Isabella Paradine played by Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Titanic" (1996)
Isabella Paradine is one of the main characters of the CBS period drama miniseries Titanic.
Isabella Paradine is a high class woman from New York, extremely educated and demure.
During her youth she had a passionate romance with Wynn Park. She fell deeply in love with him and so he did. But Isabella's parents, the Paradines, didn't consider Wynn a good suitor for her to be married, since he didn't have the social position and the wealth the Paradines had.
So the Paradines found a good suitor for Isabella to marry. And Isabella, to fulfill the wishes of her parents and the society, put her heart behind her education and got married to the suitor her parents arranged for her.
When she is ready to get on board the Titanic, Isabella encounters her former lover, Wynn
That broke Wynn's heart and they both broke up and never saw each other again. However, Isabella hid a secret from Wynn: the daughter she had with her husband is, in fact, Wynn's.
After many years, Isabella goes to the funeral of her aunt who lives in England. To return to New York, she plans to get on board the Titanic.
But just when she is about to get on board, she encounters Wynn, her former lover. Wynn is still in love with her, and so is Isabella but she tries to hide this from Wynn and to herself.
For this, she tries to avoid Wynn since the beginning of the trip, and she even tries to change her room to be far away from Wynn's.
At a dinner in the restaurant of the Titanic, Wynn flirts with Lulu Foley and he dances with her. That makes Isabella jealous but she hides it from her companions at the dinner. But after the dance at the restaurant, Isabella confronts Wynn privately. Wynn says to her he had been jealous all the time because Isabella is now married to another man, a wealthy gentleman her parents wanted for her. Isabella says to him she married her husband because her parents wanted her to, but her parents are now dead. She says to him that she still loves Wynn.
After the incident, Wynn starts to romance Isabella during the trip and she finally allows herself to restart again their romance.
After a brief romance with Wynn at the Titanic, Isabella is deeply in love with Wynn again and she contemplates divorce. She decides to send her husband a wireless saying they cannot be together anymore (despite their daughter).
Isabella is rescued by the Carpathia
When the ship starts sinking, Isabella reluctantly gets into a lifeboat (since she doesn't want to leave Wynn alone) after Wynn convinces her and forces her to board the boat. As the boat is lowered, Isabella confesses to Wynn her long kept secret: that her daughter Claire is actually Wynn's.
Isabella then is on the boat of Officer Lowe with some other women. Isabella asks the officer if they can go near the Titanic to rescue some survivors there are on the water, since in the lifeboat can be more people. The officer wants to wait some time, but after a while the lifeboat comes to the rescue of the survivors. Unfortunately, they have waited too long and there are not any survivors in the water, only dead corpses.
Later the boat is rescued by the RMS Carpathia.
On the Carpathia, Isabella is grief-stricken when she finds Wynn's lifeless body on deck amongst other victims who have died of hypothermia.
But luckily, when the Carpathia reaches New York she is reunited with her family who are blissfully unaware of Isabella's tryst because the telegram was never sent out due to the sinking.
Personality:
Catherine Zeta-Jones portrays Isabella Paradine as a shy and demure high class women but, despite her shyness and demure, Isabella is an extremelly kind and good person with a big heart.
She shows herself extremely supportive during the evacuation and the tragedy of theTtitanic, even in the worst moments of the evacuation.
Isabella reencounters her daugther Claire in New York
She's also really comprehensive with the feelings of others and, deeply and hidden, she gives more importance to human feelings then that to the standards set by the high society.
She loves her daugther Claire dearly (and she also loves her husband).
But Isabella has a deep hidden passion for her romantic love for Wynn. That love comes to the surface again during the trip of the Titanic. Her encounter with Wynn makes her also to awake her rebellion against the rules of high society. She doesn't mind to live her love for Wynn during the trip, even if it's not well seen by the society she's moving in.
