Death of Lew Palter: Titanic actor was 94

American actor Lew Palter, who rose to fame playing Isidore Strauss in James Cameron’s Titanic, died on May 21 of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94 years old. The announcement was made by the (famous) School of Dramatic Art CalArtsof which he was one of the mainstays from 1971 as a drama teacher and then a director.

First appearing on the small screen in 1967 in an episode of Sauve qui peut, he went on to appear in approximately fifty roles on television and film, including The Man Who Was Worth 3 Billion, Iron Man. , Mission Impossible, Baretta, Kojak, or even All Risk Agency.

But it was in the movies that he really made himself known to the general public, playing the role of Isidore Strauss, an elderly and wealthy man who chooses to accept his death with his wife in their cabin. Both are waiting to die as frozen water invades every passageway and cabin. On all the music – heartbreaking too – of Georgia Closer to you, my God…

In the tragic background of the recent news, which followed the drama of the explosion of the submarine Titan, which was intended to study the wreckage of the Titanic, it turns out that the character he played in Cameron’s film was the great-grandfather of the wife of the person in charge of this expedition.

Extremely strict and concerned with authenticity, Cameron lavished his film with entirely authentic characters and authentic sequences, such as when the ship’s captain, Edward J. Smith, refused to abandon ship and sank at the helm of his ocean liner. The fate of the Strauss couple, which is basically a true tragically thwarted love story titanicIt’s worth saying.

The woes of rich passengers

German-born and married in 1871, the couple immigrated to the United States, where they made their fortune. Isidore Strauss was, among other things, one of the owners of Macy’s department stores, but also the representative of the 15th district of the state of New York in the United States Congress. By chance, he and his wife found themselves traveling aboard the Titanic, moreover, in first class.

After a trip to Europe and Germany, the couple had to return to New York on another liner, the RMS Olympics, a more modest size than the Titanic. But the ship’s departure was delayed, so Strauss changed his plans to get a ticket for Titanic’s first cruise.

A couple in a photo taken around 1910-1911:

When the order to evacuate the ship was announced, priority was given to women and children. Elderly and, moreover, first-class passengers on the Strauss had a chance to get out, even if the ship did not have enough lifeboats…

Paul Kurtzman, the couple’s grandson, He will remember this family memory in 2017 : “My great-grandmother Ida got into a lifeboat in the hope that her husband would follow. When he didn’t, she became very worried, and the ship’s officer in charge of lowering that particular lifeboat said, ‘Well, Mr. Strauss, you. You’re old…and we all know who you are…surely you can get into the lifeboat with your wife.”

But Isidore Strauss refused to board the lifeboat until “All the women and children on board were not in the boat.” His wife understands: if he must die, she will die with him. – We spent forty wonderful years together, if you don’t want to get into that canoe, then neither do I. She allegedly told him, according to her maid, Ellen Bird, who survived the tragedy.

The sequence will also be filmed on the set of the film, eventually cut during editing. “Where are you going, I’m going! Don’t argue with me, Isidore, you know it won’t do any good.”

Ellen Bird thus takes her place in the lifeboat, with her mistress’s fur coat over her shoulders, the best parting gift: “I won’t need you anymore. Take me to the lifeboat to keep you warm until you can be rescued.” Ida Strauss said.

The couple were last seen on the deck of the Titanic, holding hands, before the tidal wave caused by the sinking ship swept them away. Contrary to what James Cameron shows in his film, and although his images are very emotionally powerful, they did not die in a tangled cabin bed. Isidore’s body is fished out a few days later, but his wife’s body is never found. nor of John Farthing, their butler.

Their deaths make headlines in the United States, Like this headline from the Denver Post on April 19, 1912 : “Mr. and Mrs. Strauss sank with their hands intertwined.” Isidore Strauss will be buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. Ellen Bird, their maid, died in 1949.

A wonderful bronze funeral sculpture honoring the couple, created by a famous American artist Henry Augustus LukemanLocated in New York, at the intersection of Broadway and West End Avenue.