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I put the diamond in the coat..... and I PUT THE COAT ON HER!! |
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—Caledon Hockley to Spicer Lovejoy | ||
Caledon "Cal" Hockley is the main antagonist of the 1997 film Titanic. He is the son of a millionaire steel tycoon who boards the Titanic with his fiancée, Rose DeWitt Bukater, to go to New York and claim his fortune from his father.
He was portrayed by Billy Zane.
His name is first mentioned in 1997 by Brock Lovett, who sends one of his submarines into Titanic and is looking for the 'Heart of the Ocean'. He searches in the Parlour Suites, and then remarks: "That's Hockley's bed. That's where the son of a bitch slept."
Biography[]
Boarding Titanic[]
The son of Pittsburgh steel tycoon, Nathan Hockley, in 1912, Caledon Hockley is on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic from Southampton to New York City in order to marry his 17-year-old fiancée, Rose DeWitt Bukater. Rose does not want the marriage and despises Hockley, but the man either is oblivious to this or chooses to ignore it. Rose is unable to act because she is trapped between Cal, who wants to marry her so he can claim his fortune and her mother, so that she can pay off the debts left with the family by her late husband. In order to seal his relationship with Rose, he purchases a rare diamond once owned by King Louis XVI called the "Heart of the Ocean" and presents it to her. Caledon is not aware that Rose is driven to consider suicide during the voyage and that she is saved only by the intervention of a young Third Class passenger, Jack Dawson, with whom she falls in love. Hockley, initially unaware of this, invites Jack to dine with him as thanks for saving Rose's life (as far as he is concerned, she had accidentally fallen off the rail and was rescued by Jack). Hockley's bodyguard, a former Pinkerton's detective named Spicer Lovejoy, is the only one who doubts Rose and Jack's story because of some rudimentary deduction (he questions how Jack was able to remove his shoes so quickly).
Cal begins to reveal his true nature after Rose attends an Irish dance party in Third Class, violently reminding Rose that she is his fiancée, that she is his wife in practice, and she will honor him. Perhaps he begins to suspect Rose might have feelings towards Jack when he has Lovejoy remind Jack that he holds a Third Class ticket and has overstayed his welcome in First Class. But then again, Jack really didn't belong there and it was a one-off occasion.
The sinking[]
Eventually, Caledon begins to suspect that Rose's affections lay with Jack and becomes possessive of her, even as the Titanic is starting to sink after having struck an iceberg, contrived with Lovejoy to have Jack arrested and locked deep below decks. Jack is left to drown as the ship's bow starts to flood, and is later rescued by Rose.
Throughout the sinking Cal is shown to be determined, almost hell bent, to survive. He looks down the sides of the ship after hearing screams, witnessing the scene of lifeboat 15 almost landing on top of number 13. His assistant Lovejoy brings Caledon to an idea, he figures that Murdoch is a practical man so he advices Cal to stay with him. He is now going so far as to bribe First Officer Murdoch in hopes of getting a place in Collapsible C. However, just as he’s about to get in Lovejoy tells him of Rose, who is waiting to get into Collapsible D. Cal, out of sheer obsession, gives up his place in the boat to go find her even though Murdoch takes a look at him.
When he gets there, Caledon stands next to Jack and strenghtens Jack's words: Rose should get into the boat. Caledon thinks of a clever lie, and straight up fabricates a half-truth that he arranged for in order to get Rose to leave the sinking ship, but her emotions, looking at Jack, yet ignoring Cal, become too much and she jumps back on board, much to the displeasure of both Jack and Cal. Jack runs away and takes the stairs. Cal is then rushing to the Boat Deck Foyer of the Grand Staircase and sees how Rose kissing Jack. That's when he realizes that Rose doesn't love him and is fed up. Even though Lovejoy tries to de-escalate the situation by trying to move Cal, Cal snatches the gun out of Lovejoy's pocket and runs to the staircase, takes a shot at the pair, the bullet cutting a carved cherub in two pieces as Jack just dodges when he sees Cal taking an aim, He is so blinded by rage he ignores the peril he is putting himself in, however his ineptitude with a gun leads him into chasing them into the flooded First Class Reception until he runs out of bullets. Knowing he’s lost, he sarcastically shouts at them: “I hope you enjoy your time together!" when realising he's standing rapidly rising water, which has come up the D-Deck staircase. He's realising something, and then laughs. Lovejoy has come down the stairs as well and wonders what could be so funny. Cal tells him the diamond is in the coat he gave to Rose, before scrambling up the grand staircase in hopes of getting onto one of the last 2 boats.
Once he gets to the Boat Deck he is pushed around by a mass of people heading towards Collapsible A. He pushes his way through the crowd to Murdoch who, by this time, has a change of heart and rejects Cals bribe by throwing the money back at him. After Murdoch's suicide Cal recognizes that his money won’t save him. He finds a little girl crying on the Boat Deck, and uses her to persuade officer Wilde to let him board the collapsible lifeboat. By this time the Boat Deck is starting to flood and the boat is still attached to the falls, Cal gives the little girl to Rhoda Abbott. When it becomes clear they can’t launch it Some stewards, seamen, and Fabrizio attempt to quickly cut the falls and the boat floats off. Once the falls are cut the boat flips, spilling the occupants over the deck, however Cal scrambles onto the side of the boat and clutches a funnel stay. Once the boat rights itself, many people try to crawl on. Cal pushes them away and he and a few others gradually row away from the ship, all the while pushing people away with oars and hands. Cal is the most brutal shoving anyone even close to the boat away in a desperate bid to survive. When Titanic's first funnel collapses, he is visibly agape to see it kill Fabrizio and other swimmers. Cal’s lifeboat is washed clear of the ship. He spends the rest of the night pushing stragglers away from the boat until the people in the water die.
Cal is rescued by Lowe's lifeboat and arrives on the Carpathia, where the little girl that Cal saved remain on Rhoda's protection. It is interesting that he didn't see Rose, who is also on that boat after she was saved from the water.
Later life[]
Although Cal tries to find Rose on the Carpathia, he is unsuccessful (although thinks he finds her, but he didn't) and believes that she has died in the sinking, when in reality, Rose gave her name as Rose Dawson when boarding the Carpathia, hiding herself from him and her mother. Later, Hockley married someone else and inherits his family's millions, but he never gets over Rose's supposed death. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 brought him further to despair, eventually committing suicide by shooting himself in the mouth, or so Rose read, while his widow, children, and other money-grubbing members of his family fought like hyenas over the remnants of his evaporated fortune.
Personality[]
Caledon at first appears to be gentle and sweet around his fiancée, Rose, but later in the film he gets physically and emotionally abusive with her when he finds out about her being in the Third Class party and that she was in love with Jack. When Rose left the lifeboat and returned to the ship to hug and kiss Jack. Cal watches and realized at that moment that Rose did not love him, which enrages him and he decides to take revenge by trying to shoot her and her new lover.
He has demonstrated to be very snobbish, as he views Jack as inferior to him on the sole basis of economic status, but he appears to lose this for a few moments when he invites him to dinner as a thanks for saving Rose. As the general part of the movie takes place in 1912, Cal views Rose as nothing but his his property, and only wants to marry her solely because her mother wants to get out of debt. He is also very cruel, as during the laoding of lifeboat 6, he is joking to Rose that Jack's painting will become worth a lot more, meaning Jack will die because usually the art of an artist increases in value after his death. Other examples are the way he talks about the English, as well as calling a steward a moron for being hesitant.
He is also easily insulted and doesn't like when people disrespect him if they're beneath him in his view. When things don't go his way, he can lose his temper and become very agressive.
Deleted scenes[]
- At some point during the sinking, he and Lovejoy walk on A-Deck to see Chief Baker Charles Joughin throw deck chairs into the water for possible swimmers.
- Right after around 1:35 A.M., when Lowe fires shots to warn men who want to jump into lifeboat 14 from A-Deck, Lovejoy and Cal see to their surprisde dogs running around on the Boat Deck, someone must have released them from the Dog Kennels. A passenger throws a package at a confused Cal, climbes over something, Cal catches it and the passenger immediately snatches it back.
3. Caledon, after giving up the chase, attempting to shoot Jack and Rose multiple times, reveals to Lovejoy that the diamond is in the coat. In a long deleted scene, where Lovejoy becomes the main antagonist to chase down the pair through the rapidly flooding Dining Saloon, Caledon says: "I give it to you, I give it to you. If you can get it!" Then he laughs and runs of, Lovejoy mumbling that he's bastard for giving him this temptation, which Cal cannot hear.
4. On Carpathia, Cal seeks out Rose. A small part is cut out where he runs at a woman with long red hair, calling Rose's name in a relieved, joyous manner, but she is another woman, and she looks at him with an aghast look. He looks, not knowing what to do, and moves on. When Old Rose then tells the story about his fate, a part of it was cut. Right after revealing he had commit suicide after the 1929 stock market crash, she added the following: "His children fought over the scraps of his estate like hyena's, or so I read". The last sentence didn't make it into the offical movie.
This line was also in the original script.
Different script[]
Caledon is made a lot more evil in the original script, where he wounds Fabrizio who tries to climb on Collapsible A moments after Titanic sank, and he gets hit on the head by the oar Cal is holding, Fabrizio exclaims in pain that he needs to go to America, but Caledon points "It's that way", and this is how Fabrizio dies instead of being crushed by a funnel.
He's also bumped into by three steerage men in the crowds, calling them 'gutter scum.'
In the later stages of the sinking, around 1:30 A.M, Caledon, joined by Lovejoy, is also meeting up with Benjamin Guggenheim and valet Victor Giglio on A-Deck, when he says that famous line: "We are dressed in our best and are prepared to go down as a gentleman." He responds: "That's admirable, Ben. I'll be sure and tell your wife you were honorable till the end, when I get to New York."
In the original script, Caledon finds Rose between the steerage passengers on Carpathia's aft deck. When telling her that mother and he were looking for her, she eyes at him with cold glare and interrupts. She says: "Please don't. Don't talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, since that is what you understand. From this moment you do not exist for me, nor I for you. You shall not see me again. And you will not attempt to find me. In return I will keep my silence. Your actions last night need never come to light and you will get to keep the honor that you have carefully purchased."
With a little attitude she adds his own words: "Is this in any way unclear?" (What he said when he interrogated her about her adventures belowdecks). Caledon knows she means it. He is silent for a while. But he doesn't know what to tell her mother. Rose responds he can just straight up lie that she died on Titanic. Stricken with emotion he still tries to convince her that she's precious to him. But Rose leaves it with the last remark, that jewels are precious.
Trivia[]
- Billy Zane, the actor of Cal also plays one of Biff's goons, Match, in Back to the Future Part I (1985) and Part II (1989).
Quotes[]
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Cal [to Rose]: I had hoped you would come to me last night. |
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[Cal looks at Rose for a while and slaps her across the face] |
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Ruth: Rose, come back here! Right now! |
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[Jack and rose have escaped Cal's gunshots and are now running through the dining saloon] |
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"A real man makes his own luck, Archie. Right, Dawson?" ---- Jack, Colonel Archiebald Gracie and Cal having a friendly conversation at dinner.
Sources[]
Titanic DVD Deluxe Edition - disc 3 - script