| “ |
Well, well. This ship is filled with nice people. |
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—Richard Ward Sturges to Isidor and Ida Straus | ||
Struges death on the ship.
Richard Ward Sturges is one of the main characters from the movie Titanic (1953). He was Julia Sturges' husband, Annette Sturges' father, and Norman Sturges' (not biological) father. He was portrayed by Clifton Webb.
Richard Sturges is a wealthy American expatriate in Europe. who buys a Third Class ticket for the Maiden Voyageof the RMS Titanic from a Basque immigrant. Once aboard he seeks out his runaway wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck). He discovers she is trying to take their two unsuspecting children, 18-year-old Annette (Audrey Dalton) and ten-year-old Norman (Harper Carter), to her hometown of Mackinac, Michigan, to raise them as down-to-earth Americans rather than rootless elitists like Richard himself.
Biography[]
Aboard Titanic[]
We first see Richard in Cherbourg when his wife, daughter and stepson are on the tender to board the ship. He goes up to a Clerk to ask for a ticket but the Clerk says that the have been sold out since March (in real life this wasn't the case of course), so he goes up to a family and bribes the father to give him his ticket, which the father does (not realising that this possibly could have saved his life). He is shown to of been friendly with many first class people including John Jacob Astor IV, when he finds out Julia Sturges cheated on him, he becomes arrogant to his son until the next scene were he and the family go on deck to assist The crew members, Gifford Rogers is injured while trying to untangle a boat where it leads to a short amount of them. He and his son meet up, Richard and Norman are last seen on deck singing near my god to thee as the final plunge occurs. He dies in the waves.