Jack Dawson (1892 — 15 April 1912) is the fictional hero of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic. He was played by American actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

According to the script, Jack Dawson was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1892. When he was 15, his parents died and he started to travel the world by himself. His travels took him to many places, like Los Angeles and Paris. He was an artist who drew sketches for money; one of his favorite models was a one-legged French prostitute whom he drew nude. For unknown reasons, on April 10, 1912, he and his friend Fabrizio De Rossi were in Southampton, England. It just so happened that the RMS Titanic was leaving that morning on a transatlantic journey, from there to New York City. He and Fabrizio won two tickets in a poker game, and they managed to get on shortly before the Titanic left. It was on this tremendous ship that he met the wealthy beauty Rose DeWitt Bukater, who was engaged to Caledon Hockley, an arrogant steel magnate. Rose and Jack fell in love after Jack stopped Rose from committing suicide. In return for saving his fiancee, Jack was invited to dinner in the first class dining saloon by Caledon; Margaret Brown (aka the Unsinkable Molly Brown), a companion at Rose's table, loaned Jack her son's evening clothes for the event. After dinner, Rose and Jack slipped away to the third-class general room where an Irish band was playing for the night. After having been introduced to Jack's world, it was implied that she liked being in his better than she did being in hers.

The next morning, however, after attempting to visit her during Sunday services, Jack was forbidden to see Rose or return to the first-class section of the ship. However, he managed to steal the overcoat and hat of real-life passenger Arthur Ryerson in order to pass as a first-class passenger and confront Rose. Though she refused to have anything to do with him anymore out of obligation to her mother and Caledon, she later reunited with him on the prow of the ship. Rose took Jack back to her stateroom, presented him with the Heart of the Ocean diamond pendant that Caledon had given her as a present, and asked him to draw her wearing the diamond — and nothing else. Jack did so, and Rose put the finished portrait in the stateroom's safe. As they left, they encountered Hockley's bodyguard, Spicer Lovejoy, and fled down to the boiler room to evade him. As they were chased through the bowels of the ship by stokers and other crew members, they eventually found their way to a cargo hold where a Renault car was being stowed. They spontaneously consummated their relationship in the backseat and fled up to the forecastle of the ship after they heard two porters approaching.

Soon afterward, the Titanic hit a large iceberg in the North Atlantic, and the ship began to sink. Rose and Jack witnessed the collision and ran back to Rose's stateroom to warn her family. As they met Hockley and Lovejoy, Hockley framed Jack for the "theft" of the Heart of the Ocean by secretly putting it in Jack's pilfered coat, and he was taken away to the ship's brig on E Deck by Lovejoy. Meanwhile, the ship was sinking fast; Lovejoy eventually handcuffed Jack to a pipe and left him to drown as the brig started to flood. However, Rose refused to believe that Jack was guilty of stealing the diamond and managed to free him from the brig just as it began to overflow. After overcoming several locked gates and other obstacles in an attempt to get to the Boat Deck, Jack and Rose reunited with Hockley. Dawson and Hockley tried to get Rose to leave the ship aboard a lifeboat, but Rose jumped back on board and reunited with Jack. They were once again chased into the bowels of the ship by an enraged Hockley wielding Lovejoy's customized Colt 1911 .45, but managed to get topside once again.

After the ship sank, Rose and Jack clung onto a piece of driftwood for many hours; there was only enough room on the wood for Rose, so Jack kept most of his body immersed in the freezing cold water. Unable to keep warm, he died of hypothermia, and his body sank into the ocean.

Jack Dawson vs J. Dawson

The gravestone carrying number 227 at Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia bears the date of the sinking and the inscription of a name: "J. Dawson." Since the film came out in 1997, this grave has frequently been mistaken for the grave of Jack Dawson, Leonardo DiCaprio's character who never existed. James Cameron, the film's director, claimed he didn't know there was a "J. Dawson" on board when he named the character. The "J." stands in fact for "Joseph", who was a crewmember on the Titanic's maiden voyage. Nevetheless, the grave has since then been visited by thousands of fans, leaving flowers, candles, cards, pictures and even hotel keys.