Mary Strauss, who along with her late husband Leon helped restore the Fox Theatre to its former splendor, is now excited about another kind of return to an earlier era: marking the Centennial of the sinking of the Titanic.

The R.M.S. Titanic, which sank on April 15, 1912 after it struck an iceberg, killed 1,517 of the 2,222 passengers and crew on board. At the time of its launching, it was considered the most impressive and luxurious form of transportation in the world—11-stories tall and 883 feet in length (1/6 of a mile). 

Even after its destruction the Titanic has continued to captivate; it’s been the subject of fascination, immortalized in blockbuster films, a Broadway musical, and in numerous documentaries and books.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the Fox Theatre and the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission have planned a Commemorative Weekend of events, priced from $10 to $500, so that we can take a step back in time to experience the history, fashion, food and music of the elegant Edwardian Era.

The Jewish Light caught up with Strauss recently while she was putting the finishing touches on the Titanic Weekend.

What gave you the idea for this special commemoration of the Titanic disaster?

In 1998, the year after the James Cameron-directed film came out, a few people (around the country) did a “Last Dinner on the Titanic” event.  I went with some girlfriends to one of those events at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. We had a great time, and as I was sitting there, I thought, “This is really nice, and it would be fabulous on the Fox  stage.”

At the “Last Dinner” event at the Fox, there will be stories re-told in the words of some of the Titanic’s most notable passengers, including John Jacob Astor, the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown and prominent Jewish passengers, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor and Ida Straus. Could you share a few key facts about Guggenheim and the Strauses?

Benjamin Guggenheim was Peggy Guggenheim’s father (she was a major collector of modern art and a mentor to Jackson Pollock. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is named after Benjamin’s older brother). Benjamin Guggenheim had a house in Europe and spent a great deal of time there. He had left his wife (Florette Seligman Guggenheim), and was returning to the United States with his mistress, the French singer Leontine Pauline ‘Ninette’ Aubert.  She was a Parisian chanteuse. That kind of activity was relatively common, especially in Europe in those days.  Another interesting Jewish passenger was Henry Harris, who was a Broadway producer and on board with his wife, Renee. He was an early Broadway theater impresario and also owned and managed the Hudson and Fulton Theatres in New York.   He also managed the Folies Bergere Theatre in New York, with his partner Jesse Lasky, where Mae West made her debut in 1911. Henry went down with the ship, but Renee Harris survived, and she became the first woman big time Broadway producer.

Any other Jewish passengers of note?

Yes, we also had Edith Louise Rosenbaum, a writer for Women’s Wear Daily, using the pen name of Edith Russell.  She was returning from Paris, where she had been reporting on the latest French fashions.  In a letter to her secretary, which she posted from Queenstown, she wrote that she did not like the Titanic because it was “too stiff and formal” and that she would be happy when the trip was over.  She, like many of the women passengers did survive, during World War I became the first female war correspondent and spent time in the trenches with the troops.

Tell us about Isidor Straus.

He was a co-founder of Macy’s and he was really devoted to social services. He was a huge philanthropist who helped all the Jewish causes in New York.  He served in Congress, and was a big New York Democrat. His memorial service was at Carnegie Hall and 6,000 people attended.  He was a close personal friend of President Grover Cleveland, and worked on Cleveland’s re-election campaign in 1896.  He declined the Cabinet position of Postmaster General, stating that he was seeking “neither glory nor office.”  He was elected to the U.S. Congress in the 15th District of New York in 1892 in a hotly contested campaign, and served until 1895. He also declined to run for mayor of New York City.  The New York Tribune in 1912 described Straus as one of New York’s leading philanthropists.  He was a founder of the national American Jewish Committee.  He also helped make possible the publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia.  So he was heavily, I mean really involved in the Jewish community.

What other Jewish connections have you discovered in your research?

There was a kosher chef because there were a lot of Jewish people on board.  There has been research to compile lists of passengers with Jewish-sounding names, and there were a lot of them.

Why do you think that after 100 years the Titanic story holds such a fascination for Americans?

The Titanic story tells us about a huge disaster that affected the whole world. It was the beginning of the 20th century.  This was an era of optimism and progress.  All the new technologies were the wonders of the world—the automobile, the airplane, the skyscraper, the cinema, the telegraph…all of this had just been invented. People were believing they could conquer nature and do anything. So here was this huge ship, with the latest technology, and then boom it goes down.  Supposedly they had anticipated every problem and in shipping magazines, it had been called “unsinkable.” The other reason for its continued fascination was the accumulation of wealth and privilege on that single ship. It would be like today if Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet, Brad Pitt and Vera Wang all went down in an airplane. It was also the beginning of the end of the Edwardian era and a few years later came World War I.  It was the end of that optimism and the faith in technology that we can do whatever and that we are infallible. It has a lot to do with 1912 and where the world was and what people thought at that time.

Among the different books,  films and plays about the Titanic, do you have any favorites?

 I was not overly impressed with the Broadway play “Titanic.”  James Cameron’s movie “Titanic” was big, expansive and impressive in full color, but I really think the 1958 film based on the Walter Lord book “A Night to Remember,” is the best film about the Titanic and the most accurate.

What do you hope people who attend the Centennial commemoration take away from the experience?

I hope that first of all, people will take a minute and stop and think about the people who did lose their lives—to remember them and also to feel that they were part of living history.  (I also hope they feel as if) they just went back in time and could be there for the dinner, for the movie—that they could get out of their own world—and go back and feel something new.