Tributes paid as Titanic star Lew Palter dies aged 94

Lew Palter as Isidor Straus in 'Titanic'

Lew Palter, who played the ancestor of OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush’s wife in James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film Titanic, has died aged 94.

The US actor portrayed retail magnate Isidor Straus in the 1997 film, famously embracing his on-screen wife Ida (Elsa Raven) on a bed in their stateroom as the water rushed onto the ship, having refused to board a lifeboat until all the women and children had been evacuated.