Margaret Brown

## Titanic Information

### Likes:

Caviar, making people laugh, being treated as an equal, fairness, justice, equality

### Dislikes:

Rose being controlled, Jack being mistreated, rude and arrogance people, discrimination, cruelness, mistreatment, judgment, prejudice, unfairness, injustice, narcissism, sexism, racism

## Production Information

### Portrayal:

Kathy Bates

**Margaret Tobin Brown**was a wealthy American socialite, philanthropist and activist who became famous as one of the survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. A vivacious and energetic personality among the more reserved passengers of first-class, she didn't rest on ceremony and made everyone she encountered feel instantly at ease. She was a true friend to Rose and Jack, even at the expense of her social standing.

According to historical facts, Molly was born in Hannibal, Missouri on July 18, 1867. She was married with a son and a daughter. She and her family moved to Denver, Colorado in 1894. Between the 1880s and 1912, her husband had found some gold in the west and they became very wealthy. She boarded the Titanic from Cherbourg as a first-class passenger. She unsuccessfully encouraged the crew in Lifeboat No. 6 to return to the debris field of the sinking of Titanic to look for survivors. During her lifetime, her friends called her "Maggie", but even by her death, obituaries referred to her as the **"Unsinkable Molly Brown"**.

## **Personality and Traits**

Molly was sociable, friendly, and had a way of commanding attention from those around her. She used this trait to great effect when she rallied those in her lifeboat to go back and collect survivors from the sinking.

## **Life on Titanic**

Despite being wealthy, several women in first class despised her, especially Rose's snooty mother Ruth. Ruth saw Molly as she was "new-money", which meant that she had earned her wealth instead of inheriting it therefore was not of an upper-class breeding from birth, and tried to avoid her company. However, Molly did not let this bother her at all and even made a point of sticking to them like glue to annoy them with her difference in decorum.

She assisted Jack Dawson in winning over Rose by lending him her son's tuxedo. She was one of the few people from the upper class that refused to discriminate against the lower class. Rose DeWitt Bukater was one of the other few kind-hearted upper class passengers. At dinner, she regaled everyone with a funny tale involving her husband accidentally lighting a fire in the stove while both "drunk as a pig" and unaware that Molly had concealed money inside it. Only the stiff and uptight Ruth and Caledon Hockley refused to laugh at it. She also supported Jack when he made clear his view on life, calling it "well-said".

When the RMS Titanic sank, Molly escaped in Lifeboat No. 6 and was one of the 705 survivors of the Titanic's shipwreck. She clashes with Quartermaster Robert Hichens in the lifeboat; Molly believed that, because there was plenty of room in the boat, they should pick up survivors in the water, but Hichens believed they would swamp the boat. She almost wins in her argument, until Hichens threatens to toss her overboard, and she was left to do nothing but watch in horror as Titanic break in half and slid beneath the waves. In reality, just the opposite exchange occurred, and the boat did go back for survivors, of which none were found.

Molly, Ruth, Quartermaster Hichens, and all the occupants of Lifeboat 6 were picked up by the RMS Carpathia early on the morning of April 15, 1912. The film does not state what happened to Molly Brown after the events of the sinking, so her fate is left unknown; since she survived the sinking, Molly doesn't appear at the end with everyone else when Rose and Jack are reunited in the Grand Staircase, but Rose still fondly remembers her. However, in history, Brown died due to brain tumor in 1932. These historical facts were not stated in the film.