25 years later, the TITANIC crew remember the night everyone’s dinner was spiked with PCP

When movie fans think of the Oscar-winning and record-breaking epic Titanic, they might be thinking of Jack and Rose, dancing, beautiful cinematography, heartbreaking true story ending, music, top-notch acting, or a set of memorable scenes or lines for the movie. But if you ask the cast and crew about their most memorable moment from filming the movie, most of them would likely mention the night of filming when their dinner was spiked with PCP.

The drug PCP is a mind-altering hallucinogen that can cause distorted perceptions of sounds, hallucinations, and violent behavior, so getting a huge group of people to take it obviously creates a huge mess.

In a recent report by Vulture, which talks about the incident 25 years later, the scene is set:

When the clock struck midnight on August 9, 1996, the Titanic set was exploding into chaos. Filming had already been halted for what, in the context of filming so late, was considered lunch – in this case, fish soup so delicious that some people ate three or four bowls of it. They didn’t know it was a mistake. Sensing the 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 anyone’s work and everything to do with who was suddenly addicted to PCP.

Crew member Jake Clarke explained:

“We had a room for plugs and electricians, and one of the guys started talking really hyper. He’s a big guy, like six feet, and he’s like, ‘Are you guys okay? Why not me. I feel like I’m onto something, and trust me, I would know.’ He was just chatting like that. And just as he was saying this, we saw James Cameron running towards the door and this extra running after him. He said, ‘There’s something about me! Get him out!'”

Early on, Cameron suspected what’s known as “red tide,” a naturally occurring toxin that can make shellfish unsafe to eat. Actually, someone corrected that soup. Twenty-five years later, no one knows who or why. A police investigation also failed to find the culprit. So the tradition lives on and everyone has theories of him. The story continues:

Within an hour, the group of “bad crew” had grown larger. As sober staff attempted to bring the situation under control, the drunken posse, which included Cameron and actor Bill Paxton, flocked to nearby Dartmouth General Hospital. Some were going crazy. Others were enjoying themselves. “Bill Paxton was a real sweetheart,” says Claude Roussel, a set decorator who was less stoned than some of his colleagues. “He was sitting next to me in the hospital corridor and he was enjoying the buzz. Meanwhile, the jacks were making their way down the aisle doing wheelchair wheelies. Nurses handed out liquid charcoal, hoping to protect themselves from what they initially thought was food poisoning. One person who had consumed four bowls was there until 10:00 the next morning, according to Clarke, whose shellfish allergy kept him away from the soup.

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were lucky to be nowhere near the Halifax operation, home to TitanicPaxton’s contemporary framing device involving Paxton’s treasure-hunting researcher and elderly Rose DeWitt Bukater (86-year-old Gloria Stewart, who ate half a bowl of chowder that night or was out for dinner at a restaurant, depending on which source you ask).

Cameron once said The New Yorker there was a sense of “catastrophe around the whole production”. By the time postproduction wrapped, the project was $100 million over budget and several months behind schedule. Cameron obsessed over period details, pouring money into real caviar and authentic Edwardian rugs. The on-set meals were as “over the top” as everything else, Clarke recalls.

The PCP incident became part of the behind-the-scenes lore almost as soon as it happened, creating another headache for the seeds of Paramount and Fox, who were co-financing the film. On August 27, the Nova Scotia Department of Health sent producer Jon Landau a letter stating that his inspection had confirmed that the lobster bisque contained PCP, a hallucinogen also known as angel dust. “I have entrusted this investigation to the Halifax Regional Police Service, who I’m sure will get back to you,” wrote health official Meredith Blake. The following day, police released a statement announcing the criminal investigation. Two weeks later, the ordeal was a headline story EW.

“When we got back from eating, after about 30 minutes, that’s when I started to notice something was wrong,” Marilyn McAvoy, a stock painter who finished various props, told Vice in 2017. “Everyone looked confused. Everyone was having trouble getting their work done. … En masse, we walked through these hospital doors at 1am. They didn’t know what to do with us. It got pretty chaotic.

Somewhere between 50 and 80 people spent part or all of that night in Dartmouth. Eventually they were placed in individual “cubicles,” according to McAvoy’s description, but there was no stopping the agony or the ecstasy that had broken out. “People are moaning and crying, wailing, collapsing on tables and gurneys,” Cameron said Vanity Fair in 2009. “The DP, Caleb Deschanel, is leading a number of crew down the aisle in a very vocal conga line. You can’t invent these things.

In the midst of the mess, Paxton got out of there. “I said, ‘Jim, I’m not going to hang out here. This is a bedlam,’” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “’I’m going to…go back to set and just have a case of beer,’ which is what I did. This seemed to help me.

Back on set, the uninjured were essentially quarantined. Clarke remembers going out in a Winnebago. Around 4 in the morning, Cameron and Paxton entered. “Their eyes were incredibly beet red,” Clarke says. “Jim had a bottle of scotch and Bill Paxton had a bag of joints because he was a real stoner. I laugh because I haven’t eaten the soup, and then I’m there in the trailer smoking a joint. Cameron was thrilled because he was given an extra day of production to finish the scene that couldn’t be completed due to all the stumbling blocks.

As the sun rose, those who had gone to the hospital dropped off their high. None had died or been poisoned. Most returned to their sleeping quarters so they could return for additional night shooting. One jack grabbed her guitar and wrote a song about the whole thing. “It was just a weird experience,” Roussel says.

Canadian survey increased as Titanic spent months shooting Kate and Leo’s ambitious flashback sequences in Rosarito, Mexico. News of the PCP debacle traveled south quickly, actor Billy Zane remember. (“Those guys had a blast,” she jokes.) Most of the Nova Scotia crew didn’t go to Rosarito, but at least one craft service operator did. He was said to have been “taken away at gunpoint by Mexican police because someone else on the crew said, ‘Oh, I think it was him,’ touching the wrong person,” says Clarke. At least, “That’s word I got.”

With dubious allegations, the investigation continued for two and a half years, with no results. The case was officially closed in February 1999, meaning the offenders remain at large.