Meet Isidor and Ida Straus, the real couple behind one of the most iconic scenes in 'Titanic'
Gabbi Shaw
- Anyone who's seen "Titanic" remembers the old couple prepared to go down with the ship together.
- They're based on Isidor and Ida Straus, a real couple who died in the 1912 sinking.
Remember this scene in James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster "Titanic"? Chances are, it made an impression.
This small moment, where an older couple holds each other in bed while their room begins to flood after the Titanic hits an iceberg, takes place during the larger montage set to "Nearer My God to Thee."
In a deleted scene, the woman tells her husband that she won't get on a lifeboat without him.
In the scene, which you can see here, the woman, played by Elsa Raven, tells her husband, played by Lew Palter, "Where you go, I go, Isidor."
It confirms that the two are based on the real couple Isidor and Ida Straus. Although they're not named in the film, they are listed as the Strauses in the credits.
They are based on a real couple, Isidor and Ida Straus, who died together on the Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912.
Isidor Straus was born in Germany in 1845 and immigrated to the US in 1854. Ida, who was born Rosalie Ida Blun, was also born in Germany, in 1849. She moved to the US with her family, as well.
At the time of the sinking, Isidor was 67 and Ida was 63.
They were traveling home to New York aboard the Titanic after a winter in Europe.
According to the National Archives, the Strauses were visiting their native Germany and were heading back to the US with Ida's maid, Ellen Bird, and Isidor's manservant, John Farthing.
The Straus family was considerably wealthy. In 1896, Isidor and his brother Nathan gained full ownership of R. H. Macy & Co., or Macy's.
Nathan and Isidor had begun leasing space from the Macy's family in 1888 before purchasing control of the company in 1896, according to The New York Times.
His brother Nathan (pictured) lived to be 82, dying in 1931. He was a widely known philanthropist.
Before that, Isidor had been a congressman representing New York's 15th congressional district from 1894 to 1895.
Isidor served a short stint in the US House of Representatives. He was elected to fill the spot vacated by someone else's resignation, and he did not choose to run again.
After that, he concentrated mostly on philanthropy.
He was also offered the position of postmaster general by President Grover Cleveland, but he declined.
Instead, he became president of the Educational Alliance and was also a member of the New York and New Jersey Bridge Commission.
Isidor married Ida in 1871. They had seven children, one of whom died in infancy.
Their eldest son, Jesse (pictured), was born in 1872. He became co-owner of Macy's upon his father's death, but he soon resigned to become the US ambassador to France. He held the position from 1933 to 1936. He died later that year at the age of 64.
Friends of the Strauses said they were closer than the usual couple, exchanging letters daily when they were apart.
"They were often spotted holding hands, kissing, and hugging, which was unheard of for persons of their status and wealth in their day," their great-grandson Paul Kurzman told CountryLiving.com in 2017.
On the night of the sinking, the Strauses were last seen on deck together.
On April 14, 1912, four days into Titanic's voyage to New York City, it struck an iceberg south of Newfoundland, Canada. The ship sank in the early hours of April 15, and of the 2,200 passengers, only 700 survived.
Ida Straus' maid, Ellen Bird, was among the survivors and gave a detailed account of their last moments.
Ida refused to board a lifeboat without Isidor, reportedly saying, "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die, together."
When Ida and Isidor made it to the deck, it became clear that only women and children (with few exceptions) were being put on the lifeboats.
"My great-grandmother Ida stepped into the lifeboat expecting that her husband would follow. When he didn't follow, she was very concerned and the ship's officer in charge of lowering that particular lifeboat said, 'Well, Mr. Straus, you're an elderly man and we all know who you are. Of course you can enter the lifeboat with your wife,'" Kurzman told "Today" in 2017.
"And, my great-grandfather said, 'No. Until I see that every woman and child on board this ship is in a lifeboat, I will not enter into a lifeboat myself.'"
In turn, Ida refused to get on the lifeboat without her husband.
The couple was last seen standing arm in arm on the deck, in what eyewitnesses called "a most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion."
Before they were swept away by the ocean, Ida gave her maid, Bird, her floor-length mink coat.
"'I won't have any further need,' she said. 'Please take this as you get into a lifeboat to keep you warm, until you are rescued,'" she told Bird, Kurzman told CountryLiving.com. Later in life, Bird tried to return the coat to the Straus family, but they refused.
"Isidor wrapped his arms around her. Then, a great wave came over the port side of the ship and swept them both into the sea. That was the last time they were seen alive," said Kurzman.
Isidor's body was recovered, although Ida's was not. At the Straus Mausoleum in New York's Woodlawn Cemetery, a cenotaph reads, "Many waters cannot quench love — neither can the floods drown it."
Isidor's was among the bodies found by a search team from Halifax, Canada, in the weeks after the tragedy. Recovered with his body was a locket inscribed with their initials and photos of two of their children.
"Inside that locket were two photographs. They had to be touched up a little bit because of the salt water, but they weren't damaged much because the seal was so tight," said Kurzman. "One of the photographs was of their eldest son, Jesse, and the other was of their eldest daughter, and that, of course, was Sara, my grandmother."
As Ida's body was never recovered, their family got water from the North Atlantic and put it inside an urn alongside her husband.
Their last moments inspired many filmmakers over the years. The Strauses were depicted in the 1953 film "Titanic," the 1958 film "A Night to Remember," the musical "Titanic," and the 1997 film "Titanic."
Their love story also inspired the book "A Titanic Love Story: Ida and Isidor Straus," published in 2012 by June Hall McCash.
They also became popular figures among Jewish Americans, with a song "The Titanic's Disaster" describing their story.
It became a popular Yiddish folk song. The lyrics read, "Man, you are no match for the cold ocean's power. It is a wet and deep grave. Shed tears for all the lives lost. And for her noble courage, all should honor and remember the name of Ida Straus."
Their legacy lives on to this day. Their great-great-granddaughter is Mikaela Mullaney Straus, better known as the musician King Princess.
"They were like, 'We're going to die together now,'" she told Rolling Stone in 2019. "That's a crazy thing to say; a crunch time decision, and very my vibe. They were very rich and Jewish, [but] I didn't inherit any of this money. It was a little frustrating, but whatever."
There are also multiple memorials to the couple across New York City, including this monument inside Straus Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Straus Park, which is named for the couple, contains a fountain with a tribute to them. The inscription reads, "Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives and in their death they were not parted."
A plaque at Macy's flagship store also pays tribute to the couple. At the time of their deaths, Macy's employees got together and raised some money for the plaque, which reads, "Their lives were beautiful and their deaths glorious."
Additionally, New York Public School 198 is called the Isidor & Ida Straus School.
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