The Intriguing True Story James Cameron of Titanic Reveals: Could Jack Fit on the Floating Door?

For over twenty years, a significant debate in the world of cinema has revolved around a crucial scene in the movie Titanic: why didn’t Jack join Rose on the floating door?

James Cameron, the director, has always stood by the practicalities of the scene. However, a recently uncovered piece of the real Titanic’s history sheds a profound and more meaningful light on this enduring question.

The key to this conundrum can be found in a book called The Six: The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Chinese Survivors, meticulously researched by maritime historian Steven Schwankert.

The book reveals the largely forgotten stories of six Chinese men whose survival stories were nearly lost to history.

Among these survivors was Fang Lang, a man whose real-life rescue after the Titanic sank directly inspired Cameron’s portrayal of Jack’s final moments.

‘It was amazing that one of our Chinese survivors inspired one of the most iconic cinematic moments of the 20th century,’ Schwankert told the Daily Mail. 

Cameron has penned the book’s foreword in which he reveals that, while filming Titanic, he shot a scene based on the rescue of a Chinese third-class passenger found floating on debris.

Although the scene was ultimately cut from the final film, Cameron discloses that Fang Lang’s survival story was the inspiration for the dramatic sequence in which Jack sacrifices his life so that Rose can stay afloat on a wooden door.

‘When I made my film Titanic and told the story of fictional third-class passenger Jack Dawson, there was another storyline I filmed and wanted to include,’ Cameron writes in the forthcoming book.

‘And that was the real-life rescue of a third-class passenger, a Chinese man found floating on a piece of wreckage. That man’s grit and determination to survive and my admiration for him inspired the now-famous Jack and Rose ending to Titanic,’ Cameron revealed.

Fang Lang, later known as Fong Wing Sun, was rescued by Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, who returned to the wreck site with Lifeboat 14 in search of survivors.

According to testimonies and survivor accounts, Fang was discovered tied to a wooden panel – likely a door or part of the ship’s interior – face down and unresponsive.

Fang had used a rope or a belt to secure his body to the wood.

‘He had lashed himself with a rope to his frail raft, using the broken hinges to make knots secure,’ Schwankert writes, referencing an interview with Charlotte Collyer, a second-class passenger who had been traveling on the ill-fated ship with her husband, Harvey, and their daughter, Marjorie. 

Charlotte and Marjorie left the Titanic aboard Lifeboat 14; her husband, Harvey, tragically perished in the sinking.

Charlotte Collyer recalled that, when the rescue team found Fang, he looked lifeless. 

‘As far as we could see, he was dead,’ Collyer recounted in an interview for The Semi-Monthly Magazine in May 1912.

‘The sea washed over him every time the door bobbed up and down, and he was frozen stiff. He did not answer when he was hailed, and the officer hesitated about trying to save him.’

Officer Lowe initially dismissed the possibility of rescuing Lang, reportedly saying, ‘What’s the use? He’s dead, likely, and if he isn’t, there’s others better worth saving than a Jap.’

Despite this discriminatory remark, Lowe ultimately changed his mind, hauled Fang aboard, and watched in astonishment as he revived and immediately began rowing to assist others.

‘The Japanese was hauled on board, and one of the women rubbed his chest, while others chafed his hands and feet. In less time than it takes to tell, he opened his eyes,’ Collyer said.

‘One of the sailors near him was so tired that he could hardly pull his oar. The Japanese bustled over, pushed him from his seat, took the oar, and worked like a hero until we were finally picked up.’

Schwankert’s book, based on years of research, interviews with descendants, and historical records, identifies the six Chinese survivors as Ah Lam, Chang Chip, Cheong Foo, Fang Lang (Fong Wing Sun), Lee Bing, and Ling Hee.

‘A historian who has spent the last quarter-century exploring China’s lakes, rivers, and seas, and delving into the country’s rich maritime history, Schwankert and his team solved what was an enduring mystery – the identity and fate of Titanic’s six Chinese survivors,’ Cameron wrote in the foreword.

After their rescue, these men were immediately expelled from the United States under the Chinese Exclusion Act, and their names were largely erased from the Titanic’s legacy.

The book not only documents their journeys before and after the disaster but also places their experiences in the broader context of anti-Asian sentiment in early 20th-century America.

As for the question of the door – whether Jack could have fit or survived – Cameron has long maintained that the physics of the situation would not support it, a sentiment echoed by the historian.

Schwankert, a native of New Jersey, explained to the Daily Mail that he, along with some of his colleagues, tested the age-old door dilemma.

‘The water where the Titanic sank that night was just about freezing. To be submerged in that water for any period of time, eventually, you are going to start to lose functionality,’ he said.

The historian, who volunteered as a test subject in 40-degree water – a bit warmer than the 28-degree waters the Titanic passengers faced – explained: ‘What we ultimately determined was that you only have about 15 or 20 minutes to do anything like pull yourself up onto a floating piece of wreckage, otherwise, you’d still be conscious, but you might not have the arm strength or the hand strength to do it.’

Schwankert explained that his inspiration for The Six stemmed from his deep love for everything ‘on, in, and under the ocean.’

He told the Daily Mail that he had been living in China when Titanic was released and that the Academy Award-winning film ‘changed the landscape of cinema’ in China.

‘I was there in China when the Titanic movie, the James Cameron movie, was released in 1997,’ he said.

‘It was just a story people were crazy about. It really changed the cinema landscape there in China. Before that, people didn’t go to the cinema very much.’

Having lived in China for 25 years, Schwankert discovered the ‘unique opportunity’ to investigate the lack of knowledge about the ship’s Chinese passengers.

‘When I saw that there were Chinese passengers on the Titanic, I thought “that’s so strange,” because we know so much about various groups that were on the Titanic. It just seemed like we had so much information about those passengers but we didn’t really know anything about the Chinese,’ he told the Daily Mail.

Compiling the survivors’ information was a lengthy investigative process.

‘We were able to use shipping records to identify at least their Chinese names, which made it easier to track them from ship to ship prior to boarding the Titanic,’ he said.

Schwankert clarified that the men, although they had worked aboard other ships, were in fact passengers on the Titanic.

‘We knew that they were mariners, we knew that they were professional seamen and were working on board ships, but they were not working on board the Titanic,’ he explained.

‘They were passengers on the Titanic and they were being sent from the company that they worked for. They were being sent from that company’s UK operations to their US operations. That’s why they were passengers on board Titanic.’

Schwankert added that there had been ‘a lot of confusion’ and ‘half-truths’ surrounding why these men were aboard the ship.

‘They were accused for a very long time of being stowaways on Titanic and on the lifeboat that some of them escaped on,’ he said.

‘There was some confusion that they were part of Titanic’s crew and what they were doing there in the first place.’