What The Cast Of Titanic Is Doing Today

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

James Cameron's megahit "Titanic" sailed into our hearts 25 years ago, in December 1997. A triumph of special effects, the film blended history with a deeply moving love story. At a budget of $200 million, "Titanic" was the most expensive motion picture in history, until Cameron topped himself with 2010's "Avatar," per USA Today. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, both in their early 20s but convincing as teens, led a cast that included Victor Garber, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton, and Billy Zane, as well as veteran actor Gloria Stuart, who gained a new generation of fans as the older, present-day Winslet character.

"Titanic" was both a box office and critical success, earning $2.2 billion worldwide (quite an achievement for a 194-minute movie) as well as 14 Oscar nominations (tying with 1950's "All About Eve"). The film won 11 Academy Awards, including best picture (tying with 1959's "Ben-Hur"). The film also won an Oscar for its chart-topping theme song "My Heart Will Go On," which remains one of Celine Dion's signature songs. Roger Ebert proclaimed the film to be "flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding," while The New York Times declared it "a spectacle as sweeping as the sea."

After 25 years, "Titanic" is a much loved modern-day classic. We take a look at they key players in the picture, the characters they portrayed, and where they are today.

For over 40 years, Eric Braeden has been revered by fans of daytime television as self-made businessman Victor Newman on "The Young and the Restless," winning a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998. Braeden's authoritative demeanor was perfectly suited to playing American business magnate John Jacob Astor IV in "Titanic." When Rose introduces Jack Dawson to Astor at dinner, Astor asks, "Are you of the Boston Dawsons?" to which Jack replies, "No, the Chippewa Falls Dawsons, actually." 

Braeden initially didn't want to do the picture. "My wife and my son talked me into it," he told the Television Academy. "They said you've got to work for James Cameron. ... Long story short, James Cameron couldn't have been more charming. ... I have great respect for Cameron. He's a brilliant director, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met."

Now 81, the German-born Braeden (his birth name is Hans Gudegast) continues to act on "The Young and the Restless." In the 1970s, he guest-starred on some of the decade's most popular television series, including "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Barnaby Jones," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and "Kojak." He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007. In 2017 he published a memoir, "I'll Be Damned: How My Young and Restless Life Led Me to America's #1 Daytime Drama," in which he discussed how his wife convinced him to stay with "Y&R," as well as his German background and how Hollywood made him change his name (via "CBS This Morning").

A forgotten starlet of the 1930s, Gloria Stuart had a career resurgence as Old Rose, who recounts her romance with impoverished artist Jack aboard the doomed luxury liner. Stuart received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her performance (at age 87 she was the oldest person nominated for an acting Oscar, per The New York Times). She won the Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role in a tie with Kim Basinger for "L.A. Confidential." Stuart thought she was right for the role as soon as she read the script. "This is the frosting on the cake for me. It's the best part I've ever had, the biggest film and best film I've ever been in, the most wonderful people to work with," Stuart told interviewer Bobbie Wygant.

Stuart made her screen debut in 1932 and appeared in the horror movies "The Invisible Man" and "The Old Dark House," both directed by James Whale, and the Shirley Temple musicals "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." She retired from acting in 1946 to pursue painting and then returned to it in the 1970s and '80s with made-for-TV movies and small parts in feature films. Before "Titanic," her last film was in 1989, but she kept busy as a printer and book artist, eventually writing a memoir. Stuart died of respiratory failure in Los Angeles on September 26, 2010 at the age of 100, per The Guardian.

Perhaps best known as Strawberry Alice in Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven," Frances Fisher is Rose's high society widowed mother Ruth DeWitt Bukater. Fisher was a fan of the 1958 Titanic drama "A Night to Remember," so she was excited at the opportunity to appear in Cameron's film. "I probably had a little bit of understanding about 'Titanic,'" she told the A.V. Club. "But then, of course, I got all the research books when I got the role so I could understand a little bit about what was happening politically and socially in that era." Fisher felt that the period costuming and hairstyling helped her ease into the role, though it wasn't difficult for her to access Ruth at all. "I just knew this character in my bones. ... It was a transformation that came from the outside in," the actor explained.

Fisher's first credited role was on the long-running daytime drama "The Edge of Night" as Detective Deborah Saxon from 1976 to 1981. The actor was in two of Eastwood's productions; she and Eastwood were in a relationship for six years and had a daughter, Francesca, born in 1993 (per the Los Angeles Times). Fisher is among the cast members of "Rust," the Alec Baldwin Western that halted production after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was accidentally fatally shot by Baldwin on October 21, 2021. After the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit was reached between Baldwin and Hutchins' widower, production is set to resume, per the New York Post.

Familiar to television audiences for his role as Jack Bristow on "Alias," Victor Garber is an accomplished stage actor who was nominated for four Tony Awards. Garber portrays Thomas Andrews, the humble and pragmatic builder of the RMS Titanic. Garber's key moment in the picture is when he informs the captain (Bernard Hill) that the sinking of the Titanic is inevitable. Garber credits director James Cameron for getting the best of out of him for that pivotal exchange. "He just guided me through every moment so beautifully and I felt really comfortable and was happy with that scene," Garber told AOL's BUILD Series.

The Canadian-born Garber played Jesus in the 1972 Toronto production of the musical "Godspell," which featured an ensemble of soon-to-be legendary performers, including Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, and Martin Short. On Broadway, Garber appeared in "Death Trap," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "Noises Off," which earned him a Drama Desk Award along with the cast, 1994's "Damn Yankees," and "Hello, Dolly!" in 2018. He's stayed busy with TV dramas in 2022, simultaneously starring in "Family Law" and recurring on "The Orville."

Garber is close friends with his "Alias" co-star Jennifer Garner. He and his husband, Rainer Andreesen, were the only guests at Garner's 2005 wedding to Ben Affleck on the Turks and Caicos, which Garber officiated. "It was an incredible honor and one of the most special events of my life," Garber said of the ceremony when speaking with Entertainment Weekly. "I will never forget it. It's embedded in my heart."