A Titanic honour

While the blockbuster sent Leonardo DiCaprio's and Kate Winslet's status soaring it also re-ignited a worldwide fascination with the ill-fated liner, which sailed from Southampton on April 10, 1912.

Now the man behind one of the biggest movie moneymakers in cinematic history is set to be honoured in the city from where the ocean liner sailed.

Hollywood director James Cameron, whose 1997 blockbuster won 11 Oscars, including best director and best film, is to receive an honorary degree from the University of Southampton.

He is being given the accolade later this month for his "outstanding contribution" to marine science and maritime archaeology as part of his film-making.

Canadian Mr Cameron, 49, featured real footage of the ill-fated liner on the Atlantic seabed in the 1997 box-office smash hit.

Since then he has directed a three-dimensional film called Ghosts of the Abyss, which included previously unseen footage of Titanic's wreckage. He said: "I am deeply gratified to be receiving an honorary degree from the university that is so distinguished in research of ocean sciences, and I look forward to attending the ceremony next week."

The multi-millionaire movie maker will fly in for next Tuesday's ceremony at the Turner Sims concert hall at Southampton University.

Known also for his films Aliens and Terminator, Mr Cameron is a larger than life and sometimes controversial figure in the American film industry.

A university spokesman said: "In awarding its honorary degrees, the University of Southampton takes the opportunity to recognise personal distinction in public services, particularly by individuals who have a connection with the University, Southampton or the region."

But the award has received a cooler reaction in certain quarters.

Millvina Dean, one of three remaining survivors of the Titanic, was "amazed" at the university's actions.

"As far as I am concerned everyone is out to make money from Titanic," she said.

Millvina, 92, from Woodlands near Ashurst, refused to see the film because she said it would cause her too much anguish.

She was just two months old at the time of the tragedy on Titanic's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Her father Bertram was one of the 549 men, women and children from Southampton who perished among the total 1,503 death toll when the liner hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland.

Cameron's film hit controversy over its portrayal of the ship's Chief Officer William Murdoch as a murderer and bribe taker, which proved expensive after family and friends objected saying he was, in fact, a hero.

Film distributors Twentieth Century Fox were forced to give $8,000 to a fund commemorating him after the film showed the first mate killing two passengers trying to get on a lifeboat, before killing himself. Representatives of the company stopped short of making an apology however.

Others receiving honorary degrees

ALSO receiving honorary degrees are two Southampton professors: one who helped design Concorde and the other a leading expert in heart disease.

As a member of the Supersonic Transport Committee in 1955, Professor Geoffrey Lilley was involved in shaping supersonic flight.

Professor Sir Charles George is a member of the

government's task force for coronary heart disease, a

former medical director of the British Heart Foundation and president-elect of the British Medical Association.

Honorary degrees will also be awarded to Sir Graeme Catto, the president of the General Medical Council, and Dr Rita Gardner who is the director and secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.

Santina Levey, a trustee of the Textile Conservation Centre Foundation at Southampton University; David Moorhouse, vice chairman of the UK's Foundation for Science and Technology; Professor Steve Smith, the vice-chancellor of Exeter University and Professor John Woods, a professor in oceanography, will also each receive an honorary degree.