Chapter 8

"The history of Raise the Titanic is one of strange coincidences and unforeseen circumstances-something which all too often occurs in the making of films."                                                                                           -Lew Grade

THAT SINKING FEELING

     To trace the origins of one of the most publicized box office failures of all time it is necessary to journey back in time to the year 1912, and not just because it was the year that the Titanic met her untimely end.  In far less exalted circles, 1912 also marked the beginning of one of the great rags to riches stories of the British film industry.

     In the years leading up to the First World War, America was absorbing something in the region of one million immigrants each year-indeed it was primarily for this resaon that the huge ships of the Titanic's ilk had originally been coneived-but for some transients, even the western European countries could be looked upon as a land of opportunity.  It was into this brave new world of 1912 that five-year-old Louis Winogradsky and his family arrived from Tokmak in the Crimea.

     The Winogradskys settled in the heart of London's East End, but while the family went on to prosper in the clothing and garment industry of Brick Lane, Louis' future lay elsewhere.  As he grew up he began to acquire a fine reputation as a vaudeville dancer, so much so that by 1926 the first seeds of his glittering career in show business were well and truly sewn when he became World Champion Charleston Dancer, before weakening knees would ultimately force his retirement from the stage at the grand old age of twenty-eight.  However, instead of quietly vanishing into obscurity, Grade formed a partnership with his brother Leslie and the two men set up their own theatrical agency.

     Today, Louis Winogradsky is better known as Lord Lew Grade of Elstree, and his venture into the world of theatrical management would ultimately lead to the creation of one of the great companies of the British entertainment world.

     In 1954 Grade became partner in the newly formed Independent Television Company (ITC) that was specially formed to bid for one of the new independent television franchises that were then being awarded.  The bid ultimately failed and ITC went on to become an independent producer instead.  Within a year, however, the new company was offered the opportunity to become a partner with the Associated Broadcasting Company which had successfully acquired the franchise rights to broadcast from Monday to Friday in the midlands, and on Saturday and Sunday in the London area.  ITC took up a 50% interest in the group, and over the next twenty years the company was responsible for some of the most memorable series ever to grace British television screens, including Robin Hood, The Saint, Danger Man and The Prisoner, to name just a few.

     Following the death of Lord Renwick in 1973, Grade became the new chairman and chief executive of the company, by now known as Associated Television (ATV), and almost immediately, the film-making activities of the company were stepped up.  With such a strong background in television it is hard to know exactly why this should be, but Grade-perhaps with an eye on the film-making activities of his two brothers-seemed to have caught the film bug.  The structure of ATV meant that many of the company's films were pre-sold to television before a foot of film had even gone through the cameras, and it was from this apparently secure position that by 1077 had resulted in some twenty feature-length films.

Above:  Lord Grade of Elstree.  After a lifetime of success in television, Grade's brief sojourn in the world of movie-making would end in disaster .ITC

     But 1977 also marked an important turning point in the destiny of ATV.  For Grade, a man who had publicly claimed that he would be working until the year 2000, the IBA's regulation that he should stand down as chairman of the ATV network after reaching the age of seventy came as a heavy blow.  To Grade the idea of retirement was unthinkable, and having gone as far as the television world was prepared to allow him, he decided it was time to start taking some different risks in the film industry.  In his own words: The big time."

     With such a strong grounding in television it was perhaps inevitable that Grade would take with him something of a television outlook into the world of film production, and although ACC's output was prodigious (Associated Communication Corporation replaced ATV as the new parent name of the corporation in 1978), quantity rather than quality seemed to be the name of the game.  The company continued to deliver a series of pre-sold but largely unoriginal movies that, while avoiding making any losses, also failed to attract the hoped for critical or financial response.  There were the occasional successes of course, such as the 1977 television series Jesus of Nazareth, along with theatrical releases of Capricorn One in 1978 and The Muppet Movie a year later, but by and large the ACC output was  less than outstanding.

     It was within this creative environment that the filming of Raise the Titanic was ultimately conceived, though in actual fact, the film was by no means Grade's first shot at a maritime subject.  In 1977 Associated General  released Voyage of the Damned, directed by Stuart Rosenberg and based on a book by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts.  The plot of the film involved the story of the 1939 voyage of the HAPAG liner St. Louis, which carried hundreds of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to the Caribbean, only to be rejected by the governments of the supposedly more tolerant countries.  The cast list was impressive enough, including well known names such as Faye Dunaway, Max Von Sydow, Orson Welles, James Mason and Sam Wanamaker, but the subject matter of the film was such that it only served to revive painful memories of an episode in history that many would rather have chosen to forget.   The recent success of Schindler's List would seem to indicate that the trend is now changing, but in 1977 the Holocaust was still a subject that both film-makers and audiences had difficulty in coming to terms with, and despite its impressive cast list, Voyage of the Damned was not a great success.

Above: Lew Grade's Titanic rests on the artificial sea bed of the new deep-water tank.  At a depth of over thirty feet, the combination of salt water and the additional pressure of a +1 atmosphere caused considerable problems with the smaller models of the submersibles. ITC

     Perhaps it was the disappointing response to this film that originally discouraged Grade from developing his Titanic film earlier on.  He had already been offered the film rights once before by the agent of the book's author, Clive Cussler, but assuming that it was simply another version of the story of the ship itself he had rejected it, feeling that the subject had already been "done to death."  Sometime later, Richard Smith, a chairman of the General Cinema Corporation of America, handed Grade an innocuous plain brown box containing a manuscript and recommended that he read it.  When Grade finally opened the box two days later to see what it contained, his heart sank when he was stared in the face by the title: Raise the Titanic.  In his autobiography, Grade amusingly recalled his first reaction as simply: "Oh!  Not again!" but he decided to read it to give Smith his opinion.  He didn't put it down until he had finished it nearly four hours later, and the following morning he was straight on the phone to Cussler's agent in New York to obtain the film rights.

     In fact Grade wasn't the only one interested in the property.  It later transpired that the film rights had already been obtained by the American producer-director Stanley Kramer, and it was only after Grade had re-purchased the rights from Kramer-for a reported $400,000 and a proviso that Kramer would direct- that Raise the Titanic found its way into the ACC production schedule.  In the end Kramer would leave the production before the filming had begun and the task of directing Grade's latest maritime spectacular would fall to American director Jerry Jameson, who was already well versed in raising large objects from the ocean bed, having earlier directed Airport 77 for Universal, in which a downed Boeing 747 is raised from the sea bed.

     The first reference to Raise the Titanic in Grade's production schedule came at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, trumpeted as part of a $125 million ACC production package, but by the following year the publicity announcements were more muted, limited to a relatively brief reference to the fact that some $6 million had already been spent on the models.  Little more was heard in the short term, however, behind the scenes a major problem was already taking shape that would have devastating knock-on effect throughout the rest of the picture.

     In film-making terms the scope of the one-sixteenth scale Titanic model was as great as that of the ship itself, but in reality the film-makers really had little choice.  The technical constraints when photographing scaled down models-miniatures, as they are referred to in the trade-impose a great many limitation on the film-makers, but when filming in a marine environment there is one significant additional prohibition that cannot be avoided.  Because it is impossible to scale down the size of water drops, a scale of one-sixteenth has come to be accepted as the smallest practical scale to ensure a realistic look when filming in water.  With the original Titanic measuring up to marginally less than 883 feet, if the model work was to look convincing then Grade's Titanic would have to be the largest film "miniature" ever built.

     The model itself was breathtaking in every detail, but at fifty-five feet long and twelve feet from the keel to the top of the funnels, was to large for any existing studio tank.  Attempts to construct a suitable tank at the CBS studio came to naught when the excavations began to flood, and when it was realized just how deep the tank would have to be, Bernard Kingham, Grade's deputy in London, was instructed to find an alternative.  The problem was there weren't any.  The Mediterranean Film Studios at Fort St. Rocco in Malta already had the largest tank in the world, and with the added advantage of being situated on the coastline could incorporate the horizon for a totally convincing backdrop.  Even so, however ideal the location, their tank still wasn't deep enough.

     The only answer was to construct a new one, but far from welcoming the huge cash injection into the local economy that such a project would bring, the Maltese authorities hesitated.  The long term maintenance costs seemed to be the major stumbling block, but with a fortune already tied up in the production the film company could ill-afford to wait for long, and it was only when the Maltese Government realized that there was a serious danger of the film-makers going elsewhere that they relented.  Permission to proceed was finally granted, with the proviso that only local labor and expertise would be employed on the project.

     Construction on the new deep-water facility eventually began in November 1978-eighteen months after Grade had first announced that Raise the Titanic was in production pipeline-and while the technical specifications were impressive to say the least (see appendix II), unfortunately so was the final bill of $4.7 million, as an apparently endless list of problems seemed to arise from the construction.  The undependable Maltese power grid necessitated the purchase of four diesel pumps from Holland at a cost of £37,000 each, so that it would always be possible to fill the tank at any time, while another $200,000 accounted for a large metal gantry that could be suspended over the surface of the tank itself to block out the sunlight.  Also on the shopping list was an underwater turntable that would later prove less than useless.  It might have been even worse if Maltese Prime Minister Dom Mintoff's idea to landscape part of the area surrounding the tank with miniature fir trees had gone ahead.  The idea was discussed-and than discreetly dropped!

     The upshot of all this was that an estimated $11 million had been spent on Raise the Titanic before filming had even begun, and at one stage expenditure had reached such alarming proportions that Bernard Kingham reportedly advised Grade to cut his losses and stop throwing good money after bad.  Unfortunately the company was already in too deep to pull out.

     For all the difficulties that the model and deep-water tank had caused, the problems of casting were proving to be just as big a headache.  Star names including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Robert Redford had at various stages been plugged for the lead role of the story's hero, Dirk Pitt, but in the end none of this ambitious casting would ever materialize.  The situation was not helped any by the lack of a finalized script which was undergoing a process of seemingly endless rewrites, and the role ultimately went to actor Richard Jordan who had worked for Grade before in the 1978 film, Les Misérables.  David Selby took the supporting role of Dr. Gene Seagram, the scientific brains behind the Sicilian Project, while Anne Archer provided the obligatory romantic interest as Washington reporter Dana Archibald.

     In the art department Grade had secured the expertise of one of Hollywood's most successful production designers.  Art director John De Cuir was already no stranger to big budget productions, having worked on such epics as Cleopatra, Hello Dolly, and The Agony and the Ecstasy, and it would appear that the budget of Raise the Titanic would be different.  De Cuir later claimed that at one stage the film-makers even considered paying $2 million to the owners of the Queen Mary, but fortunately the deal never transpired.  Instead, the search for their Titanic ultimately ended in a ship's graveyard near Athens.

     The ideal vessel turned out to be the derelict 9,237 ton ex-Typaldos liner Athinai.  The ship, already laid up for some twelve years and owned by a bank, would clearly never sail again, but it was only after drawn out negotiations that the owners, for the sum of $30,000, finally agreed to lease the vessel to the film-makers over a three month period.  Little could be accomplished until the Greek customs officials had been aboard to impound the large stocks of alcohol and tobacco that still remained aboard after twelve years, but within days DeCuir's art department would set about converting the already dilapidated Athinai into an even more dilapidated Titanic.  For the Athinai, once started there was no going back, though in reality there was little the film-makers could do that time and the elements had not already accomplished.  The ship's engines were already virtually beyond repair, but far more worrying was the state of the hull itself which had developed a permanent four degree list to port.  The condition of the hull plating had so concerned the film's insurers that it was only following a divers' inspection that the work could be started in earnest.

     The task of recreating the decrepit look of a vessel that had been resting at the bottom of the Atlantic for seventy-five years largely consisted of gutting the dining room and spraying parts of the superstructure with layers of concrete.  The end result, save for two large ventilator cowls forward of the bridge, was almost perfect, but it was only achieved at a cost of some $250,000 more than had originally been budgeted.

     With the conversion finally completed, the Athinai was at last ready to be towed to the nearby port of Faliron where the scenes of the Titanic alongside a New York pier would be filmed.  As the day of the transfer duly dawned, ominous conditions threatened to cancel the operation before it had even begun.  Four tugs had been hired for the operation, and at a rate of $2,000 per hour for each boat the last thing that the film company needed was another delay.  With conditions still far from ideal, production manager Ray Frift finally instructed the convoy to put to sea.

Above:  The S.S. Athinai alongside Pier 12 at Faliron.  The ex-Typaldos liner was in fact the film-makers second choice, after having at one stage considered using the Queen's Mary for $2,000,000. (Ray Frift Collection)

     Perhaps the discovery on raising the anchors that one of them had already been surreptitiously removed by salvagers should have acted as an omen of what was to come, and as the Athinai slowly inched her way into the bay with two tugs pulling and two steering, the situation became even more precarious when the convoy ran straight into the path of an American aircraft carrier and most of the American Sixth Fleet en route to the Gulf following the outbreak of the Iran/Iraq War.  Somehow they made it without any mishap, but even the docking at Faliron proved to be little short of comical.  The harbor master at the port had originally been told to expect the Titanic to arrive alongside the quay during the day, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of the beaten up wreck that finally showed up.  Whether or not it was due to a breakdown in communications or a misunderstanding is unclear, but when he realized that the dilapidated Athinai's allotted berth at Pier 12 was right next to the terminals of the immaculate Mediterranean cruise liners that were still in service, he nearly had a fit.

Movie magic!  To convincingly convert the 9,000 ton Athinai to resemble as near as possible to the 46,000 ton White Star liner, a combination of artificial backing and model work, cleverly blended with the ship itself, resulted in an almost perfect Titanic. Above and Below:  ITC (Ken Marschall Collection)

In order to insure perfect alignment of the painted backing with the foreground objects, it was only possible to place the camera in one position, known technically as the nodal point. Above and Below:  ITC (Ray Frift Collection)

     With the Athinai safely delivered, the important deck scenes could finally be completed, but if anyone thought that filing in the supposedly safe confines of a berthed liner would be entirely straightforward, they were in for a rude awakening when at 2 am one morning a fire mysteriously broke out on board.  Luckily disaster was averted and the damage was not considered important.  However, sometime later, the elements combined on one particularly stormy night to sweep a number of the unit caravans alongside the ship into the harbor.

Above:  One of the more atmospheric sequences in the film involved Dirk Pitt's stroll through the ship's wrecked ballroom, though in reality there was no such room on the Titanic.  The broken chairs lying on the foreground were discovered on the Athinai when the film-makers went aboard, and quickly utilized by the film department. ITC (Ray Frift collection)

     While the cast and crew struggled with the real thing, back in Malta the model unit were finally making progress.  To save time the sinking of the Titanic had already been shot in the studio's original tank, and by September of 1979 the new deep-water facility in which the model would be raised was finally completed.  Before this crucial sequence could be photographed, however, John Richardson's special effects team had to set about reducing the model, on which so much care and attention had been lavished, into the battered and rust covered semblance of a hulk that had been resting on the seabed for three quarters of a century.

     Despite the outstanding attention to detail that had gone into the model's construction, the use of the Athinai necessitated a number of important modifications to the model if the fo'c'sles of the Titanic and the Athinai were going to be a perfect match.  As a result, two towering ventilator cowls were installed on either side of the foremast, while the railings at the prow were also sacrificed in favor of a solid bulkhead.

     However, the magical reappearance of the forward smoke-stack owed more to the forces of dramatic license than any film continuity.  The missing smoke-stack had even been referred to in the film itself as a possible hypothesis for the Titanic drifting so far from the position where she disappeared beneath the surface, but in order to improve the dramatic impact of the shot as the bow breaks the surface, the art department decided that the ship's profile would be considerably improved if the first smoke-stack was still in place.  As a result it would be the second smoke-stack that would be conspicuous by its absence, though if the sequence as envisaged by the film-makers had been filmed as Clive Cussler originally wrote it, then this modification might not have been necessary-in the book the Titanic comes up stern first.

     It was not only the external appearance of the model that needed attention.  Although the interior had already been strengthened to incorporate the tubes that would pump water out of the portholes both during and after the raising sequence, additional strengthening was vital if the replica was not to implode as it was catapulted to the surface.  By the time the model had been sufficiently strengthened and ballasted, the special effects technicians were faced with the prospect of having to raise a ten-ton, fifty-five foot long mass, as many times as model unit director Ricou Browning required.

Above:  After being reduced to a shadow of its former self, the fifty-five Titanic model rests on the surface of the deep-water tank.  The diver clinging to the stern gives a good idea of exactly how large the model really was. ITC (Ken Marschall collection)

     As a result, the technical specifications for the raising sequence were as formidable as those of the model itself, and to achieve the desired effect a specially constructed metal frame within the hull was mounted on a hydraulic crane which, in turn, pivoted on a base secured to the bottom of the tank.  Also concealed within the hull were eight open-vented ballast tanks which, when released, allowed the model to rise.  Finally, in order to ensure that the model always resurfaced in exactly the same position and at the correct speed and angle of ascent, the entire operation was controlled by two ten-ton strength cables secured to the underside of the hull and attached via an elaborate pulley system to winches at the sides of the tank.

     For a sequence lasting barely three minutes the level of expenditure had been staggering, and there can be no denying that the end result was as spectacular as Lord Grade could have hoped.  Even Marjorie Bilbow, who had been less than complimentary to brother Bernie's S.O.S. Titanic six months earlier, was moved to single out the sequence for particular praise:

"All the magic of the cinema is in this comparatively short sequence, from the first of the explosions which rock the giant vessel free from the murky silt of the sea bottom to the poignant moment when she rides the waves once more.  Here, the photography, special effects and music come together in a perfect harmony of memorable excellence . . . "

     But any encouragement that Lew Grade could have taken from these few lines was more than offset by the last ten words of her review that seemed to sum up a less than enthusiastic response to the other 109 minutes:

". . . that makes sitting through the rest of the film worthwhile."

     Unfortunately Marjorie Bilbow was not the film's only detractor.  In the Winter 1980 edition of Cinefantastique, Paul Sammon likened Raise the Titanic to the end of the line for the expensive special effects project, while The Listener's Gavin Millar was equally enthusiastic, describing the movie itself as ". . . an awful waste of money!"  But perhaps the most cutting comment came from the acerbic pen of Marjorie Bilbow herself:

". . . a waterlogged mass of unresolved sub-plots, insufficiently identified characters and a complexity of technical jargon."

     She wasn't the only critic to zero-in on this aspect of the film.  The final script, as adapted by Eric Hughes and written by Adam Kennedy, underwent so many rewrites that by the time it had metamorphosed into its final form, any similarity with the original book was practically invisible.  Even Bernard Kingham could not recall exactly how many drafts the script went through, though it was certainly in double figures, and as the constant re-drafting continued, so the similarity between the novel and the screenplay began to diverge.  In pursuit of the family audience at which the film was aimed, virtually all of the characteristics that had made the book so attractive in the first place were cut, with the result that by the time the final version had been condensed into a finished film of less than two hours there was really very little left.

     For Clive Cussler, the fall-out was to have a more far reaching consequence.  Like any writer selling the film rights to a novel, he was hamstrung by a specific clause in his contract that allowed a film producer to make any dramatic alternations that he saw fit.  It would seem however, that even he was ill-prepared for the final cut of the film, and he was reported to have been so upset with the end result that he has since joined the ever expanding list of disenchanted authors who have vowed never again to allow their books to be filmed.

     He had a point.  With a screenplay as flawed as this one the artists were on to a loser right from the word go, and the hackneyed story line of the heightened enmity between Pitt and Seagram, stemming from both men having been involved with the same woman, only serves to underline just how little the script had to offer.  Nevertheless, Grade still succeeded in attracting a couple of the all-important star names, including Jason Robards as Admiral James Sandecker, the leader of the Titanic salvage project, and Alec Guinness as John Bigalow, a former junior third officer on the Titanic.  Strangely enough, while the fictional character of Bigalow seems to have attracted more ridicule than any other from the Titanic buffs, the film critics didn't see it that way, and despite an all-too-brief cameo appearance, Guinness still succeeded in drawing by far the best reviews.  In all fairness to the other actors, however, accusations of wooden acting and lack of conviction are a little unfair in light of some of the appalling dialogue that they were given.

Above:  The moment of truth.  To reproduce the spectacle of the Titanic breaking the surface, the sequence was filmed on a special Photosonic high speed camera at 360 frames per second-fifteen times the normal camera speed. ITC

     Even some of the superb special effects came in for rough handling in some quarters, proving, if nothing else, that some people will never be satisfied with anything, but even allowing for the film's failings, could things have been different?  It is certainly true that a poor script has not always condemned a film to financial oblivion, but it would appear that by 1980 Lew Grade seemed to lack the benefit of timing and luck that he had previously enjoyed.  S.O.S. Titanic may indeed have induced the Titanic fatigue that he had so feared when he first approached his brother Bernie to have the EMI production halted, though Grade's version of the dispute in his autobiography differs somewhat from that of his brother, in that apparently Bernie did actually try to have the film stopped, only to find that production was too far advanced.  This didn't stop Grade from hinting that had his brother been more successful then things might have been different, though there is evidence to suggest that he may have been right on one important respect.  Raise the Titanic and S.O.S. Titanic were both sold for theatrical release in Japan to Toho-Towa, but because that company already had a large stake in the Japanese distribution rights for Raise the Titanic they held back from releasing the EMI film and, as it turned out, the takings for Raise the Titanic in Japan were particularly encouraging.

Above:  Dirk Pitt (Richard Jordan) raises the Titanic's White Star pennant on the stern.  In reality the pennant would have flown from the top of the mainmast.

     Of course it is hopelessly simplistic to read too much into one set of figures in particular, and the film's excellent performance in Japan might also be attributed to the fact that Japanese cinemas also happen to enjoy the reputation of being amongst the most expensive in the world.  Unfortunately, there can be little doubt that Raise the Titanic had already become a millstone around the corporate shoulders of ACC long before the film had even reached the distribution stage.  The apparently endless list of problems that seemed to drive from the size of the model alone meant that Grade could quite justifiable paraphrase Charles Lightoller's testimony to the 1912 British Inquiry into the loss of the Titanic, when he evaluated the combination of circumstances that lead up to the disaster: "Everything was against us."

     Had the film been a success, of course, the publicity department would doubtless have played up the costs for all they were worth-exactly as they had done during the production stage with numerous articles and interviews reporting the huge expenditure resulting from the use of submersible equipment from the U.S. Navy, General Electric and the $500,000 worth of computer equipment on loan from Hewlett Packard.  Even the film-makers seemed eager to endorse the stories themselves, as was clearly borne out by producer William Frye when interviewed in June 1980:

"I remember Lew Wasserman of Universal used to say, when asked if it was necessary, 'What the hell, spend the extra two bucks'."

     Unfortunately, this bravado would ultimately come to naught when the final sums were added up, as a combination of unrestrained expenditure and less than enthusiastic reviews condemned Raise the Titanic to a place in the corporate history of the cinema that few would envy.  But to ascribe the decline and ultimate fall of Grade's media empire simply to the poor performance of one film is a major miscalculation.  Coming on top of other AFD turkeys such as Can't Stop the Music, The Jazz Singer, Honky Tonk Freeway and The Legend of the Lone Ranger, the financial position of ACC was already decidedly uncertain.  Raise the Titanic was simply the last nail in the coffin of Lew Grade's excursion into the big time world of moviemaking.

     So who in the end did like the film?  Well, interestingly enough, two and half miles above the Earth's surface airlines reported that Raise the Titanic was actually one of the most popular films shown to the passengers that year, and when you consider that these days the world's airlines collectively spend upwards of $50-$60 million a year to show in-flight movies, it's a little known fact that a blockbuster film can sometimes take another million on the wing.  Raise the Titanic can by no stretch of the imagination be called a blockbuster, but the armies of marketing analysts paid to interpret the reasons for a film's success or failure have suggested that a major reason the film did so well in the skies after performing so poorly down below might lie in the fact that the average age of an airline passenger is some twenty years older than that of a cinema audience.

     Even so, some of the critics were still able to single out a number of the more satisfying points in the film.  As with many of the film's detractors, The Hollywood Reporter's Robert Osborne was quick to home in on the failings of the script, but he could find it within himself to acknowledge that the film still had much to offer movie goers who were tired of unnecessary sex, violence and bad language, rating it as ". . . decidedly a gentleman's cup of tea." Perhaps this last point conclusively proves that for all its failings in the cinema, Raise the Titanic was ideal for the small screen where Grade had originally made his reputation.  Television companies have to exercise far greater care in selecting what to broadcast and when, so the ITV networks must have known what they were doing when, in June 1982, it was reported that they had paid in the region of £500,000 for the British television rights to the film.

     Unfortunately, by then it was too late.  In March 1981 ACC reported the worst losses in the company's history, with the American film-making division of the conglomerate alone being responsible for a $26.4 million deficit.  For Grade thee writing was clearly on the wall and in January 1982, following months of board room machinations, he gave a written undertaking-on the back of a Concorde napkin-to sell his voting shares in ACC to Australian magnate Robert Holmes à Court, who had only joined the board the previous month after acquiring 51% of the non-voting shares of the company.

     Holmes à Court's control of ACC was not consolidated until the end of March 1982 after he had beaten off a rival bid for the company by Gerald Ronson's Heron Group, yet despite his reassurances to Grade the relationship between the two men began to deteriorate.  Less than six months after stepping down as chairman and chief executive of ACC, Grade came to the conclusion that his future lay elsewhere.  On 17th June 1982 he left the company he had helped to create nearly thirty years earlier, and within days announced that he was joining Embassy Communications as chairman and chief executive of a newly formed European subsidiary.

     Perhaps thing s could have been different.  Even allowing for its shortcomings Raise the Titanic might still have gone on to become the blockbuster for which Grade so desperately yearned had Jack Grimm's 1980 scientific expedition to locate the wreck of the Titanic succeeded.  In the end Grimm's expedition failed, as did two further expeditions in 1981 and 1983, but when you consider the huge publicity surge that overtook Robert Ballard's successful 1985 expedition, there can be little doubt that had it come fives years earlier, Raise the Titanic could well have gone on to become one of the films of the decade.

     Of course the words "what if" are by no means new to any students of the Titanic disaster.  Just as we can sit back and consider the many permutations that might have resulted in a far less shocking outcome to the ill-fated maiden voyage itself, so Lord Grade may also reflect on what might have been had his model been smaller, or had Jack Grimm succeeded.  He could also speculate that had he been able to hold on that little bit longer then his quest for critical acclaim might have borne fruit, for within a year of his departure from ACC, Sophie's Choice and On Golden Pond, both projects that Grade had set in motion, finally attained the all important Oscars for which he had labored.  Instead all we are left with is the now legendary retort: "Raise the Titanic?  My God, it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic."

     After years of unbroken success in television, Lew Grade was finally "done in" by his ambition to conquer the film world, and indeed since is departure from ACC he has returned to the audiovisual medium in which he made his reputation.  Today he manages the Mayfari based Grade Company and to-date had produced four television films based on Barbara Cartland novels, with other projects currently in development.

     Perhaps it's ironic that it would also be the small screen that finally gave Raise the Titanic to the potential mass family audience for which it had been intended.  Unfortunately for Lew Grade, however, that was where most people wanted to see it.

Above:  After sinking so disastrously in 1980, Lou Grade's Titanic resurfaced eleven years later to make a guest appearance as the Britannic Gluhender Himmel, a six hour European mini series directed by Jeannot Szware.