“It’s never too early to start taking swim lessons.” That’s the moral that audiences can learn from Jack and Rose in Titanic. Also, “Some people just never get over their high school exes.”

Consider Rose DeWitt Bukater, as portrayed by Kate Winslet in the blockbuster motion picture. We can easily ascertain that the more buoyant of the film’s protagonists was a scant 17 years of age during the events of the movie – the researchers say as much when they’re calling her a liar in the setup for the story. Old Lady Rose, played by the late Gloria Stuart, was just shy of 101 years old in 1996, putting her date of birth somewhere in 1895, and making her just shy of old enough to gamble when her sweet ride sank to the depths in 1912. Meanwhile, Winslet shot the part when she was 21 and 22 years old. 

Then there’s Jack Dawson, the hoodlum and nogoodnik who helped stink up a perfectly nice stranger’s car in the bowels of the RMS Titanic’s cargo hold. Jack’s age is less specific. The film’s script lists Jack as “about 20,” and that’s the last official word on the subject. Jack never states outright when he was born, but even if he had, he’s not the kind of guy that you can trust with dates and times.

He specifically states that he ice fished with his father on Lake Wissota, a reservoir created during the construction of the Wissota Hydroelectric Dam, which didn’t exist until five years after the Titanic sank. That either makes him a liar, or a time traveler who singled out the doomed ship as a great place to meet women who he’d never have to call again. Either way, he got what he deserved.

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