hollywood blockbuster titanic It is known for many things, including an emotionally charged film set piece, a lavish budget, and nearly a dozen Oscar wins since its release in 1997.
But there’s a story about the film that some people may not be familiar with. This is a behind-the-scenes secret during filming in Nova Scotia that involves lobster chowder and a hallucinogenic drug.
“It was kind of very dreamlike, very surreal,” recalls Marilyn McEvoy, now a part-time faculty member at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
“Like a lot of things that happened in that movie, I think it became this kind of story.”
In August 1996, McAvoy worked on a Halifax-area set titanic As a painter. Only the film’s modern scenes were shot in Nova Scotia, which meant lead stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were not present.
McAvoy also made an unexpected cameo, during a scene when Bill Paxton’s character examines a painting recovered from the wreckage.
“That was not part of the plan. As a scenic illustrator or standby illustrator, usually, you don’t get these little cameos, but I ended up working with the drawing that (director) James Cameron did for Kate Winslet,” she says. Are.
“He didn’t want anyone else to touch it, so he asked me if I would be the lab technician for this one-day shoot here at Dartmouth.”
Although that was memorable enough, an incident that sent him and about 80 crew members to the hospital is even more unforgettable.
‘People were behaving very strangely’
It is alleged that the cast and crew were served chowder contaminated with a drug called cyclidine (PCP), or angel dust.
Rick Courtney was a production assistant at the time, and had a background role as a sailor. He also ran a security training company and has experience as a physician.
He remembers the 21st, the last day scheduled for filming, when everyone left for “lunch” after midnight.
“People started behaving strangely. “I remember hearing on the headset that people were doing very strange things in the lunchroom,” he says.
“I was in the production office. James Cameron, come to me. He said, ‘You’re a doctor, right?’ I say, ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘Okay, fix me. There is something wrong with me.”
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Courtney says Cameron described “a whole bunch of things”, including hallucinations and feeling like he was drunk.
As more and more people began to fall ill, Courtney says she began investigating the mass casualties, but soon realized that things were getting out of hand.
“We had a whole group of people who were behaving extremely strange. And so I decided there were too many people here. This is not an isolated incident. “So we activated EMS and got a lot of ambulances.”
He noted that not everyone ate the chowder – some ate chicken, and some ordered food from craft services instead.
“Gloria Stuart, who was Old Rose, luckily ordered it,” he says.
Set painter McAvoy eats chowder.
“I was still working. “I wasn’t feeling nauseous or anything like that, but it seemed to affect people in many, many different ways,” McEvoy says.
She felt as if she had “drank three beers and smoked a joint” but did not experience the flashbacks that some others did.
“I didn’t have a lot of experience with a lot of psychedelic drugs… There were some people I knew who were going through really bad, very difficult times. I think it was related to the flashback in a way.
The atmosphere in the emergency room was also a bit chaotic – as dozens of patients felt various effects of the drug.
“People were really active and wanted to party and just have fun. And there are other people who really need to be left alone,” she said.
“There was a conga line. There was a wheelchair race. I remember in the morning when we all came down, they gave us this charcoal drink to drink, so I guess it flushed out the toxins from our bodies.
Police documents released
A report released Monday following a verdict reveals new details about the incident and subsequent investigation Provincial Privacy Commissioner.
The Halifax Regional Police report was initially filed on August 9, 1996 – with follow-up submissions later that year and in 1999 – and has been amended.
It says officers arrived at Dartmouth General Hospital and “observed a large number of people in the hospital emergency area and outside the emergency doors.”
It took hours to examine and treat everyone. It was an experience that the late actor Bill Paxton described years later in an interview with Larry King.
“You see some people going crazy, some people dancing the conga, some people excited,” Paxton said in June 2015. “I knew I was stoned to something very bad.”
Everyone recovered and filming in Nova Scotia concluded shortly after. This meant that many of those affected were dispersed and out of the country, making investigations difficult.
“Potential food contamination on the set of Titanic was investigated by the health department. By the time they discovered that the food, specifically lobster chowder, had been contaminated with PCP, the Titanic set was headed to Mexico,” a follow-up 1999 report said.
The newly released documents contain no names, and no apparent culprit.
A witness told police that a food service employee “had been removed from the set a few days earlier for selling drugs” and was a possible suspect, but officers could not confirm that employee’s identity.
‘Imagine the tabloid headlines’
The investigators also revealed rumors and speculations. In reporting the incident, the investigator stated that the film was over budget – “a well-known fact” – and added that the incident “may provide a reason to continue shooting for an additional week with the money coming from the insurance claim.”
“At this time none of this can be proven as (fact) and there is certainly nothing to suggest by the author that this incident was presented as a way to raise funding for the film. Was.”
However, the investigator cautioned that releasing such information could be harmful.
“I am suggesting that this report remain confidential, because one can imagine the newspaper headlines only if they knew we had a source indicating an insurance conspiracy behind the tampering.”
In contrast to the dramatic and iconic ending of titanic The film, the conclusion to this mystery is not that satisfying. Investigators indicated that unless the person responsible “admits his or her actions” it was unlikely they would be able to find or convict them.
“One must also consider the fact that PCP is not common in our area but is very common in the Hollywood area,” the report said.
“One must also consider that despite it being a wonderful (film) there is a lot of information on record that things were normal on the set. There is a good possibility that the perpetrator of this incident is a non-resident and is currently out of the country.”
Courtney has described the incident as a “blot” on the local film industry, but believes the blemish has been healed.
He is grateful for the experience of being a part of titanic, However, even after all these years, he is surprised that the mystery of the tainted chowder has not been solved.
“I was shocked. I mean, who would have the audacity to do that?” “PCP is very bad,” he says. “So, yes, it’s criminal.”
