for his successful efforts in fighting a coal cargo fire and saving the Knight of St. Michael, a sailing ship.

Lightoller left the sea after a nearly fatal bout of malaria, temporarily. He prospected for gold in the Yukon in the Klondike Gold Rush, became a cowboy in Canada, rode the rails as a hobo, and earned his passage home by working on a cattle wrangler on a cattle boat. He later joined the Majestic under Captain Smith, and became the Third Officer on the Olympic.

A mischievous and thrill-seeking man, Lightoller used to like to amuse himself by trying to slide from one side of the bridge to the other during storms, without touching anything. The size of the Titanic intimidated him at first, and it took him fourteen days to navigate from one end of her to the other with any confidence.

After the ship struck the iceberg, Lightoller loaded the boats on his side of the ship with women and children only, rather than first. Fearing the boats would collapse, he intended to lower them partially full, then fill them from the waterline. He sent ten men downstairs to open the gangway doors in the ship’s port so passengers would have access, but the men never finished their task, and the under-capacity boats pulled away from the boat as soon as they hit the water. They ignored him shouting for them to return.

Lightoller tried to launch the final boat, Collapsible B, as the ship went under; he dove overboard from the roof of the officer’s quarters (he described the shock of the water as being like “a thousand knives being driven into my body”). He got sucked under, and pinned against a grating until an explosion of air rocketed him to the surface. Then, he swam to the upside-down Collapsible B and held onto it, narrowly missing being crushed as the forward funnel broke free and slammed into the water. He climbed up on the lifeboat and took charge of calming and organizing the thirty survivors, teaching them to shift their weight with the swells to avoid being swamped.

After the inquest, he returned to duty with the White Star Line and served on the Oceanic, which was converted into an armed merchant cruiser during World War I. Then as a torpedo boat captain, he received the Distinguished Service Cross for opening fire on a German zeppelin. He and his men rammed and sank a German U-boat in 1918.

Lightoller used his private motor yacht to tour the German cost in 1939 and gather intel. And in 1940, him and his son crossed the English channel to aid in the Dunkirk evacuation. He brought home 127 servicemen in a boat licensed to carry only 21 passengers. He later died of heart diseases in 1952, during the Great Smog.

In the film, Lightoller comes across as a cold-hearted man who separates families without hesitation, shows no compassion for passengers left behind, and insists on loading lifeboats at ⅓ their capacity until Thomas Andrews shames him for it. I felt the representation of him was rather harsh and it implied that he was incompetent and foolish, rather than taking his orders too seriously, or wanting to load boats from closer to the waterline.

Captain Edward Smith: Noble Silence or Cold Detachment?

The Real Smith: Born in England, Smith had a long and notable career of commanding sea vessels (over forty years, including twenty-seven of them in command). Others called him the “millionaire’s captain,” because he commanded the White Star Line’s newest and grandest ships on all of their maiden voyages. Many considered him to be the “safest” of all captains afloat, having commanded ships with the least amount of collisions or accidents.

On the night of the disaster, eyewitness accounts describe Smith as cooly appraising the situation and calmly giving out orders to launch lifeboats, notify the passengers, and keep order on the decks. He made two personal inspections to assess the damage. People saw him all over the decks, interacting with passengers, helping load lifeboats, and trying to instill urgency without creating a panic. He was last seen releasing officers from their duties, and carrying out a final tour of the deck. His last reported words were to tell his men to do their best for the women and children and then “look after yourselves.” Steward Edward Brown saw him enter the bridge, but a trimmer found it empty a few minutes later.

No one ever recovered Smith’s body. Once asked what he would do if ever his ship sank, Smith replied that “some of us would go to the bottom with [her].”

In the film, Smith caves to Ismay’s demands he increase speed while ignoring ice warnings. He ignores the appeals of a woman who asks him for help by walking away from her in the chaos. And it implies he chooses to lock himself in the flooding bridge, and indeed, go “down with the ship.”

Eyewitnesses made up many stories about seeing Smith after the sinking, hearing his voice, or interacting with him, including one insistence that he tried to save a child.

But we will never know the truth.

Maggie Brown Was No Coward

The Real Brown: Born in Missouri, Maggie moved to Leadville, Colorado, with siblings and married James Joseph Brown. She married him for love, rather than money, and then got rich when he found a substantial ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine. Now launched into Denver society, Maggie became a philanthropist, raised funds for a Catholic Cathedral, helped destitute children, worked with a judge to establish a juvenile court, and lobbied for women’s right to vote.

She spent the first few months of 1912 visiting her daughter in Paris, until she received word that her eldest grandson in Denver had fallen ill. She immediately booked passage on the Titanic to return home. As the ship sank, Maggie helped others board the lifeboats and eventually climbed into 6. After the ship sank, she took an oar, and demanded their boat return for survivors. Quartermaster Robert Hichens, the crewman in charge, refused, saying if they went back they would be swamped or sink. After the two argued several times and traded insults, Maggie threatened to throw him overboard.

After being rescued, Maggie organized a committee with other first-class passengers to secure basic necessities for the survivors, to provide counseling, and to find them all somewhere to go once they reached New York. On the Carpathia, she used her knowledge of foreign languages to assist with non-English speaking survivors and did not disembark in New York until she made sure all of her fellow passengers had been met by family and/or friends. She organized a fund that raised over $10,000 for destitute survivors. Because of her status as a woman, she was prevented from testifying at the trials, which prompted her to write her own account, which was published in several major newspapers.

Maggie ran for the senate six years before women were allowed to vote, and served as the director of the American Committee for Devastated France during World War I. She worked hard to rebuild areas behind the front lines, and to help wounded soldiers. Maggie received the French Legion of Honor in 1932. In fact, her children objected to how much money she spent on her charities and tried to stop her!

In the film, Maggie… shuts up, cowed by Hitchens. I have to say, Kathy Bates is an incredible “Molly” Brown. She not only looks exactly like her, she has the mannerisms, the boisterous nature, and the accent down pat. She is a likable woman with a big mouth and a love for “gossip.”

But, why did Cameron take one of her heroic real-life actions away from her? On-screen, it’s Hitchens who threatens to throw her overboard if she doesn’t shut up, when in reality, it was her who told him that! And the film implies that she gives up trying to get the women to row as well. I don’t know why he made this change, because it diminishes the powerhouse the real “Maggie” was!

Locked Gates and Lost Chances: The Steerage Myth

Other misleading information includes the intention of the crew to prevent steerage passengers from reaching the top decks and gaining access to the lifeboats. Another fabrication. The locked floor-to-ceiling iron gates are false; the gates between class sections were waist high. People were not prevented from going upstairs, but because Thomas Andrews designed the ship to accommodate three social classes, many could not find their way upstairs. Crew was on-hand to assist, but the vast majority of steerage passengers could not speak English and therefore could not understand the evacuation orders.

Many lost their lives that night, but many heroes were also born.