THE LOVE BOAT Once seen as a film that might deep-six all aboard, Titanic raises Leonardo and Kate to new height It wasn't so long ago that Leonardo DiCaprio was acting in TV commercials for Matchbox toy cars and Kate Winslet, between acting jobs, sliced ham at a London deli counter. That's ancient history now. With the spectacular success of Titanic, which recently surpassed Jurassic Park as the biggest moneymaker in movie history, the film's two young leads are now firmly on the A-list -- Hollywood's version of the first-class cabin, where only a handful of top stars are offered the best roles. Winslet, at 22, is the youngest actress ever to earn two Oscar nominations (adding Titanic to 1995's Sense and Sensibility). DiCaprio, 23, whose latest film, The Man in the Iron Mask, opens March 13, may have missed out on an Oscar nod this time around -- he was nominated for What's Eating Gilbert Grape in 1994 -- but insiders put his fee for future starring roles (he received $2.5 million for Titanic) at a stratospheric $20 million. "Kate is wise beyond her years," says pal Kenneth Branagh, who cast her as Ophelia in his 1996 screen adaptation of Hamlet. "She is enjoying her success while at the same time not taking it too seriously."

The stars reunited for the Golden Globes on Jan. 18. (picture) Critics and weeping fans alike credit the film's success to the fictional ill-fated love story of working- class Jack Dawson and beautiful debutante Rose DeWitt Bukater. But what gave that tale its heart, say DiCaprio and Winslet, was that during Titanic's grueling seven-month shoot at a custom-built studio in Rosarito, Mexico, they became very close friends (but sorry, just friends). The young stars reportedly frolicked together in a Jacuzzi -- though only to warm up between scenes shot in chilly water. And the pair, who have the same size feet and often swapped shoes, wrestled, chain-smoked and even traded sex tips. But they stopped short, Winslet insists, of taking their relationship to the next level: "Leo and I sometimes still talk about it and say, 'Oh, should we have an affair just for the hell of it?' " she recently told Movieline magazine. "But we wind up agreeing, 'No, we couldn't, because we'd laugh too much. We just wouldn't be able to take it seriously."

Not that Titanic wasn't a love boat for some of the real-life passengers 86 years ago. Traveling under the names Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, Samuel Morley, 39, a married shop owner from Worcester, England, and Kate Phillips, 19, one of his employees, briefly found a haven for their love aboard ship and pledged to start a new life together in America. But Phillips, who survived, was left, like Rose, with only memories and a diamond necklace that Morley gave her before the sea took his life. That, and a more significant gift: a daughter, born nine months later, who has always believed she was conceived during the doomed voyage.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (picture right) Another passenger, Eloise Smith, 18, of Philadelphia, lost her husband, Lucien, 24, in the tragedy but married fellow survivor Robert Daniel, 27, in 1914. A third couple, Daniel Marvin and his new wife, Mary Margaret, both 18, enjoyed the last days of their honeymoon on board. "It's all right, little girl," Marvin told his bride -- who, unknown to them, was pregnant -- as he put her aboard a lifeboat. "You go, and I'll stay a while." His body was never found. Sound familiar?

For the movie's stars, fate has been kinder. Since Titanic wrapped a year ago, Winslet has completed a new movie -- Hideous Kinky, a drama set in Morocco in the '70s. She has also mourned the death last Dec. 8 of her former boyfriend, London television writer Stephen Tredre, 34, and taken a $10,000 flight on the Concorde. But friends say Winslet still shops for her groceries near her north London flat -- albeit now behind dark glasses -- and has no intention of trading her usual sweatpants and biker boots for glamor garb, even if fans, for the first time, now recognize her on the street. "Kate is wise beyond her years," says pal Kenneth Branagh, who cast her as Ophelia in his 1996 screen adaptation of Hamlet. "She is enjoying her success while at the same time not taking it too seriously."

For her costar, of course, the attention of adoring (mostly female) fans has been unrelenting since the 1996 release of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, in which he starred as the classic heartthrob, with a gen-X twist. DiCaprio, who has been taking a break from work since filming a small part in Woody Allen's forthcoming comedy Celebrity last fall, traveled to Cuba at the end of February as part of an unofficial artists' delegation that included, besides his parents, George and Irmelin, rocker Alanis Morissette. He has made it clear that he plans to avoid for now the roles in action extravaganzas for which Hollywood's top guns command top salaries. "Leo is an independent heart, and he has integrity," says Randall Wallace, who directed DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask. "To tell you the truth, I haven't noticed a bit of change in him."

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