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As the clock struck midnight on August 9, 1996, theTitanicset was erupting into chaos.
They didnt know that was a mistake.
Hes a big guy, like six-four, and he says, Do you guys feel okay?
I feel like Im on something, and believe me, I would know.
He was just chattering on like that.
He said, Theres something in me!
In reality, someone spiked that soup.
Twenty-five years later, no one knows who or why.
Even a police investigation couldnt find the culprit.
So, theories persist.
Was it a caterer with their own employment grievances?
A prank gone too far?
Within an hour, the bad crew group had grown bigger.
Some were freaking out.
Others were having a ball.
Meanwhile, grips were going down the hallway doing wheelies in wheelchairs.
Nurses distributed liquid charcoal, hoping to safeguard against what they initially thought was food poisoning.
Then the most expensive movie ever made,Titanicsometimes seemed as doomed as the ship it depicted.
Cameron oncetoldThe New Yorkerthere was a sense of catastrophe around the whole production.
By the time postproduction ended, the project was $100 millionover budgetand several monthsbehind schedule.
Cameron had obsessed over period details, pouring money intoreal caviarandauthentic Edwardian carpeting.
Meals on the set were as over-the-top as everything else, Clarke recalls.
The following day, the police released a statement announcing the criminal investigation.
Two weeks later, the ordeal was a headline story inEW.
(Landau and Blake did not respond to Vultures requests for comment.)
Everyone was having trouble getting their work done.
… En masse, we went through these hospital doors at 1 a.m. in the morning.
They did not know what to do with us.
It became pretty chaotic.
Somewhere between 50 and 80 people spent some or all of that night at Dartmouth.
People are moaning and crying, wailing, collapsed on tables and gurneys, CamerontoldVanity Fairin 2009.
You cant make this stuff up.
Amid the disorder, Paxton hightailed it out of there.
I said, Jim, Im not gonna hang out here.
This is bedlam, hetold the Los AngelesTimesin 2015.
That seemed to help me.
Back on the set, the unscathed were essentially quarantined.
Clarke remembers hanging out in a Winnebago.
Around 4 a.m., Cameron and Paxton strolled in.
Their eyes were beet-red, like unbelievably, Clarke says.
As the sun went up, those whod gone to the hospital came down from their highs.
No one had died or been poisoned.
Most returned to their accommodations to sleep so they could return for the additional night shoot.
One grip grabbed his guitar and wrote a song about the whole thing.
It was just a strange experience, Roussel says.
The Canadian investigation ramped up asTitanicspent months shooting the ambitious Kate-and-Leo flashback sequences in Rosarito, Mexico.
News of the PCP debacle quickly traveled south, actor Billy Zane recalls.
(Those kids had all the fun, he jokes.)
Most of the Nova Scotia crew didnt go on to Rosarito, but at least one craft-service operator did.
At least, Thats the word I got back.
With dubious accusations flying, the sleuthing continued for two and a half years, turning up no results.
The case was officially closed in February 1999, meaning the wrongdoer(s) remain at large.
It was huger than huge, making the offscreen drama more or less worthwhile.
If nothing else, it resulted in lasting memories and humorous mementos.
He gave that out to a bunch of the local crew.
It said underneath it, Good crew, bad crew.
