Titanic’s ‘floating door’ that saved Rose’s life auctioned for over $700k, dress worn by Kate Winslet sold for $125k

Titanic door that saved Kate Winslet’s Rose’ life sold for $718,750.

Titanic has stayed in the hearts of the audience for over 25 years now and the film has stayed memorable for many reasons.

While one can’t stop admiring the cinematic brilliance of James Cameron and unforgettable performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, what continues to pique the interest of fans is the ‘door’ which saved Rose’s life and was responsible for the Oscar Award-winning film’s tragic ending.
The iconic door which became a symbol of its protagonist, Jack’s tragic demise, recently sold for a whopping $718,750 at an auction, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

While fans thought that it was a wood panel, Heritage Auctions’ Treasures clarified it’s actually a “part of the door frame just above the [ship’s] first-class lounge entrance.” Kate’s chiffon dress worn in the film was also auctioned at the event for $125,000.

James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on the sets of Titanic. (Photo: YouTube/ 20th Century Fox/Paramount Pictures)

This reignited a long-standing debate: could Jack have fit on the door with Rose, preventing his death? Over the years, some eagle-eyed fans have debated how much space there was aboard the door and whether both Jack and Rose could have fit on the panel, which would saved Jack from freezing to death. The debate and online chatter even inspired the film’s director James to conduct a field experiment to solve the dispute once and for all.

In 2023, to settle the record straight, the Avatar: The Way of Water director conducted a scientific experiment for a National Geographic special on the film’s 25th anniversary. The results were inconclusive. While Jack might have fit on the door with Rose, staying afloat proved difficult. He took two stunt people who had the same body mass as Kate and Leonardo to help with the study.

“We put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive,” he said during the special. David’s experiment suggests Jack’s death wasn’t solely due to lack of space, but also the door’s buoyancy.

A Leonardo and Kate as Jack and Rose in a still from the film. (Photo: YouTube/20th Century Fox/Paramount Pictures)

While fans suggest that Jack might have survived under certain conditions, the film’s tragic ending remains a testament to his sacrifice for Rose as the director compared the fate of their love story to that of Romeo and Juliet. “He could’ve made it pretty long. Like, hours. … He got into a place where if we projected that out, he just might’ve made it until the lifeboat got there. Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables. I think his thought process was, ‘I’m not going to do one thing that jeopardised her,’ and that’s 100 percent in character,” he explained.

When the same question was thrown before Kate, breaking her silence on the door controversy, she gave a logical answer, suggesting that only one between the two could’ve survived. When Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz showed an old video of Leonardo in which she was asked the same question she first decided to avoid it by saying, “No comment!” “I don’t f-king know. That’s the answer.

I don’t f-king know,” Kate joked during the 2022 interview when asked if Jack could’ve survived had Rose accommodated him on the floating door. “Look, all I can tell you is, I do have a decent understanding of water and how it behaves (from doing various water activities). If you put two adults on a stand-up paddleboard, it becomes immediately, extremely unstable. That is for sure.”

She added that she didn’t believe that they both would have survived if the two got on that door. “I think he would have fit, but it would have tipped and it would not have been a sustainable idea. .. Yes, he could have fit on that door, but it would not have stayed afloat. It wouldn’t,” she reasoned.

A few years ago, during the promotion of his film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Leonardo refused to weigh in on the debate. “I have no comment,” he responded despite his costars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie urging him to answer whether the lead actors of Titanic could have fit on the door. “Like I said, I have no comment,” asserted a firm Leonardo during the MTV interview.