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Nov 06, 2024

Infamous Titanic Prop Sells for $720K

Conspiracy theorists have long argued that Kate Winslet's Rose had plenty of room for Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack on the floating door she clung to in the icy waters of the movie Titanic, after they'd

Conspiracy theorists have long argued that Kate Winslet's Rose had plenty of room for Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack on the floating door she clung to in the icy waters of the movie Titanic, after they'd abandoned ship. Now, one lucky person will get to examine those dimensions for themselves: The lifesaving wood prop that Winslet dragged herself onto in the 1997 film sold at auction on Monday, for a final bid of $718,750, per the Guardian.

The description offered by Heritage Auctions on the 8-foot-long, 41-inch-wide balsa wood prop, part of a larger "Treasures From Planet Hollywood" sale, notes that it's not actually a door our hero couple was holding on to, but "part of the door frame just above the first-class lounge entrance" of the movie's doomed ocean liner. The artifact is "crafted with ornate floral accents and scrolling curves—design motifs prevalent in rococo architecture" and bears "a striking resemblance to the Louis XV-style panel housed in the Maritime Museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia."

Heritage Auctions notes that the auction as a whole brought in nearly $15.7 million, per People. Pricewise, the fake door beat out both the bullwhip from 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which went for $525,000, and the ax Jack Nicholson wielded in 1980's The Shining, which sold for a mere $125,000. As for the still looming question on whether the wooden slab could've fit both Rose and Jack, Titanic director James Cameron himself has weighed in. His conclusion last year, after running various tests, per Entertainment Weekly: "Based on what I know today, I would have made the raft smaller, so there's no doubt." (More strange stuff stories.)