| Buick Riviera First Class Passenger | |
|---|---|
| |
| Biographical information | |
| Born | Before 1882 |
| Died | 15 April, 1912 |
| Physical information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Aboard the Titanic | |
| Class | First Class |
- "Riviera? The Frenchman? You're joking. Man should be pitched overboard! The crew's scared to death of him — say he can predict the future. An asset if you're a professional gambler! And Riviera's one of the best! Worked the North Atlantic run for years. Cardsharps usually use an alias. But not him! He's got the devil's luck!"
- —Third Officer Morrow.
Buick Riviera (d. 15 April, 1912) is a middle-aged French bon vivant from somewhere in the French Riviera. He is a Blackjack aficionado who apparently spent a lot of time at Monte Carlo Casino before he boarded the RMS Titanic for America.
In 1882, Riviera lived in the Cactus Bed Hotel, in Diamondback, New Mexico Territory. He struggled to pay his hotel tabs, as his father, the Duke, died during the Franco-Prussian War, leaving him penniless. He used to spend the nights in the local saloon, the Hard Drive Saloon.[1]
At some point, however, Riviera made his fortune by cardsharping aboard the ocean liners crossing the Atlantic. By April of 1912, he boarded the RMS Titanic holding a First Class ticket, but maintaining his love of games of luck. Upon meeting Frank Carlson, Buick asks him if they have already met at the casino in Diamondback, New Mexico. Buick talks fondly of his time there.
Buick Riviera in Diamondback, 1882.
He spends all the evening of 14 April, 1912 playing cards in the Smoking Room. Even when the other passengers are panicking, Buick calmly says "the games are still open", and offers to play Carlson for a tarot card that can somehow be used as a lifeboat pass. It could be surmised that Buick allowed himself to go down with the ship as he wanted to die doing what he loved.
Behind the scenes[]
- As in Dust, Buick Riviera is voiced by Scott Scheinbaum, who was CyberFlix's co-founder and sound director, and his appearance portrayed by the company’s marketing director Rand Cabus.
- A younger Buick Riviera appears as a character in an earlier CyberFlix game Dust: A Tale of the Wired West, set in 1882, thirty years before Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. Riviera's mention of Diamondback and the Hard Drive Saloon are further references to that game, as those are the locations in which it is set.