20 Century Studios
James Cameron’s Titanic is often best known for being the most expensive film ever made when it first came out and for being the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar.
One of the lesser-known things Titanic is remembered for is a chaotic drug-fueled night when the film crew all got dosed with PCP after someone spiked the seafood chowder.
25 years later, James Cameron and the Titanic crew are remembering that fateful night when everyone was involuntarily tripping on angel dust. A recent article from Matthew Jacobs of Vulture retells one of the wildest film set experiences to ever occur.
It all began when everyone broke for lunch and started eating the delicious seafood chowder:
“Filming had already paused for what, in the context of such a late shoot, was considered lunch — in this case, seafood chowder so delicious that some people ate three or four bowls’ worth. They didn’t know that was a mistake. Sensing mass confusion, an assistant director divided everyone into two groups: “good crew” on one side, “bad crew” on the other. The demarcation had nothing to do with the quality of anybody’s work and everything to do with who was suddenly high on PCP.”
It’s safe to say that at no point in history (prior to this) has anyone ever expected to find PCP in their seafood chowder.
After everyone started tripping on angel dust, James Cameron initially suspected that it was an adverse reaction to Red Tide. Red Tide is a naturally occurring bacteria that can cause respiratory illness. When consumed in seafood it can lead to other complications.
25 years after the Titanic crew was dosed with PCP-laden seafood chowder, nobody knows how it got in the chowder or who put it in there. The fact that nobody ever figured out who put the PCP in the chowder is beyond wild.
Everyone on the Titanic crew dosed with PCP handled it differently
Some people were losing their minds. Others, like Bill Paxton, seemed to handle their drugs really well:
Within an hour, the “bad crew” group had grown bigger. As sober personnel attempted to keep the situation under control, the intoxicated bunch, which included Cameron and actor Bill Paxton, flooded into nearby Dartmouth General Hospital. Some were freaking out. Others were having a ball. “Bill Paxton was a real sweetie,” says Claude Roussel, a set decorator who was less stoned than some of his colleagues. “He was sitting next to me in the hallway of the hospital, and he was kind of enjoying the buzz. Meanwhile, grips were going down the hallway doing wheelies in wheelchairs.”
Marilyn McAvoy was a painter on the set in charge of painting props. Several years ago, she told Vice:
“By the time we got back from eating, after about 30 minutes, that’s when I started noticing something was wrong,” Marilyn McAvoy, a standby painter who finessed various props, told Vice in 2017. “Everyone seemed confused. Everyone was having trouble getting their work done. … En masse, we went through these hospital doors at 1 a.m. in the morning. They did not know what to do with us. It became pretty chaotic.”
Here is the late Bill Paxton retelling his experience that night during a Larry King interview several years ago:
Paxton said as the chaos erupted he wanted nothing to do with darkness overtaking some of the crew members. Bill said “Jim, I’m not gonna hang out here. This is bedlam. I’m gonna … wander back down to the set and just drink a case of beer,’ which is what I did. That seemed to help me.”
Cameron recalled that crew members were collapsing, crying, and moaning. Some were walking around in a conga line at hosptial. While this was going on, James Cameron and Bill Paxton were in a Winnebago drinking scotch and beer.
The trip on PCP, or angel dust, lasted all night. When the sun finally came up everyone was still alive and nobody had been poisoned by tainted seafood as initially had been suspected.
Nobody was ever identified for spiking the seafood chowder with PCP despite an exhaustive investigation. After the shock of the experience subsided, the art department actually made commemorative t-shirts for the occasion.
Many stories about this incident have been written throughout the years. Vulture is just the latest to piece together parts of this infamous Hollywood incident that continues to fascinate people years later. It would be fascinating to see James Cameron make it into a mini-documentary one day if he had the time.